[7] Both in Atlanta and in Hollywood, the family would invite "six busloads of orphan children" to come to their home after church and Sunday school for lunch and afternoon entertainment.

[9] Jane launched her entertainment career at the age of three[4] after winning a local amateur contest called Dixie's Dainty Dewdrop.

[10] She was cast on Aunt Sally's Kiddie Revue, a Saturday-morning children's program broadcast on WGST radio in Atlanta, in which she sang, danced, and did impersonations of film stars such as W. C. Fields, ZaSu Pitts, Maurice Chevalier, Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, and Greta Garbo.

[17] Withers's big break came two years after she started working as an extra,[18] when she landed a supporting role in the Shirley Temple film Bright Eyes (also 1934), also directed by Butler.

[1][23][24] After Withers signed her contract with Fox, her mother invested $10,000 into developing additional skills to improve her versatility as an actress, with the intention of spending $20,000 over an eight-year period.

[26] She received two baskets of flowers on the set that day—one from Fields, to whom she had written about her casting in Bright Eyes, and one from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had seen her impersonate him on a newsreel.

Her day of filming in The Farmer Takes a Wife coincided with Henry Fonda's screen debut, and noticing his nervousness, she encouraged him and offered a prayer for his success.

[29] In 1937, she performed in comedies, dramas, and a Western with lead roles in The Holy Terror, Angel's Holiday, Wild and Woolly, Can This Be Dixie?, 45 Fathers, and Checkers.

[1] As payment for the script, Withers requested that the studio provide fifteen $1,500 scholarships for children to study music and acting, and two upright pianos, for her Sunday school groups.

[47] In contrast to Temple's cute and charming characters, Withers was usually cast as a mischievous little girl or "a tomboy rascal", leading to her being described as "America's favorite problem child".

[49] As a child, Withers's "stocky and sturdy" build and straight black hair also contrasted with Temple's "pudgy but delicate" figure and blonde ringlets.

[21] But while Temple was cared for by father figures, Withers was usually under the protection of uncles, both real and imaginary; according to Pamela Wojcik, author of Fantasies of Neglect: Imagining the Urban Child in American Film and Fiction, this introduced the narrative of queerness through alternative family structures.

According to Farley Granger, Withers was "cast as the obnoxious, smart-aleck teen as opposed to Deanna Durbin's or Judy Garland's plucky and adorable adolescent".

In a 1942 newspaper article, Ruth described how she and her husband encouraged Jane to develop a generous personality and avoid the egotism and self-centeredness that a child star might accrue as the object of adoring fans and studio "sycophants".

[54] Her earnings from film roles were invested in trust funds and annuities; Withers had to use her allowance money to buy things she wanted for herself, which often meant saving up for weeks.

[53] To ease the pressured life of a child star, Withers' parents made sure she also had fun, but kept her activities supervised and close to home.

[52] When she became a teenager, her parents built a second-floor addition that included a beauty salon and soda fountain where Withers could entertain her friends.

[53][59] As a child, she also accumulated a menagerie of two horses, three kittens, "eight turtles, three baby alligators, 24 white Leghorn chickens, 12 turkeys, 2 Chinese hens", a rooster, six bantams, two ducks, seven frogs, and six dogs.

[60][61] Withers's "sweet sixteen" party in 1942, with 150 invited guests and a hayride and barn dance on the program,[62] was filmed by Paramount Pictures for the Hedda Hopper's Hollywood series.

[64] Her twenty-first birthday party was planned for a nightclub with 200 guests, but after she came down with the flu, Withers instead served cake and ice cream and watched movies in her personal suite at home with 12 close friends.

[66][67] During Withers' first 15 years in film, Ruth "handled all negotiations with producers, supervised publicity, [and] completely managed Jane's off-screen life".

[1] A month after Jane's twenty-first birthday, her mother Ruth appeared in a California Superior Court and listed her daughter's assets as $40,401.85 (equivalent to $550,000 in 2023).

[85] The same month, her parents turned over to her the deed to their home, valued at $250,000 (equivalent to $3,400,000 in 2023), and other real estate worth $75,000, plus annuities totaling $10,000, all purchased from Withers's earnings.

[88][89] In 1955, a year after her divorce, Withers returned to Los Angeles and enrolled in the University of Southern California film school with the intention of becoming a director.

[1] She appeared in television episodes of Pete and Gladys;[91] General Electric Theater;[92] The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; The Love Boat; and Murder, She Wrote.

"[94] Before retiring, Withers filmed two installments of the commercial introducing a young girl who had learned everything she knew about plumbing from "my aunt Josephine".

Withers sang the Jule Styne-Sammy Cahn torch song "Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out to Dry" written for the play; this was soon after covered by Frank Sinatra and Kate Smith and became a jazz and pop standard.

[107][108] In the 1980s, Withers announced plans to build a $1 million museum in Burbank, California, to display her collection, then stored in a 27,000 sq ft (2,500 m2) warehouse.

[106] She involved President Roosevelt in this initiative, requesting from him the loan of a train on which she had the dolls arranged in museum-like displays to be seen by children across the country.

[118] Suffering from emotional strain over the impending divorce, Withers was hospitalized for five months in 1953 with severe rheumatoid arthritis and developed complete paralysis.