Child actress Sybil Jason dies at 83

"Sign Her. Jack Warner." With that cable from the Warner Bros. movie mogul to his London office, South African-born child actress Sybil Jason launched a career as his studio's answer to the dominant American moppet of the 1930s, Shirley Temple.

Jason, who died Tuesday in Northridge, Calif., at 83, was a button-nosed, bright-eyed scene stealer who developed a following on the British vaudeville circuit with her comic impressions of Greta Garbo and Maurice Chevalier before drawing Warner's interest in 1935.

At the time, Warner Bros. hoped to tap into the gold mine Temple had created at Twentieth Century Fox studios. Depression-era movie audiences were forking over money to see Temple's triple-threat of dimpled adorableness: she sang, she danced, and she could break your heart as a plucky orphan. Jason became one of the first major child stars at Warner Bros., a studio that had long specialized in gangster dramas and had scant practice developing young actors. The studio cast Jason in films whose plots bore suspicious resemblance to Temple's movies.

Jason crooned with Al Jolson in "The Singing Kid" (1936), summoned a tsunami of tears in "Little Big Shot" (1935) with Robert Armstrong and befriended a spinner of tall tales in "The Captain's Kid" (1936) with Guy Kibbee.

Ultimately, Jason could not dent Temple's popularity. There was speculation ticket buyers could not penetrate her South African accent, but the quality of her film work was undoubtedly a major factor.

When Warner Bros. let her go, Jason signed with Twentieth Century Fox and supported Temple in two Technicolor productions, "The Little Princess" (1939) and "The Blue Bird" (1940).

Sybil Jacobson was born Nov. 23, 1927, in Cape Town, South Africa. She showed early aptitude for singing, dancing and impressions.

Jason was on a publicity tour in South Africa for Twentieth Century Fox when the United States entered World War II. She remained in her native country for years, hosting a radio program and entertaining Allied troops.