At the age of 101, actress Janis Paige passed away.
The Golden Age actress passed away on Sunday at her Los Angeles home from natural causes, according to longtime friend Stuart Lampert on Monday.
In the Broadway mystery-comedy “Remains to be Seen,” Paige played alongside Jackie Cooper. In the wildly popular musical “The Pajama Game,” she also portrayed Josie.
She also contributed to the comedy “Follow the Boys,” “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies,” and “Bachelor in Paradise,” costarring Bob Hope.
When she joined the #MeToo movement in 2018, she revealed that she had been raped when she was 22 by the late Alfred Bloomingdale, the heir to a department store.
His hands seemed to be all over my body, not only on my breasts. I started to kick, bite, scream, and fight him since he was large and strong, she stated.
“At ninety-five, stillness and time do not favor me. I just want to say, “Me too,” and add my name.
Paige’s major break came when she performed an opera aria for the troops at the Hollywood Canteen during the war.
She was recruited by MGM for a tiny role in “Bathing Beauty” one day later. After filming two lines with Red Skelton and Esther Williams, they dismissed her.
Later on same day, she was signed by Warner Bros., who used her in a tragic role in the star-studded film “Hollywood Canteen.”
Her initial week of employment paid $150.
In 2018, she said to The Hollywood Reporter that during the Great Depression, her mother made less money in a month than she did in a week.
Light films like “Two Guys from Milwaukee,” “The Time, the Place, and the Girl,” “Love and Learn,” “Always Together,” “Wallflower,” and “Romance on the High Seas,” which was her first film appearance, kept her occupied at the studio.
She had taken her grandfather’s name, Paige, instead of Donna May Tjaden.
She got her name after the well-known entertainer Elsie Janis.
TV was growing so successful that companies were getting rid of stars when Paige’s contract expired in 1949.
She commented, “That was a shock,” in 1963. I was basically washed up at 25.
She performed as the lead in Remains to Be Seen on Broadway, showcasing her talents. Raitt played Sid and she played Babe in George Abbott’s original production of The Pajama Game, which debuted in 1954.
After watching her perform at a nightclub at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Arthur Freed, an MGM producer, approached her about a role in “Silk Stockings,” which starred Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse.
She and Astaire parody modern cinematic gimmicks, such as swinging from a chandelier, in the well-known Cole Porter song “Stereophonic Sound.”
“My body was a lump of bruises. I was unsure of how to fall. I was never a traditional dancer, so I didn’t know how to drop down on a table or how to rescue myself,” she told the Miami Herald in 2016.
In May 2003, Paige resumed her performing career after a protracted hiatus.
She launched a performance at Plush Room in San Francisco, which she dubbed “The Third Act.”
She played songs from her stage shows and movies and spoke about performers like Frank Sinatra and Fred Astaire.
The Alameda Times-Star’s Chad Jones described 80-year-old performer Paige as “charming, showing a vitality, verve, and spirit that performers half her age would envy.”
In Tacoma, Washington, Paige was born and reared. Her mother almost made it at the Bank of Tacoma, and her father abandoned the family when she was four years old.
In 1963, Paige stated to the Post, “We always had enough to eat, but nothing to spare.” My mom put in a lot of work. She would also frequently express her wish that I had been born a male so that I might be of greater assistance. I’ve always wanted to make up for my father by becoming successful for her.
After leaving Warner Bros., she began her career on television. From 1955 to 1956, she starred in the major parts of the television series “It’s Always Jan.” She also had recurrent appearances in the shows “Flamingo Road,” “Santa Barbara,” “Eight Is Enough,” “Capitol,” “Fantasy Island,” and “Trapper Jon, M.D.”
She portrayed a waitress at a diner on “All in the Family,” who develops feelings for Carroll OConnor’s character Archie Bunker.
In the 1968 New York Broadway staging of “Mame,” Paige replaced Angela Lansbury. She toured with the act in 1969.
She traveled with “Gypsy,” “Annie Get Your Gun,” and “Born Yesterday” in addition to “The Desk Set.” “Alone Together” was her final Broadway production in 1984.
When Hope traveled to Japan and South Korea in 1962, Vietnam in 1964, and Cuba and the Caribbean for Christmas in 1960, she also served as a model for those trips.
She performed on stage with artists Samantha Davis Jr., Alan King, Dinah Shore, and Perry Como.
For a brief while, Paige was wed to writer and producer Arthur Stander as well as San Francisco restaurant entrepreneur Frank Martinelli.
She oversaw Ray Gilbert’s music business throughout their 1962 marriage, which ended with his death in 1976. For the song “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Da” from Disney’s “Song of the South,” Gilbert was awarded an Oscar.