Janis Paige

Janis Paige was an American actress and singer. With a career spanning nearly 60 years, she was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Born in Tacoma, Washington, Paige began singing in local amateur shows at the age of five. After high school, she moved to Los Angeles, where she became a singer at the Hollywood Canteen during World War II, as well as posing as a pin-up model.
This led to a film contract with Warner Bros., although she later left the studio to pursue live theatre work, appearing in a number of Broadway shows. She continued to alternate between film and theatre work for much of her career. Beginning in the mid-1950s, she also made numerous television appearances, as well as starring in her own sitcom It's Always Jan.

Early life

Paige was born Donna Mae Tjaden in Tacoma, Washington, the elder child of Hazel Leah and George S. Tjaden on September 16, 1922, primarily of Norwegian, German, English, and Cornish descent. She had a younger sister named Betty Jane, who was known by her married name of Betty Jane Finney.
Paige began singing in public at age five in local amateur shows. She moved, with her mother and sister, to Los Angeles after graduating from high school, and she was hired as a singer at the Hollywood Canteen during World War II. Courtesy of MGM, she helped entertain the troops in February 1944 at Camp Roberts, California, starring in Rio Rita along with Ann Ayars. During the war, United States Army Air Forces pilots flying the P-61 Black Widow chose her as their "Black Widow Girl". In appreciation, she posed as a pin-up model, dressed in an appropriate costume.

Film roles

The Hollywood Canteen was a studio-sponsored club for members of the military. A Warner Bros. agent saw her there, saw her potential and signed her to a contract. She began co-starring in low-budget musicals, often paired with Dennis Morgan or Jack Carson. She co-starred in Romance on the High Seas, the film in which Doris Day made her movie debut. Paige later co-starred in adventures and dramas, in which she felt out of place. Following her role in Two Gals and a Guy, she decided to leave Hollywood.

Broadway

Paige appeared on Broadway, and she was a huge hit in a 1951 comedy-mystery play Remains to Be Seen. She also toured successfully as a cabaret singer. In April 1947, she was crowned "Miss Damsite" and participated at the ground-breaking ceremony for the McNary Dam, on the Columbia River, alongside Oregon Governor Earl Snell and Mrs. Cornelia Morton McNary.
Stardom came in 1954 with her role as Babe in the Broadway musical The Pajama Game. She was on the December 1954 cover of Esquire, where she was featured in a seductive pose taken by American photographer Maxwell Frederic Coplan. For the screen version, the studio wanted one major movie star to guarantee the film's success, so John Raitt's role of Sid was offered to Frank Sinatra, who would have been paired with Paige. When Sinatra declined, the producers offered Paige's role of Babe to Doris Day, who accepted and was paired with Raitt.

Return to film

After six years away, Paige returned to Hollywood in Silk Stockings, which starred Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, the Doris Day/David Niven comedy Please Don't Eat the Daisies, and as a love-starved married neighbor in Bachelor in Paradise with Bob Hope. A rare dramatic role was as Marion, an institutionalized prostitute, in The Caretakers.

Musical theater

Paige returned to Broadway in 1963 in the short-lived Here's Love. In 1968, when after nearly two years Angela Lansbury left the Broadway production of the musical Mame to take the show on a limited U.S. tour, Paige was the star chosen to be the first Broadway replacement, and she admired the character, saying, "She's a free soul. She can be down, but never out. She's unbigoted. She says what she thinks with a kind of marvelous honesty, which is the only way to say anything."
Paige appeared in touring productions of musicals such as Annie Get Your Gun, Applause, Sweet Charity, Ballroom, Gypsy: A Musical Fable, and Guys and Dolls. In 1984, she was back on Broadway with Kevin McCarthy in a nonmusical play, Alone Together. The tryout tour gave Paige her first experience of the eastern summer-stock circuit, where she said audiences "laughed so hard you just had to wait", and she enjoyed the role so much, she played it again in 1988 at the Coconut Grove Playhouse, this time with Robert Reed.

Television host and roles

During the 1955–1956 television season, Paige starred in her own sitcom It's Always Jan as Janis Stewart, a widowed mother.
Paige made her live dramatic TV debut June 27, 1957, in "The Latch Key" on Lux Video Theatre. She appeared as troubadour Hallie Martin in The Fugitive episode "Ballad for a Ghost". She also had a recurring role as Auntie V, Tom Bradford's sister, in Eight Is Enough.
Paige appeared as a waitress named Denise in both the seventh and ninth seasons of All in the Family. In her first appearance, she has a flirtation with Archie Bunker that threatens to become serious.
Paige appeared on episodes of 87th Precinct; Trapper John, M.D.; Columbo; Night Court; and Caroline in the City; and in the 1975 television movie John O'Hara's Gibbsville. In 1982, she appeared on St. Elsewhere as a female flasher who stalked the hallways of the hospital to "cheer up" the male patients. She also appeared on a season 11 episode of Happy Days, as a roadside diner waitress named Angela who may or may not be Fonzie's long lost mother; Fonzie has a heartfelt talk with Angela, and it is left up to the viewer to determine if she is his mother or not – though the emotions exhibited by her character throughout the scene indicate that she is, but does not want to be found out. In the 1980s and 1990s, she was seen on several soap operas, including Capitol, General Hospital, and Santa Barbara.

Honors

Paige was given a star in the Motion Picture section of the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6624 Hollywood Boulevard on February 9, 1960.

Personal life and death

Paige was married three times. She married Frank Louis Martinelli Jr., a restaurateur, in 1947; they divorced in 1951. She married Arthur Stander, a television writer and creator of It's Always Jan, in 1956 and divorced him the next year. Paige married composer and music publisher Ray Gilbert in 1962. They remained married until his death on March 3, 1976. She had no children.
Paige was a Republican who supported the campaign of Dwight D. Eisenhower during the 1952 presidential election.
In 2001, Paige found that her voice was cracking with nearly irreparable vocal-cord damage. She went to a singing teacher a friend recommended. Paige's voice ended up worse with her not being able to talk at all. "He literally took my voice away," she said. "I lost all my top voice. I couldn't hold a pitch for a second. Finally, I couldn't make a sound. He said that this will all come back. It didn't." Another singing teacher told her to go to the voice clinic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. "There were bits of skin hanging off my vocal cords", she said. "They told me to go home and not talk for three months." She finally was introduced by a doctor to another voice teacher, Bruce Eckstut, who helped her regain her speaking voice and singing voice.
In 2017, at age 95, Paige wrote a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter in which she stated that Alfred S. Bloomingdale had attempted to rape her when she was 22 years old. She alleges that she was sexually assaulted after being lured into Bloomingdale's apartment under false pretenses.
Paige turned 100 on September 16, 2022, and died at her Los Angeles home on June 2, 2024, at the age of 101.

Filmography

Film

Documentary/short subjects

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1949–1950	Bonnie Maid's Versatile Varieties	herself
1953	Plymouth Playhouse	guest	episode: "Baby and Me"
1954	Philip Morris Playhouse	guest	episode: "Make Me Happy, Make Me Sad"
1955–1956	It's Always Jan	Jan Stewart	26 episodes
1957	Lux Video Theatre	Iris	episode: "The Latch Key"
1957	Studio 57	guest	Episode: "One of the Family"
1958	Schlitz Playhouse	Bebe Evans	episode: "Home Again"
1958	Shower of Stars	herself	episode: "Episode #4.7"
1958	Roberta	Scharwenka	TV film directed by Ed Greenberg and Dick McDonough
1959	The Red Skelton Show	School Teacher	episode: "Bashful Clem"
1959	Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse	The Redhead	episode: "Chez Rouge"
1959	Andy Williams Show	herself	July 7, 1959, episode
1960	The Secret World of Eddie Hodges	Circus Star	TV film and musical directed by Norman Jewison
1960	Maisie	Maisie Ravier	Usold television pilot directed by Edward Ludwig and based on Wilson Collison's novel Dark Dame, aired on the anthology series New Comedy Showcase.
1960	Hooray for Love	leading actress	TV film and musical directed by Burt Shevelove
1960	The Ann Sothern Show	Edith	episode: "The Girls"
1961	Wagon Train	Nellie Jefferson	episode: "The Nellie Jefferson Story"
1961	The Dinah Shore Chevy Show	Kathy Hewitt	episode: "Happiest Day"
1962	87th Precinct	Cheryl Anderson	episode: "Girl in the Case"
1962	Alcoa Premiere	Connie Rankin	episode: "Blues for a Hanging"
1962	The Red Skelton Show	Mrs. Cavendish	episode: "Ten Baby Fingers and 12 Baby Toes"
1963	The Dick Powell Theater	Lavern	episode: "Last of the Private Eyes"
1964	Burke's Law	Sharon McCauley	episode: "Who Killed the Swinger on a Hook?"
1964	The Fugitive	Hallie Martin	episode: "Ballad for a Ghost"
1965	The Red Skelton Show	Hatta Mari	episode: "Dial 'O' for Nothing"
1969	Roberta	Scharwenka	TV film directed by John Kennedy and Dick McDonough
1971	Sarge	Marian Hart	episode: "Psst! Wanna Buy a Dirty Picture?"
1972	Columbo	Goldie Williamson	episode: "Blueprint for Murder"
1972	Banacek	Lydia	episode: "To Steal a King"
1973	Mannix	Georgia Durian	episode: "A Way to Dusty Death"
1974	Police Story	Harry's Wife	episode: "A Dangerous Age"
1975	Gibbsville	Lonnie
1975	Police Story	Irene
1975	Doc	guest	episode: "The Other Woman"
1975	Police Story	Mrs. Driscoll	episode: "Vice: 24 Hours"
1976	The Mary Tyler Moore Show	Charlene Maguire	episode: "Menage-a-Lou"
1976	All in the Family	Denise	2 episodes
1976	All's Fair	Barbara	episode: "Jealousy"
1976	The Nancy Walker Show	guest	episode: "Dear Dr. Dora"
1976–1977	Lanigan's Rabbi	Kate Lanigan	5 episodes
1977	The Betty White Show	Wilma	episode: "Mitzi's Cousin"
1977–1980	Eight Is Enough	Aunt Vivian	5 episodes
1978	The Love Boat	Phyllis Morrison	episode: "A Selfless Love / The Nubile Nurse / Parents Know Best"
1978	Alice	Ruth	episode: "The Cuban Connection"
1978	Fantasy Island	Charlotte	episode: "The Beachcomber / The Last Whodunit"
1978	Hawaii Five-O	Minnie Cahoon	episode: "The Case Against Philip Christie"
1978	Charlie's Angels	Joan Sayers	episode: "Angels Ahoy"
1978	The Rockford Files	Miriam	episode: "A Three-Day Affair with a Thirty-Day Escrow"
1978	All in the Family	Denise	episode: "Return of the Waitress"
1980	Valentine Magic on Love Island	Madge	TV film directed by Earl Bellamy
1980	Angel on My Shoulder	Dolly Blaine	TV film directed by John Berry
1981	Fantasy Island	Mabel Martin	episode: "High Off the Hog / Reprisal"
1981	Happy Days	Angela	episode: "Mother and Child Reunion"
1981	Bret Maverick	Mandy Packer	2 episodes
1981	Flamingo Road	Jenny	episode: "The Powers That Be"
1981	Lewis & Clark	Rose	episode: "The Family Affair"
1982	Too Close for Comfort	Irene Miller	episode: "The Last Weekend"
1982	Romance Theatre	Estelle	5 episodes
1983	Matt Houston	Lauren Calder	episode: "The Purrfect Crime"
1983	St. Elsewhere	Dee Mackaluso	episode: "Remission"
1983	Gun Shy	Nettie McCoy
1983	Fantasy Island	Brian's Mother	episode: "The Devil Stick / Touch and Go"
1983	The Other Woman	Mrs. Barnes	TV film directed by Melville Shavelson
1983	Baby Makes Five	Blanche Riddle	5 episodes
1983	Trauma Center	guest	episode: "Trail's End"
1984	Night Court	Eleanor Brandon	episode: "Welcome Back, Momma"
1984	No Man's Land	Maggie Hodiak	TV film directed by Rod Holcomb
1984	We Think the World Is Round	Nina	TV film directed by Rudy Larriva
1985	Rockhopper	Helen Larabee	TV film directed by Bill Bixby
1985–1986	Trapper John, M.D.	Catherine Hackett	15 episodes
1987	Capitol	Laureen Clegg	episode: "Episode #1.1268"
1989	Mission: Impossible	Katherine Foster	episode: "The Haunting"
1989	General Hospital	Aunt Iona Huntington	recurring role
1990	Shades of L.A.	Ruth Lockwood	episode: "Where There's No Will, There's a Weigh-In"
1990–1993	Santa Barbara	Minx Lockridge	106 episodes
1992	Room for Two	Charlotte Agnoletti	episode: "Whose Mouth Is It Anyway?"
1995	Legend	Delilah Pratt	episode: "Clueless in San Francisco"
1997	Caroline in the City	Loretta	episode: "Caroline and the Bad Trip"
2001	Family Law	Ann Fox	episode: "The Quality of Mercy"