Janis Paige, a redhead who appeared in Broadway’s The Pajama Game, the big screen’s Silk Stockings, and Santa Barbara on television for six decades until 2001, died on Sunday in Los Angeles. She was 101.
Paige starred in over 100 films, plays, and television shows, beginning in 1949.
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“We’re very sad to report that Janis Paige died yesterday, peacefully at home in Los Angeles,” her Facebook profile said. “She was 101 years old and had a more fulfilling life than she could have anticipated. She was appreciative of everything, which is why she stated that her memory was excellent. Future generations will remember her in their minds and hearts if you keep her in your thoughts, watch her performances, read her book, and tell her stories. May her memory be a blessing.”
When she performed at the famed Hollywood Canteen in the 1940s, people noticed her.
“When you go on an audition as an actor, it’s not about the job,” she explained in a 2005 interview with the Television Academy Foundation. “It is about the luxury of acting. Acting and working in front of others is a luxury.
Paige made her Broadway debut in 1951, playing alongside Jackie Cooper in the mystery comedy Remains to Be Seen. Three years later, she appeared in the popular musical comedy The Pajama Game, starring Babe Williams as a union activist in a factory who falls in love with the new superintendent.
“We were the happiest bunch of people you ever saw in your life,” she stated in 1990. “Since everyone predicted we’d be flops,. A show about a pajama factory? And we were a hit. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Paige returned to Broadway three times, with starring roles in Here’s Love (1963) and Alone Together (1984). In 1968, she portrayed the titular role in Mame as a replacement for Angela Lansbury.
In films, she appeared opposite Doris Day in Please Don’t Eat the Daisies and with Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in Silk Stockings, both from 1957.
In a 2016 interview, Paige stated that doing silk stockings was “hard work.” “I was a mass of bruises. I did not know how to fall. Having never been a traditional dancer, I had no idea how to get down on a table or how to save myself. These are the tips you get when you start to dance.”
She began her television career as a widowed mother on her own sitcom, It’s Always Jan, which aired from 1955 to 1956. Paige portrayed a gorgeous waitress who tempts Archie Bunker in multiple episodes of All in the Family between 1976 and 1978.
She portrayed Dick van Patten’s free-spirited sister on Eight Is Enough from 1977 to 1980, a hospital administrator on Trapper John, M.D. from 1985 to 1986, Minx Lockridge on the daytime serial Santa Barbara from 1990 to 1993, and Iona Huntington on General Hospital from 1989 to 1990. Furthermore, she played the role of Lou Grant’s former romantic partner on the Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1976.
She appeared on various television shows in the 1950s and 1960s, including Lux Video Theatre, Shower of Stars, Wagon Train, The Fugitive, and The Red Skelton Hour.
Her ultimate credit was a 2001 episode of Family Law.
Paige married restaurateur Frank Martinelli Jr. from 1947 to 1951; Arthur Stander, who created and produced It’s Always Jan, from 1956 to 1957; and Gilbert from 1962 until his death in 1976 following open-heart surgery.
