“Silk stockings”, the star of “Pajama Game” was 101 years old

Janis Paige

Courtesy of Pat Johnson

Janis Paige, the exuberant redhead who starred in the original Broadway production of The pajamas game and in Hollywood musicals like Silk stockings And Romance On the high seas, is dead. She was 101 years old.

Paige, discovered in the 1940s while performing at the legendary Hollywood Canteen, died Sunday of natural causes at her home in Los Angeles, her friend Stuart Lampert announced.

Paige starred in her own network sitcom, playing a widowed nightclub singer who struggles to raise her 10-year-old daughter, in the 1955-56 CBS series. It’s still Januaryand she had recurring roles as Dick van Patten’s free-spirited sister on ABC. Eight is enough and as a hospital administrator on CBS’ Trapper John, MD

The actress also made two memorable appearances in 1976, playing a pretty restaurant waitress named Denise who tempts Archie (Carroll O’Connor) to cheat on Edith (Jean Stapleton) in All in the family and an old flame of Lou’s (Edward Asner) on The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

In 1968, Paige replaced Angela Lansbury in Mamé on Broadway and played the role of the title character for almost two years.

After spending six years working on stage and television, Paige returned to the big screen to star alongside Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse in Silk stockings (1957), an adaptation of a musical starring Greta Garbo Ninotchka to its roots.

She and Astaire teamed up for Cole Porter’s song-and-dance number “Stereophonic Sound” which culminates with the duo swinging on a chandelier above some reporters’ heads.

Do Silk stockings “It was hard work, believe me,” Paige said in a 2016 interview. “I was a mass of bruises. I didn’t know how to fall. I didn’t know how to sit on a table – I didn’t know how to save myself because I was never a ballet dancer. These are the tips you learn when you learn to dance.

“Fred never knew it, but he was so great. He would come back in the morning and say, “I have a great idea for a stage. Do you think you can do this? I never told him no. I wouldn’t dare say no to Fred Astaire. Especially when we got to the end of it, when you have to grab the chandelier and swing at all these people. He showed it to me and said, “Do you think you can do this?” And I said, “Sure, I can do it.” I didn’t know if I was going to fall on my face or not. I did not do it.

In The pajamas game, Paige portrayed Katherine “Babe” Williams, a garment worker at the Sleep-Tite pajama factory and the leader of the factory’s union grievance committee. She falls in love with new superintendent Sid Sorokin (John Raitt, father of singer Bonnie Raitt) despite the fact that he is her opponent in the labor dispute.

The musical premiered at the St. James Theater in May 1954, ran for more than 1,000 performances over 15 months, and won the Tony Award for Best Musical.

“We were the happiest group of people you’d ever seen in your life,” she said in 1990, “because everyone said we were going to be a failure. A show about a pajama factory? And we were a success. It was a special time – it will never come again.

Raitt next appeared in the 1957 big screen version of The pajamas game at Warner Bros., but the role of Paige was filled by Doris Day.

A few years earlier, Day, during his film debut, had replaced Paige in Romance on the high seas (1948). In the wacky musical, Paige’s socialite character hires a singer (Day) to replace her on a cruise so she can spy on her cheating husband (Don DeFore). Meanwhile, Day and a detective (Jack Carson) fall in love on the boat.

Paige and Day would work together again in Please don’t eat the daisies (1960).

Paige’s third and final husband was Ray Gilbert, who won an Academy Award for writing the lyrics to the best-winning song “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” from the now-shelved Disney film. Song of the South (1946).

Born Donna Mae Tjaden in Tacoma, Washington, on September 16, 1922, Paige moved to Los Angeles with her sister after graduating from Stadium High School and was hired to sing at the Hollywood Canteen, the Cahuenga Boulevard club started by studios to entertain military personnel during World War II.

MGM then Warner Bros. signed her, and in 1944 she made her big screen bow in Beauty in the bathwith Esther Williams, Red Skelton and Basil Rathbone, and played a studio messenger in Hollywood canteen movie.

In 1946, Paige landed her first starring role, as a nightclub singer in His type of manand appeared opposite Carson – they would make eight films together – in Two guys from Milwaukee And The time, the place and the girl.

She played in Cheyenne (1947), directed by Raoul Walsh, starred opposite Bette Davis in Winter meeting (1948) and played an important role in A Sunday afternoon (1948), The house across the street (1949), Fugitive Lady (1950), Mister Universe (1951) and Two girls and a guy (1951).

After Warner Bros. freed her, Paige went to Broadway and starred with Jackie Cooper in the 1951 crime comedy. That remains to be seenbut June Allyson played her role in the 1953 MGM version.

She later played Bob Hope’s married, love-starved neighbor in Bachelor in Paradise (1961) and a prostitute in Joan Crawford’s film The gardians (1963).

His television CV also included Train car, Burke’s Law, The fugitive, Mannix, The Rockford Files, Happy Days, Too close for comfort, Caroline in town and the soap operas Capitol, Santa Barbara And General Hospital.

She was a real trouper on Hope’s USO tours and in 1956 released an album, Let’s fall in love. And in 2020 she published Reading Between the Lines: A Memoir.

Paige donated her papers to Emerson College and filmed episodes of It’s still January; videos of live film, television and musical performances; scenarios ; musical scores; photographs and other memorabilia from his career.

For years, she continued to receive fan mail and requests for photos and autographs from all over the world.

Paige was married to restaurateur Frank Martinelli Jr. from 1947 to 1951; to Arthur Stander, who wrote and produced It’s still January, from 1956 to 1957; and to Gilbert from 1962 until his death after open heart surgery in 1976.

She inherited from Gilbert his Ipanema Music Corp., which he founded with Brazilian musician Antônio Carlos Jobim, and many songs he wrote.