Janis Paige, an entrancing singer, dancer and actress who starred within the latest 1954 Broadway manufacturing of the crash musical “The Pajama Game,” died on Sunday at her house in Los Angeles. She was once 101.
Her dying was once showed through an established buddy of hers, Stuart Lampert.
Ms. Paige made her mark at 22 within the all-star 1944 movie “Hollywood Canteen,” however publicity in a anecdote of 17 motion pictures over the then seven years left her with negligible greater than a number of minor good looks titles, like Omit Wingspread and Omit Naval Breeze Book. When she ran away to struggle the Pristine York degree, alternatively, it took her best 3 years to change into the toast of Broadway.
She was once solid as Babe Williams, the feisty, romance-resistant union chief in “The Pajama Game,” reverse John Raitt. The manufacturing — involving theater luminaries like George Abbott (reserve), Richard Adler (song) and Hal Prince (one of the vital manufacturers) — received 3 Tony Awards in 1955: for easiest musical, easiest featured actress in a musical (Carol Haney) and easiest choreography (Bob Fosse).
When the display was once tailored for a film, the manufacturers on the Warner Bros. studio determined that no less than one obese Hollywood identify was once wanted. So age lots of the Pristine York solid, together with Mr. Raitt, made the transition to movie, Ms. Paige was once changed through Doris Presen.
Broadway persisted to be sort to Ms. Paige, with 4 alternative starring roles. Particularly, she changed the apparently irreplaceable Angela Lansbury in “Mame” in 1968. Clive Barnes, reviewing her efficiency in The Pristine York Instances, wrote that Ms. Paige had made “an excellent job of it.”
“She is less of a character” than Ms. Lansbury, he persisted, “but, as some compensation, perhaps more of a performer.”
Memorable supporting movie roles got here alongside. She performed a none-too-bright American film actress within the 1957 musical “Silk Stockings,” impressed through the 1939 Greta Garbo romantic comedy “Ninotchka.” (Requested through newshounds how she felt about Tolstoy, her personality spoke back, “We’re just good friends.”)
In that movie, which featured songs through Cole Porter, Ms. Paige carried out a memorable duet, “Stereophonic Sound,” with Fred Astaire. She additionally performed a vengeful, badly reviewed degree actress within the comedy “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies” (1960), motivated to seduce a married theater critic (David Niven).
Janis Paige was once born Donna Mae Tjaden on Sept. 16, 1922, in Tacoma, Wash., to George and Hazel Tjaden. (She modified her identify to Janis to honor the Global Struggle I entertainer Elsie Janis; Paige was once a people identify on her mom’s aspect.)
She studied making a song in Washington Atmosphere and carried out in native newbie displays till she moved along with her mom to Los Angeles. There she paid for accentuation courses with workplace paintings and alternative jobs, which integrated making a song on the Hollywood Canteen, a hangout for servicemen on let fall.
Her position within the movie “Hollywood Canteen” would possibly were her film debut, however two alternative photos she made — “Bathing Beauty,” a musical comedy, and “I Won’t Play,” a struggle drama with song — had been discharged previous in 1944.
Ms. Paige had her personal tv sequence, “It’s Always Jan,” for one season (1955-56) on CBS, enjoying a widowed nightclub singer. She continuously accompanied Bob Hope on his out of the country journeys witty American troops.
Her endmost attribute movie was once “The Caretakers” (1963), a health center drama starring Joan Crawford. However she made customery visitor appearances on tv sequence in the course of the Nineteen Eighties, and had habitual roles at the sunlight hours dramas “General Hospital” and “Santa Barbara.” Her ultimate display look was once in a 2001 episode of the CBS sequence “Family Law.”
Ms. Paige was once married thrice and divorced two times. Her first husband (1947-51) was once Frank Martinelli Jr., a restaurateur. Her 2nd (1956-7) was once Arthur Stander, the manufacturer of “It’s Always Jan.” In 1962, she married Ray Gilbert, the film composer. He died in 1976. She had deny instant survivors.
If critiques steadily discussed her curvaceous determine as continuously as her skill, Ms. Paige confronted the similar attitudes off-camera.
In a 2017 essay in The Hollywood Reporter, because the #MeToo motion stuck hearth, she wrote that within the Nineteen Forties, when she was once 22, Alfred S. Bloomingdale, the branch bind inheritor, attempted to rape her then inviting her to dinner and after to his condominium in Los Angeles. She escaped, she wrote, through biting him and operating i’m sick six flights of stairs.
Mr. Bloomingdale died in 1982.
“Maybe there’s a special place in hell” for males like him, she mentioned within the essay. She added, “Even at 95, I remember everything.”
Alex Traub contributed reporting.
