Janis Paige Dies: ‘Silk Stockings’ Star Was 101

Janis Paige, best known for her roles in Silk Stockings and Romance on the High Seas, has died.

The actress died of natural causes in her Los Angeles home at the age of 101 on June 2, according to her friend Stuart Lampert (via The Hollywood Reporter).

Paige was born Donna Mae Tjaden on September 16, 1922 in Tacoma, Washington. The singer and actress’ career started after a talent scout discovered her performing at the Hollywood Canteen. Her film debut followed in the Esther Williams vehicle Bathing Beauty in 1944. Her early roles included the musicals, while a contract player for Warner Brothers, Hollywood Canteen (1944), The Time, the Place and the Girl (1946), and Romance on the High Seas (1948).

Paige moved over to Broadway in the 1950s after her movie career stalled, with parts in the comedy Remains to be Seen (1951-52) and as union spitfire Babe Williams in The Pajama Game (1954-56). When the latter was made into a movie, Doris Day played the role, and the two women would go on to work together in Please Don’t Eat the Daisies in 1960. Her work on the stage brightened her prospects, but also generated her most lasting fame. While appearing on stage, she returned to films in the Fred Astaire/Cyd Charisse Silk Stockings, a splendidly colorful musical variation on Ninotchka, where she nearly stole the show with her “Satin and Silk” number, in 1957. Her other film roles included Her Kind of Man (1945), Of Human Bondage (1946), Love and Learn (1947), and The House Across the Street (1949).

Everett Collection

Paige then, beginning in 1954, became a regular guest on The Bob Hope Show, with appearing in a number of the specials during Hope’s long association with NBC. She soon after headlined her own sitcom, It’s Always Jan, which ran for one season on CBS in 1955-56. Paige received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contributions to Motion Pictures in 1960. She was also part of Hope’s annual globetrotting USO variety shows and reunited with him in the 1961 Bachelor in Paradise.

Paige married her third husband, songwriter Ray Gilbert (known for the Oscar winner “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” from Song of the South in 1946), in 1962. She then appeared in various television programs and returned to the Great White Way in Here’s Love (1963-64), a musical take on Miracle on 34th Street. She also took over from Angela Lansbury as the star of the musical-comedy sensation Mame (1966-1970).

Paige took a hiatus from film and television roles during the late 1960s and early 1970s before becoming busy with guest spots—including on All in the Family as a diner waitress who tempts Archie (Carroll O’Connor) to cheat on Edith (Jean Stapleton) and on The Mary Tyler Moore Show as a former flame of Lou’s (Edward Asner)—and as a regular on the short-lived crime show Lanigan’s Rabbi on NBC (1976-77). When Gilbert died in 1976, Paige was left with control of the Ipanema Music Corporation, which she continued to supervise. She continued acting with a few TV roles, including in the canceled sitcoms Gun Shy (1983) and Baby Makes Five (1983) and a recurring part in the last season of Trapper John, M.D. She also made her Broadway bow alongside Kevin McCarthy in Alone Together (1984-85) and had a run on the soap opera Santa Barbara. Paige’s last onscreen appearance came in a 2001 episode of Family Law.

Paige briefly lost her voice completely after turning to a singing teacher to help her with a break in her voice. She regained it after consulting another instructor and was able to take to the stage once again, for a one-woman show in which she sang various classic songs and discussed memorable times from her life through her eighties and nineties.