(ProsperNews.net) – Stage and screen star Janis Paige, who danced with Fred Astaire in Hollywood, has died at age 101. Lifelong friend Stuart Lampert announced the actress’s death, saying she passed peacefully at her Los Angeles home from natural causes.
The Broadway luminary featured in the hit shows “Remains to be Seen” with Jackie Cooper and “The Pajama Game” with John Raitt and toured alongside Bob Hope in the 1960s. Her film credits include “Romance on the High Seas” with Doris Day in 1948, “Silk Stockings” with Fred Astaire in 1957, and “Please Don’t East the Daisies” in 1960, again with Doris Day.
Born Donna Mae Tjaden in Tacoma, Washington, in 1922, her showbiz career started at age five when she sang in local amateur theater groups. After high school, she moved to Los Angeles with her mom and sister and was soon cast by Warner Bros. in the all-star movie Hollywood Canteen. In a later interview, she described earning $150 per week and said, “I earned more than my mother had made in a month during the Great Depression.”
When World War II broke out, the talented singer, actress, and dancer traveled abroad with MGM to entertain US troops.
Paige continued to perform into her 80s, and in 2018, added her voice to the MeToo movement, alleging an assault by department store heir Alfred Bloomingdale. In an article for the Hollywood Reporter, Paige stated that Bloomingdale attacked her at age 22, and she no longer wanted to remain silent. “At 95, time is not on my side,” she wrote.
A registered Republican, Ms. Paige married three times but had no children. Her first marriage was to restaurateur Frank Louis Martinelli Jr. in 1947, but they divorced four years later. Her next marriage to TV writer Arthur Stander was even shorter, lasting just one year from 1956 to 1957. Paige wed for the third time in 1962 and remained married to music composer Ray Gilbert until he died in 1976.
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