Tuesday, October 22

Janis Paige: Hollywood and Broadway actress who danced with Fred Astaire dies

Janis Paige, a well-liked Hollywood and Broadway actress who danced with Fred Astaire, has died aged 101.

Paige additionally toured with US comedy big Bob Hope throughout her profession which continued into her 80s.

She died of pure causes at her dwelling in Los Angeles on Sunday, her long-time pal Stuart Lampert mentioned on Monday.

Paige made her Broadway debut reverse Jackie Cooper in thriller comedy Remains To Be Seen in 1951, and appeared with John Raitt in smash hit musical The Pajama Game three years later.

In 1957 she appeared reverse iconic dancer Astaire within the movie Silk Stockings.

The film is known for her and Astaire spoofing new-fangled film gimmicks within the Cole Porter quantity Stereophonic Sound, together with swinging from a chandelier.

“I was one mass of bruises. I didn’t know how to fall. I didn’t know how to get down on a table – I didn’t know how to save myself because I was never a classic dancer,” she instructed the Miami Herald in 2016.

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Paige would go on to seem in a string of films within the Nineteen Sixties, together with the Hope comedy Bachelor In Paradise, the Doris Day comedy Please Don’t Eat The Daisies and the Richard Thorpe-directed movie Follow The Boys.

She additionally provided glamour for Hope’s Christmas visits to US troops in Cuba and the Caribbean in 1960, Japan and South Korea in 1962, and Vietnam in 1964.

Paige additionally sang in golf equipment with Sammy Davis Jr, Alan King, Dinah Shore and Perry Como.

In 1968, she changed Angela Lansbury within the New York manufacturing of Mame on Broadway and toured with the present in 1969. She additionally toured in Gypsy, Annie Get Your Gun, Born Yesterday and The Desk Set.

Her final time on Broadway was in 1984’s Alone Together.

In May 2003, Paige resumed entertaining after a protracted absence. She opened a present she referred to as The Third Act at San Francisco’s Plush Room, telling tales about Astaire, Frank Sinatra and others and singing tunes from her movies and stage musicals.

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Janis Paige with Bob Hope entertaining troops in Saigon, South Vietnam in 1964 Pic: AP
Image:
Janis Paige with Bob Hope entertaining troops in Saigon, South Vietnam in 1964 Pic: AP

In 2018, she added her voice to the MeToo motion, alleging an assault when she was 22 by the late division retailer inheritor Alfred Bloomingdale.

“I could feel his hands, not only on my breasts, but seemingly everywhere. He was big and strong, and I began to fight, kick, bite and scream,” she wrote. “At 95, time is not on my side, and neither is silence. I simply want to add my name and say, ‘Me too’.”

The actress, who grew up in Tacoma, Washington, was born Donna May Tjaden however adopted her grandfather’s identify of Paige.

She took her first identify from Elsie Janis, famed for entertaining troops within the First World War.

Paige had two transient marriages, to San Francisco restaurateur Frank Martinelli and writer-producer Arthur Stander.

In 1962 she married songwriter Ray Gilbert, who received an Oscar for the tune Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Da from Disney’s Song Of The South.

He died in 1976, and she or he assumed administration of his music firm.

Content Source: information.sky.com