Janis Paige Is Dead To Me

No Doris Day

The funeral will be in glorious Technicolor, breathtaking Cinemascope, and STEREOPHONIC SOUND.

She *lived*...until she died.

Snatched in her prime!

Speaking of Doris Day .... Jan was the star of "Romance On the High Seas," but Doris (in her film debut) stole the movie from her. Then Jan returned the favor in "Please Don't Eat the Daisies."

I loved her with Bob Hope in Bachelor in Paradise. RIP Janis, you sexy thing, you.

She was on the I Can't Believe They're Still Alive List.

That damn Minx Lockridge!

OP she was NOT Jaye P's sister.

Summer fashions with Jan!

She took over Lou Grant’s Piano Bar singer girlfriend from Sheree North on MTM. Wasn’t that the episode where she dated Ice Dancer Kenn played by Jeff Conaway?

Covid vaccine?

r12 Fighting oil rig fires in the Gulf of Mexico.

Her TV series only lasted one season.

"Jan, Jan, Jan!"

My mother had the “Here’s Love!” OBC and I loved it. RIP.

I don't know why anyone would have gone to the trouble of colorizing this, but here it is!

Although she did a "Love Boat" and a "Fantasy Island," she, somewhat disappointingly, never guest starred on "Murder She Wrote."

All she's gotta get now...

Wow she lived a long time

She's the reason the word verve was invented.

1969 effort

She was so warm, charming and delightful.

(r 5) Actually "Daisies" director Charles Walters and Producer, Joe Pasternak, originally wanted Betty Grable to come out of film retirement to play the role in the film. When she refused, Day suggested they ask Paige, who gladly accepted the part. Day sent Paige a beautiful floral bouquet on her first day of shooting and although they didn't share too many scenes, Day sent her a congratulatory message when the film was released, and Paige was receiving kudos which included the line, "Now we're even...." a reference to Paige stealing the film as Day had done with "Romance". Paige was delighted.

A friend knew her. She lived in West Hollywood near Sunset Plaza and was losing her eyesight toward the end. A few years ago, she went to a Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of gay men including my friend who told me that "she had those queens spellbound with her stories." You can see that, can't you.

That haircut at R19 aged her like 20 years when it had only been a few since her TV show

But could she tap dance as well as Bonnie Franklin?

RIP, Janis. You were a helluva broad.

She joined the #metoo movement at the age of 95.

r39 Did D.W. Griffith try to get handsy with her?

So far RADIO SILENCE from the cast of Eight is Enough where Janis was a featured player for years! Connie Needham WE SEE YOU!!!

LOVED her so much! A ballsy dame with an inimitable style all her own. There's really no one like her now.

Any comment from Nancy Lee Grahn?

She comments at the drop of a hat, Janis was her costar on SB

Does anyone know how Jan scored her great role in MGM's SILK STOCKINGS? She wasn't a contract player and the studio had Ann Miller right there on the lot.

Answering my own question. Maybe it just shows how smart MF+GM was.

Didn't she play Ulla in a bus and truck tour of "The Producers," with Robert Q. Lewis?

I’ve always enjoyed her loop “Two Gals & a Guy”. It was 1951’s precursor to “Deep Throat” and no cause to abandon Hollywood!

[quote]Answering my own question. Maybe it just shows how smart MF+GM was.

Now please answer my question: What is MF+GM?

Stereophonic...

[quote] Does anyone know how Jan scored her great role in MGM's SILK STOCKINGS? She wasn't a contract player and the studio had Ann Miller right there on the lot.

Arthur Freed saw her in a club performance she was doing in Hollywood, I don't remember exactly where but probably something like the Roosevelt Hotel, and asked her to be in the picture. She told that story several times.

MAME!

[Quote] OP she was NOT Jaye P's sister.

And it’s spelt JP Morgan and it was a rich bank guy, not a woman! You people are so ingorant!

I love Janis but she really manage to make all those MAME costumes look like the show was set in 1968.

LOVED her performance as the self-protecting, ballsy ABD wisecraking broad “inmate” in 1963’s “The Caretakers.” RIP.

^”and,” not “ABD”—je le regrette. :(

I just finished Please Don't Eat the Daisies, and I'm well into Romance On the High Seas now. What a career she had!

Silk Stockings is her film tour de force. She's unbelievable in it, steals the whole show.

She wore those waist cinched sheaths like nobody! And she had that fine ass.

She's not at all...

R41.....Yo, mr. ignoramus

We worked together, but she didn't make it to 107 like I did.

I believe I had her in the 2024 death thread.

RIP.

You’re another Jeanne Dixon, R51.

Actually R54, it's coming back to me. I believe I said I wasn't exactly going out on a limb when I named her in my post.

Don't you sass me before I even post, r53!

R18- she made up for it with a guest shot on Columbo with Forrest Tucker and Patrick O’Neal!

Blue Print for Murder. The only episode Peter Falk ever directed. He kinda botched it, but who cares. There’s no such thing as a bad Columbo episode.

More familiar to me when I researched her later roles. Didn’t know she had such a long career. RIP Janis.

[quote] Forrest Tucker

*sphincter spasm*

It was the VAX! 101 year olds don't die every day.

She was the first and only Aunt Vivian, on Eight is Enough. Forget those Bel Air imposters.

Another vote for Bachelor In Paradise.

She walks into Bob Hope's house and starts mixing up a martini.

Hope: Isn't it a little early for a martini?

Paige: Early? It's October!

She's our best girl...

After the affair ended, Archie sent her a bottle of Chanel No. 5 - their highest number.

Before issuing a statement, Susan Dey would like to be reminded if Ms. Paige ever made a guest appearance on The Partridge Family?

r48 Another Doris-Jan connection ... Doris played Paige's role in the movie version of "The Pajama Game."

r40 Now I'm curious as to who was playing Mame in the National and West Coast productions at the time. Was Angie in either of them?

I thought Angie did LA?

Janis Page is dead? Oh my I must be next.

Angie did LA and San Francisco. She had most of her Broadway people with her. It only played CA).

Celeste Holm did the rest of the tour.

When Celeste did Mame she insisted the "It's Today!" yellow beaded pajamas be recreated in pink. even though the entire ensemble's costumes were color-keyed off of Mame's yellow.

I guess Celeste just liked pink.

She feels like a feather...

So why wasn't she a bigger star. She kinda peaked in the 50s, and then had to start all over again. And why didn't Sondheim use her, especially in the 70s, and Company and all those aging old bag musicals?

I'm sure she would have been in a replacement cast of Follies at some point had it remained open.

I don't know. She doesn't have an extensive Broadway resume.

Sweet Charity

Mame and Pajama Game more than qualify her for Follies!!!! Not to mention those Hollywood films...

R77 Maybe she was a cunt?

Like that would be a disqualification??

r77 - My reply at r75 was to r73. It wasn't in regards to FOLLIES.

R79 Ha, indeed.

It looks like she always worked...on something. Like Ruta, a lot of stock, guest spots. They just seemed to love performing.

She did get to do Joanne in "Company" in stock, and I bet she was just right. She also did "Ballroom" opposite Forrest Tucker, but had problems singing the score.

She was great but she always seemed to be the second choice for a lot of things.

Even her Santa Barbara role....she was a recast for Dame Dyke Judith Anderson.

Celeste was a cunt.

R78 I recently read Janis' autobiography and she doesn't sound at all like a cunt. She's grateful to everyone she ever met and doesn't cut anyone down which, to be honest, makes the book less interesting than it could have been.

Is her book worth reading, r86? Does he have fun stories about Crawford, Davis, Day and Polly Bergen?

There once was...

I wish Keli O'Hara had the ballsiness of Janis Paige when Kelli was cast in Janis' role in the revival of Pajama Game. I missed that aspect of Babe (just her name alone should give you a hint, Kelli).

These days, r89, you have to be either a Glinda or an Elphaba. No *verve* required.

Janis also appeared in an episode of Charlie’s Angels titled “Angels Ahoy!”, which used the Love Boat sets. She played Bosley’s love interest, and broke his heart in a last minute unmasking worthy of an episode of “Scooby Doo”!

Fun fact: 15 years earlier, David Doyle appeared in the Broadway Musical “Here’s Love”, starring…

JANIS PAIGE!

Here's Love

I didn't see HERE'S LOVE but Janis Paige, much as I love her, doesn't seem like she'd have been ideal casting for the role created by Maureen O'Hara in MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET. Paige didn't seem to have a sentimental bone in her (voluptuous) body and her enormous warmth wasn't exactly motherly. I imagine her talents were mostly wasted in that show.

It’s crazy that she replaced Judith Anderson as Minx on Santa Barbara, she was 25 years younger than Anderson.

Oh..."in stockings".

Cute number at r95 but I think she was dubbed there.

[R70] Celeste was a real nasty piece. The C word comes to mind. How dare she change Mame's costume??

Best remembered as the free-spirited Auntie V on "Eight is Enough."

I remember seeing one in green at the Costume Collection, r97. I didn't check for a label, but I've always wondered which redhead wanted a green one.

r98, see r59.

Wasn’t she the mother of 90s pop singer Jennifer Paige?

She didn't have children, r101.

Here's Janis and Dorothy Malone in a favorite number of mine from One Sunday Afternoon, a no more than average WB musical from the 40's. Janis mostly reacts to Dorothy in this scene but I love how prescient the lyrics have been.