The actor worked with Fred Astaire, Bob Hope and Doris Day.
Legendary actor Janis Paige, one of longest surviving stars from Hollywood’s Golden Age, has died aged 101.
Her career began eight decades ago, when she landed a job at the Hollywood Canteen, a club funded by local film studios that entertained members of the military.
There, she was spotted by a talent agent working for Warner Bros, who signed her and began giving her roles in musical features, including none other than Doris Day’s 1948 film debut Romance on the High Seas.
Although she dabbled in other genres, Paige was best known and most comfortable working on musicals, with acclaimed Fred Astaire film Silk Stockings among her most notable projects.
She reunited with Day for 1960’s Please Don’t Eat the Daisies and worked alongside world-famous American comedian Bob Hope in the Golden Globe-nominated Bachelor in Paradise.
Paige was also known for her considerable contributions to Broadway theatre, which began in 1951 with a production of mystery comedy Remains to Be Seen and reached new heights with 1954’s The Pajama Game.
The actor would go on to star in several touring stage shows, including such well known musicals as Sweet Charity and Guys and Dolls, while her later career was dominated primarily by television work.
Among her most notable roles were Fonzie’s possible mother in Happy Days, Minx Lockridge in US soap Santa Barbara and Catherine Hackett in MASH spin-off Trapper John, MD.
She retired in 2001, when she was suffering with severe vocal cord damage, which left her unable to sing or even speak and required “three or four years” of training to recover from.
In 2016, she told The Los Angeles Times: “I will never have the voice I had before, but it’s functioning well for me. I found out when you have something like this happen… you know how to cope.”
The following year, Paige wrote a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter in light of the #MeToo movement, alleging that she had been sexually assaulted by the late department store owner Alfred Bloomingdale in the 1940s.
She wrote: “Being the victim of attempted rape never leaves your body. The feelings of terror and helplessness are finally pushed into a place of their own, and we go on.
“The unrelenting barrage of sexual-abuse accusations levied at the uber-rich and all-powerful Harvey Weinstein opened up my own memories.
“Tears, rage and fighting for my life reappeared, and I was forced to recall everything one more painful time, including what I wore that night so long ago. Even at 95, I remember everything. Closure is never complete.”
Paige married three times – to restauranteur Frank Louis Martinelli Jr, to television writer Arthur Stander, and to composer Ray Gilbert – but she had no children. She died of natural causes at her home in Los Angeles.