Janis Paige

Janis Paige (born Donna Mae Tjaden; September 16, 1922 – June 2, 2024) was an American actress and singer. With a career spanning nearly 60 years, she was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Born in Tacoma, Washington, Paige began singing in local amateur shows at the age of five. After high school, she moved to Los Angeles, where she became a singer at the Hollywood Canteen during World War II, as well as posing as a pin-up model.

This led to a film contract with Warner Bros., although she later left the studio to pursue live theatre work, appearing in a number of Broadway shows. She continued to alternate between film and theatre work for much of her career. Beginning in the mid-1950s, she also made numerous television appearances, as well as starring in her own sitcom It's Always Jan.

Paige was born Donna Mae Tjaden in Tacoma, Washington, the elder child of Hazel Leah (née Simmons) and George S. Tjaden on September 16, 1922, primarily of Norwegian, German, English, and Cornish descent. She had a younger sister named Betty Jane (June 21, 1925, Tacoma, Washington – July 16, 2020, Windsor Locks, Connecticut), who was known by her married name of Betty Jane Finney.^{[citation needed]}

Paige began singing in public at age five in local amateur shows. She moved, with her mother and sister, to Los Angeles after graduating from high school, and she was hired as a singer at the Hollywood Canteen during World War II. Courtesy of MGM, she helped entertain the troops in February 1944 at Camp Roberts, California, starring in Rio Rita along with Ann Ayars. During the war, United States Army Air Forces pilots flying the P-61 Black Widow chose her as their "Black Widow Girl". In appreciation, she posed as a pin-up model, dressed in an appropriate costume.

The Hollywood Canteen was a studio-sponsored club for members of the military. A Warner Bros. agent saw her there, saw her potential and signed her to a contract. She began co-starring in low-budget musicals, often paired with Dennis Morgan or Jack Carson. She co-starred in Romance on the High Seas (1948), the film in which Doris Day made her movie debut. Paige later co-starred in adventures and dramas, in which she felt out of place. Following her role in Two Gals and a Guy (1951), she decided to leave Hollywood.

Paige appeared on Broadway, and she was a huge hit in a 1951 comedy-mystery play Remains to Be Seen. She also toured successfully as a cabaret singer. In April 1947, she was crowned "Miss Damsite" and participated at the ground-breaking ceremony for the McNary Dam, on the Columbia River, alongside Oregon Governor Earl Snell and Mrs. Cornelia Morton McNary (the widow of Senator Charles McNary).

Stardom came in 1954 with her role as Babe in the Broadway musical The Pajama Game. She was on the December 1954 cover of Esquire, where she was featured in a seductive pose taken by American photographer Maxwell Frederic Coplan. For the screen version, the studio wanted one major movie star to guarantee the film's success, so John Raitt's role of Sid was offered to Frank Sinatra, who would have been paired with Paige. When Sinatra declined, the producers offered Paige's role of Babe to Doris Day, who accepted and was paired with Raitt.