Janis Paige

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Janis Paige (b. Donna Mae Tjaden September 16, 1922 in Tacoma, Washington) is a film and television actress.

Paige started out playing bland film ingénues but she had never felt or looked very comfortable. She had too much energy to be confined in such a way. Paige was singing in public from the age of five in local amateur shows. She then moved to Los Angeles after graduating from high school and then gotten a job as a singer at the Hollywood Canteen during World War II.

The Canteen, which was a studio-sponsored gathering spot for servicemen, is where Warner Bros. saw her a potential and signed her up. She started things off co-starring in secondary musicals, often paired her with either Dennis Morgan or Jack Carson. She later was relegated to rugged adventures and dramas that were just out of her element. Following her role in the forgettable Two Gals and a Guy released in 1951, she decided to leave the Hollywood scene.

She then took to the Broadway boards and scored a huge hit with the 1951 in comedy-mystery play "Remains to Be Seen" co-starring Jackie Cooper. She also toured successfully as a cabaret singer, performing everywhere from New York City and Miami to Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Definitive stardom came in 1954 with the feisty role of "Babe" in the hit Broadway musical, The Pajama Game, co-starring John Raitt.

However, her old Warner Bros. rival Doris Day, a bigger name in Hollywood, went on to play the role on film with Raitt. After a six-year hiatus, Janis returned to films in tongue-and-cheek support, all but stealing the movie Silk Stockings in 1957 from co-stars Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. She then grabbed her share of laughs in the comedy Please Don’t Eat the Daisies in 1960 opposite Doris Day. Paige ventured on in summer stock playing such indomitable roles as the title character in Annie Get Your Gun, Margo Channing in Applause, Mama Rose in Gypsy and as well as Adelaide in "Guys and Dolls."

From the mid-50s on Janis also made a name for herself on television with such series as It Always Jan, Lanigan’s Rabbi and Trapper John, M.D.

In the 1990s, she was customarily seen on various daytime serials (General Hospital and Santa Barbara). Married three times, she was the widow of Disney composer Ray Gilbert, who wrote the classic children's song "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah".