Janis Paige, a popular actor in Hollywood and in Broadway musicals and comedies who danced with Fred Astaire, toured with Bob Hope, and continued to perform into her 80s, has died. She was 101. Paige died Sunday of natural causes at her Los Angeles home, the AP reports.
Paige starred on Broadway with Jackie Cooper in the mystery-comedy, Remains to be Seen, and with John Raitt in the smash hit musical The Pajama Game. Other films included a Hope comedy, Bachelor in Paradise, and the Doris Day comedy Please Don't Eat the Daisies. In 2018, she added her voice to the #MeToo movement, alleging an assault when she was 22 by the late department-store heir Alfred Bloomingdale.
Paige's big break came in wartime when she sang an operatic aria for servicemen at the Hollywood Canteen. MGM hired her a day later for a brief role in Bathing Beauty—she spoke two lines in the film, which starred Esther Williams and Red Skelton—then dropped her. The same day, Warner Bros.
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Bob Cronin.
