Madge the Palmolive lady has passed away (Jan Miner) [View All]

[underpants]

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/local/7977657.htm

Jan Miner, who had a long career on the New York stage but was best known as Madge the Manicurist in Palmolive commercials, died Sunday in Bethel, Conn. She was 86 and lived in nearby Southbury.
She had been in failing health for several years and died at the Bethel Health Care Facility.

From the 1940s to the 1980s, Miner was never far from productions on and off Broadway or on out-of-town stages, from New Haven and Stratford, Conn., to St. Louis. She was also on radio programs, including the popular “Boston Blackie” series as Richard Kollmar’s leading lady in the late 1940s, and appeared in films and in television plays and series.

Palmolive’s commercials featured Miner as Madge, who praised the gentleness of its dish detergent to a customer surprised to find that her hands were soaking in it. She played the character for 27 years.

Meanwhile, Miner appeared in repertory productions at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford for six seasons.

Janice Miner was born Oct. 15, 1917, in Boston, the daughter of a dentist and a painter. She studied at the Vesper George School of Art in Boston and trained for the stage with Lee Strasberg, among others. She made her stage debut in Boston in Elmer Rice’s “Street Scene” in 1945 and in New York as Maria Louvin in “Obligatoo” in 1948.