Jan Miner
| Jan Miner | |
|---|---|
Miner as "Madge"
|
|
| Born |
October 15, 1917 Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
| Died | February 15, 2004 (aged 86) Bethel, Connecticut, United States |
| Other names | Janice Miner |
| Occupation | Radio, television, film and stage actress |
| Years active | 1944–2004 |
| Spouse(s) | Richard Merrell (m. 1963–98) (his death) |
Jan Miner (October 15, 1917 – February 15, 2004) was an American actress of film, television, radio and stage, but was best known for her iconic role as the character of Madge the manicurist, in a 27-year series of television commercials as a spokesmodel for Colgate Palmolive dish-washing detergent, from the 1960s until the early 1990s.
Jan Miner, the daughter of a dentist and a painter, whose siblings included three brothers, Sheldon, Donald and Lyndsey, studied at the Vesper George School of Art in her native Boston, Massachusetts. She went on to study acting with Lee Strasberg and others before making her stage debut in 1945 in a Boston production of Elmer Rice's Street Scene.
Miner then became a well-established actress on radio, and through the 1950s was one of many busy performers working in multiple series simultaneously. Among other roles, she was one of three sequential actresses who voiced secretary Della Street on Perry Mason, one of five to play girlfriend Ann Williams on Casey, Crime Photographer, and Mary Wesley on Boston Blackie.
Miner played featured roles in the 1948-1950 dramatic anthology series Radio City Playhouse ("Soundless", "Portrait of Lenore," et al.). It was, though, her appearance in the premiere broadcast of the series that "created a minor sensation in the play Long Distance"; the episode proved so popular that she repeated her performance later in the season.
From circa 1948 through sometime before the series ended in 1957, Miner, eventually succeeded by Grace Matthews, starred as Julie Erickson, head of the titular orphanage in the revival of the 1937-1941 soap opera Hilltop House. The series was sponsored by the Colgate-Palmolive Company, for which she would later appear in a famous, long-running series of television commercials.
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