Jan Miner
Encyclopedia
Jan Miner was an American actress best known for her iconic role as the manicurist
Madge in a 27-year series of television commercials for Palmolive dish-washing detergent.
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.
faded with the popularity of television
, Miner made her New York City
theater debut in the 1958 melodrama
Obbligato at Theatre Marquee, adapted by Jane Hinton Gates from the novel
Une Ombre by Paul Vialar; Miner starred as a spinster
in romantic competition with her younger sister, played by Carol Vandermeir. Her Broadway
debut came two years later, in the very short-lived (April 6–7, 1960) advertising
-world comedy
Viva Madison Avenue!, by George Panetta, at the Longacre Theatre
.
and Crime Photographer
, in roles she originated on radio. But she became an icon to TV viewers as Madge, the wisecracking manicurist
in commercials for Palmolive dish-washing detergent. In an advertising campaign created by the agency Ted Bates Advertising
, Miner played Madge, who worked at the Salon East Beauty Parlor and soaked her customer's fingernails in Palmolive ("Palmolive softens hands while you do the dishes"). The campaign ran from 1966 to 1992.
Miner's Palmolive commercials would appear in France
, (where Madge was "Francoise"), Germany
, Switzerland
, and Austria
(in all three as "Tilly"), Finland
(as "Marissa"), Denmark
, and Italy
. (in Australia
and New Zealand
, her counterpart Madge was played by Robina Beard) Her trademark line became one of the most famous and parodied television commercial quotes:
(1963) and Butterflies Are Free
(1972) (in each as an understudy
); the 1973 revival of The Women; the 1976 revival of The Heiress
with Jane Alexander
; the 1980 revival of Watch on the Rhine
, by Lillian Hellman
; the 1983-1984 Circle in the Square Theatre
revival of Heartbreak House
, with Rex Harrison
, Philip Bosco
, Rosemary Harris
, Amy Irving
, Dana Ivey
, and Stephen McHattie
; and the Franco Zeffirelli
productions of Terrence McNally
's adaptation
of The Lady of the Camellias
(1963) and Eduardo De Filippo
's Saturday Sunday Monday (1974). Her Shakespeare roles on Broadway included Emilia in the American National Theatre and Academy production of Othello
(1970), starring Moses Gunn; and as Juliet's nurse in director Theodore Mann
's Circle in the Square production of Romeo and Juliet
(1977). Other theater work included Major Barbara.
In 1986, Miner appeared at the Off Broadway Lucille Lortel Theatre
as Gertrude Stein
in the play Gertrude Stein and a Companion, by Win Wells, with Marian Seldes
as Alice B. Toklas
. Miner and Seldes reprised the roles in a June 1987 television version for the cable network
Bravo. Miner also appeared for six seasons in repertory roles at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford
, Connecticut
.
Miner played Lenny Bruce's
mother, Sally, in the Bob Fosse
film Lenny
alongside Dustin Hoffman
(Lenny Bruce
) and Valerie Perrine
(Honey Bruce). She also appeared as the Mother Superior in Mermaids
. Her latter-day work in television included an episode of the police procedural
series Law & Order
.
at the Missouri Repertory Theater, prior to its renaming as the Kansas City Repertory Theatre in 2004, as well as in Night Must Fall
, High Spirits
, and what Miner called their favorite play together, Eugene O'Neill
's Long Day's Journey Into Night
at the Byrdcliffe Theater
in Woodstock
, New York
.
A resident of Southbury, Connecticut
in her later years, she died at the Bethel Health Care Facility in Bethel, Connecticut
, after having been in failing health for several years.
Manicure
A manicure is a cosmetic beauty treatment for the fingernails and hands performed at home or in a nail salon. A manicure treatment is not only a treatment for the natural nails but also for the hands. A manicure consists of filing, shaping of the free edge, treatments, massage of the hand and the...
Madge in a 27-year series of television commercials for Palmolive dish-washing detergent.
Early life and career
Jan Miner, the daughter of a dentistDentist
A dentist, also known as a 'dental surgeon', is a doctor that specializes in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the oral cavity. The dentist's supporting team aides in providing oral health services...
and a painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, whose siblings included three brothers, Sheldon, Donald and Lyndsey, studied at the Vesper George School of Art
Vesper George Art School
The Vesper George School of Art in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, closed in 1983.For many years the school contributed to the Boston art community, training many talented artists, many of whom are still active in both commercial art and fine arts...
in her native Boston, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. She went on to study acting with Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg
Lee Strasberg was an American actor, director and acting teacher. He cofounded, with directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective"...
and others before making her stage debut in 1945, in a Boston production of Elmer Rice
Elmer Rice
Elmer Rice was an American playwright. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his 1929 play, Street Scene.-Early years:...
's Street Scene
Street Scene (play)
Street Scene is a play by Elmer Rice that opened at the Playhouse Theatre in New York City on January 10, 1929 and ran for a total of 601 performances. The action of this ambitious, groundbreaking play takes place entirely on the front stoop of a New York City brownstone and in the adjacent street...
.
Miner then became a well-established actress on radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
, 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
Della Street
Della Street was the fictional secretary of Perry Mason in the long-running series of novels, films, and radio and television programs featuring the fictional defense attorney created by Erle Stanley Gardner.-Description:...
on Perry Mason
Perry Mason (radio)
The radio criminal serial Perry Mason, based on the novels of Erle Stanley Gardner, was broadcast on CBS Radio from 1943-1955. The series was adapted into Edge of Night which ran on television for an additional 30 years.-Adapting Perry Mason to other media:...
, one of five to play girlfriend Ann Williams on Casey, Crime Photographer
Casey, Crime Photographer (radio)
Casey, Crime Photographer, known by a variety of titles on radio was a media franchise from the 1930s to the 1960s. The character was the creation of novelist George Harmon Coxe...
, and Mary Wesley on Boston Blackie
Boston Blackie
Boston Blackie is a fictional character created by author Jack Boyle . Originally a jewel thief and safecracker in Boyle's novels, he became a detective in adaptations for films, radio and television—an "enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend."-Literature:Jack...
.
Miner played featured roles in the 1948-1950 dramatic anthology series Radio City Playhouse
Radio City Playhouse
Radio City Playhouse was a live half-hour anthology series that aired on NBC from 1948 to 1950. Directed by Harry W. Junkin, the series presented original radio dramas regardless of the fame of the author, so long as they were considered 'good'...
("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
Orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...
in the revival of the 1937-1941 soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
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.
Broadway
As radio dramaRadio drama
Radio drama is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance, broadcast on radio or published on audio media, such as tape or CD. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine the characters and story...
faded with the popularity of television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
, Miner made her New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
theater debut in the 1958 melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
Obbligato at Theatre Marquee, adapted by Jane Hinton Gates from the novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
Une Ombre by Paul Vialar; Miner starred as a spinster
Spinster
A spinster, or old maid, is an older, childless woman who has never been married.For a woman to be identified as a spinster, age is critical...
in romantic competition with her younger sister, played by Carol Vandermeir. Her Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
debut came two years later, in the very short-lived (April 6–7, 1960) advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
-world comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
Viva Madison Avenue!, by George Panetta, at the Longacre Theatre
Longacre Theatre
The Longacre Theatre is a Broadway theatre located at 220 West 48th Street in midtown Manhattan.-Theatre History:Designed by architect Henry Beaumont Herts in 1912, it was named for Longacre Square, the original name for Times Square...
.
Television icon
Miner appeared on television in, among other shows, Boston BlackieBoston Blackie
Boston Blackie is a fictional character created by author Jack Boyle . Originally a jewel thief and safecracker in Boyle's novels, he became a detective in adaptations for films, radio and television—an "enemy to those who make him an enemy, friend to those who have no friend."-Literature:Jack...
and Crime Photographer
Casey, Crime Photographer
Casey, Crime Photographer was a media franchise, in the 1930s through the 1960s...
, in roles she originated on radio. But she became an icon to TV viewers as Madge, the wisecracking manicurist
Manicure
A manicure is a cosmetic beauty treatment for the fingernails and hands performed at home or in a nail salon. A manicure treatment is not only a treatment for the natural nails but also for the hands. A manicure consists of filing, shaping of the free edge, treatments, massage of the hand and the...
in commercials for Palmolive dish-washing detergent. In an advertising campaign created by the agency Ted Bates Advertising
Ted Bates (executive)
Theodore Lewis "Ted" Bates was an American advertising executive who founded a worldwide advertising agency that bears his name: Ted Bates Inc...-Biography:...
, Miner played Madge, who worked at the Salon East Beauty Parlor and soaked her customer's fingernails in Palmolive ("Palmolive softens hands while you do the dishes"). The campaign ran from 1966 to 1992.
Miner's Palmolive commercials would appear in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, (where Madge was "Francoise"), Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, and Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
(in all three as "Tilly"), Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
(as "Marissa"), Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. (in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, her counterpart Madge was played by Robina Beard) Her trademark line became one of the most famous and parodied television commercial quotes:
Theater and film
Following her 1960 debut, Miner appeared on Broadway in The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here AnymoreThe Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore
The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore is a play written by Tennessee Williams.It debuted at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, in July 1962. Its first American production was in January 1963, but it only ran for 69 performances at the Morosco Theatre in New York. Reviews of the play...
(1963) and Butterflies Are Free
Butterflies Are Free
Butterflies Are Free is a 1972 film based on a play by Leonard Gershe. The 1972 film was produced by M.J. Frankovich, released by Columbia Pictures, directed by Milton Katselas and adapted for the screen by Gershe. It was released on 6 July, 1972 in the USA.Goldie Hawn and Edward Albert starred...
(1972) (in each as an understudy
Understudy
In theater, an understudy is a performer who learns the lines and blocking/choreography of a regular actor or actress in a play. Should the regular actor or actress be unable to appear on stage because of illness or emergencies, the understudy takes over the part...
); the 1973 revival of The Women; the 1976 revival of The Heiress
The Heiress
The Heiress is a 1949 American drama film. It was written by Ruth and Augustus Goetz, adapted from their 1947 play of the same title that was based on the 1880 novel Washington Square by Henry James. The film was directed by William Wyler, with starring performances by Olivia de Havilland as...
with Jane Alexander
Jane Alexander
Jane Alexander is an American actress, author, and former director of the National Endowment for the Arts. Although perhaps best known for playing the female lead in The Great White Hope on both stage and screen, Alexander has played a wide array of roles in both theater and film and has committed...
; the 1980 revival of Watch on the Rhine
Watch on the Rhine
Watch on the Rhine is a 1943 American drama film directed by Herman Shumlin. The screenplay by Dashiell Hammett is based on the 1941 play of the same title by Lillian Hellman.-Plot:...
, by Lillian Hellman
Lillian Hellman
Lillian Florence "Lily" Hellman was an American playwright, linked throughout her life with many left-wing causes...
; the 1983-1984 Circle in the Square Theatre
Circle in the Square Theatre
The Circle in the Square Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre in midtown Manhattan on 50th Street in the Paramount Plaza building.The original Circle in the Square was founded by Paul Libin, Theodore Mann and Jose Quintero in 1951 and was located at 5 Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village...
revival of Heartbreak House
Heartbreak House
Heartbreak House is a play written by George Bernard Shaw, first published in 1919 and first played at the Garrick Theatre in 1920. According to A. C. Ward, the work argues that "cultured, leisured Europe" was drifting toward destruction, and that "Those in a position to guide Europe to safety...
, with Rex Harrison
Rex Harrison
Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.-Youth and stage career:...
, Philip Bosco
Philip Bosco
-Personal life:Bosco was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of Margaret Raymond , a policewoman, and Philip Lupo Bosco, a carnival worker. Bosco went to high school at St. Peter's Preparatory School in Jersey City. He attended the Catholic University of Washington, D.C. Bosco married Nancy...
, Rosemary Harris
Rosemary Harris
Rosemary Ann Harris is an English actress and a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Throughout her career she has been nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and has won a Golden Globe, an Emmy, a Tony Award, an Obie, and five Drama Desk Awards.-Early life:Harris was born in...
, Amy Irving
Amy Irving
Amy Davis Irving is an American actress, known for her roles in the films Crossing Delancey, The Fury, Carrie, and Yentl as well as acclaimed roles on Broadway and Off-Broadway. She has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Golden Globes, and has won an Obie award...
, Dana Ivey
Dana Ivey
Dana Robins Ivey is an American character actress, who has performed on Broadway and other stage roles, in film and on television.-Early life and family:Ivey was born in Atlanta, Georgia...
, and Stephen McHattie
Stephen McHattie
Stephen McHattie is a Canadian actor.-Life and career:McHattie was born in Antigonish, Nova Scotia....
; and the Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
productions of Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally
Terrence McNally is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, an Emmy, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Council of the...
's adaptation
Theatrical adaptation
In a theatrical adaptation, material from another artistic medium, such as a novel or a film is re-written according to the needs and requirements of the theatre and turned into a play or musical....
of The Lady of the Camellias
The Lady of the Camellias
The Lady of the Camellias is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, first published in 1848, and subsequently adapted for the stage. The Lady of the Camellias premiered at the Théâtre du Vaudeville in Paris, France on February 2, 1852. The play was an instant success, and Giuseppe Verdi immediately set...
(1963) and Eduardo De Filippo
Eduardo De Filippo
Eduardo De Filippo was an Italian actor, playwright, screenwriter, author and poet, best known for his Neapolitan works Filumena Marturano and Napoli Milionaria.-Biography:...
's Saturday Sunday Monday (1974). Her Shakespeare roles on Broadway included Emilia in the American National Theatre and Academy production of Othello
Othello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
(1970), starring Moses Gunn; and as Juliet's nurse in director Theodore Mann
Theodore Mann
Theodore Mann, birth name Goldman, is an American theatre producer and director and the Artistic Director of the Circle in the Square Theatre School....
's Circle in the Square production of Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
(1977). Other theater work included Major Barbara.
In 1986, Miner appeared at the Off Broadway Lucille Lortel Theatre
Lucille Lortel Theatre
The Lucille Lortel Theatre is an off-Broadway playhouse located at 121 Christopher Street in New York City's Greenwich Village.The venue was built in 1926 as a 590-seat movie theater called the New Hudson, later known as Hudson Playhouse...
as Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
in the play Gertrude Stein and a Companion, by Win Wells, with Marian Seldes
Marian Seldes
Marian Hall Seldes is an American stage, film, radio, and television actress whose career has spanned six decades and who was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame.-Life and career:...
as Alice B. Toklas
Alice B. Toklas
Alice B. Toklas was an American-born member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century.-Early life, relationship with Gertrude Stein:...
. Miner and Seldes reprised the roles in a June 1987 television version for the cable network
Cable network
A cable channel is a television channel available via cable television. Such channels are usually also available via satellite television, including direct broadcast satellite providers such as DirecTV, Dish Network and BSkyB...
Bravo. Miner also appeared for six seasons in repertory roles at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford
Stratford, Connecticut
Stratford is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located on Long Island Sound at the mouth of the Housatonic River. It was founded by Puritans in 1639....
, Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
.
Miner played Lenny Bruce's
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
mother, Sally, in the Bob Fosse
Bob Fosse
Robert Louis “Bob” Fosse was an American actor, dancer, musical theater choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director. He won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction...
film Lenny
Lenny (film)
Lenny is a 1974 American biographical film about the comedian Lenny Bruce, starring Dustin Hoffman and directed by Bob Fosse. The screenplay by Julian Barry is based on his play of the same name.-Plot:...
alongside Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman is an American actor with a career in film, television, and theatre since 1960. He has been known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and vulnerable characters....
(Lenny Bruce
Lenny Bruce
Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...
) and Valerie Perrine
Valerie Perrine
- Life and career :Perrine was born in Galveston, Texas, the daughter of Winifred , a dancer who appeared in Earl Carroll's Vanities, and Kenneth Perrine, a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army. Owing to her father's career, Perrine lived in many locations as the family moved to different...
(Honey Bruce). She also appeared as the Mother Superior in Mermaids
Mermaids (film)
Mermaids is a 1990 comedy-drama film directed by Richard Benjamin and starring Cher, Bob Hoskins, Winona Ryder , and Christina Ricci in her first film role...
. Her latter-day work in television included an episode of the police procedural
Police procedural
The police procedural is a subgenre of detective fiction which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. While traditional detective novels usually concentrate on a single crime, police procedurals frequently depict investigations into several...
series Law & Order
Law & Order
Law & Order is an American police procedural and legal drama television series, created by Dick Wolf and part of the Law & Order franchise. It aired on NBC, and in syndication on various cable networks. Law & Order premiered on September 13, 1990, and completed its 20th and final season on May 24,...
.
Personal
Miner was married to actor and writer Richard Merrell for 35 years until his death from heart failure at age 75, on September 13, 1998. The two often appeared together onstage, including in The Gin GameThe Gin Game
The Gin Game is a two-person, two-act play by D.L. Coburn that premiered at American Theater Arts in Hollywood in September 1976, directed by Kip Niven. It was Coburn's first play, and the theater's first production.-Plot:...
at the Missouri Repertory Theater, prior to its renaming as the Kansas City Repertory Theatre in 2004, as well as in Night Must Fall
Night Must Fall
Night Must Fall is a play, a psychological thriller, by Emlyn Williams, first performed in 1935.-Play:Mrs Bramson, a bitter, fussy, self-pitying elderly woman, resides in a remote part of Essex, with her intelligent yet subdued niece, Olivia...
, High Spirits
High Spirits (musical)
High Spirits is a musical with a book, lyrics, and music by Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray, based on the play Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward, about a man's problems caused by the spirit of his dead wife....
, and what Miner called their favorite play together, Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...
's Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Long Day's Journey Into Night is a 1956 drama in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. The play is widely considered to be his masterwork...
at the Byrdcliffe Theater
Byrdcliffe Colony
The Byrdcliffe Colony, also called the Byrdliffe Arts Colony or Byrdcliffe Historic District, was founded in 1902 near Woodstock, New York by Jane and Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead and colleagues, Bolton Brown and Hervey White...
in Woodstock
Woodstock, New York
Woodstock is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 5,884 at the 2010 census, down from 6,241 at the 2000 census.The Town of Woodstock is in the northern part of the county...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
.
A resident of Southbury, Connecticut
Southbury, Connecticut
Southbury is a town located in western New Haven County, Connecticut, USA. Southbury is located north of Oxford and Newtown; it also is east of Brookfield. Southbury's population was 18,567 at the 2000 census....
in her later years, she died at the Bethel Health Care Facility in Bethel, Connecticut
Bethel, Connecticut
Bethel is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, about sixty miles from New York City. Its population was 18,584 at the 2010 census. The town center is defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as a census-designated place...
, after having been in failing health for several years.
External links
- Jan Miner radiography at Radio Gold Index
- Jan Miner performances in Radio City Playhouse
- Jan Miner August 1970 radio interview on WTIC, Hartford, Connecticut (note: Biography on that page is uncredited, plagiarized copy of 2004 The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
obituary)