Jan Miner

Jan Miner was an American actress who became familiar to television audiences as Madge, the manicurist in Palmolive dish-washing commercials. Raised in Boston, she trained in art before turning to acting, and studied with Lee Strasberg among others. After making her stage debut in a 1945 Boston production of Street Scene, she built a long radio career, playing Della Street on Perry Mason, Ann Williams on Casey, Crime Photographer, and Mary Wesley on Boston Blackie, and starring as Julie Erickson in the soap opera Hilltop House. Her New York debut came in 1958 in Obbligato, followed by a Broadway debut in 1960 in Viva Madison Avenue!. She later appeared on Broadway in The Women, The Heiress, Watch on the Rhine and Heartbreak House. Her films included The Swimmer (1968), Lenny (1974), Endless Love (1981) and Mermaids (1990).