Thursday, July 20, 2006

Madge the Manicurist

I grew up watching soap operas with my mom as a kid. Real gems, too, like Search for Tomorrow and Another World...

I also grew up with Madge the Manicurist.

Madge appeared in Palmolive commercials during these daytime shows. Working at the "Salon East Beauty Parlor", she would secretly soak her customer's hands in the famous green dishwashing liquid, while telling them about Palmolive dish soap for at home.

The customer was usually shocked to find out that their hands were actually soaking in that very same dishwashing liquid for their manicure. "You're soaking in it!" Madge would reveal slyly, followed up by "Palmolive softens hands while you do dishes", to soothe her customer's qualms...

Madge the Manicurist was created in 1966 by the Ted Bates Ad Agency, for the Colgate-Palmolive company. Jan Miner was the actress who portrayed Madge for almost 30 years, until 1992.

Jan Miner was constantly stopped in airports, Madge was known all across the world: in France her name was Françoise, the Germans called her Tilly, while the Finnish knew her as Marissa. International Palmolive commercials were never dubbed, Jan Miner actually read all the lines phonetically!




images: myspace.com and flickr.com

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