Photo courtesy of JDate

By Jeremy Schneider | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Bea Slater is a grandmother of six, great-grandmother of four and now, a billboard star with ads all over New York City.

Can you guess why the 90-year-old Springfield resident has her grinning face plastered all across Manhattan?

No, you probably can't — Slater is featured as the face of JDate's new "Powered By Yentas" campaign, of all things: a new marketing strategy for the dating website that for 21 years has been aimed specifically at Jews looking for love online.

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"Yenta" is Yiddish slang for a busybody, and Slater — a Philadelphia native, who has lived in the same Union County house for 65 years — was overjoyed to appear as one of the older women used in the campaign.

"It was fun. It was very nice. If (the ad) never happens again, that's it. But it was a lot of fun. A lot of people enjoyed it, which made me happy," Slater said in a recent interview.

If you're one for viral videos, you may remember a clip of Slater posted by her son last September of her getting hyped up before attending a Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul concert. E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt even asked her to introduce him at the show and she was a hit.

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When video of that moment also went viral, a neighbor suggested she apply to a casting call for older women that she noticed.

"The first thing that I did with Steven Van Zandt was exciting," Slater said. "And I thought, 'Well, if I can do that, maybe I can do something else.'"

Slater's son, Mitch, describes the audition as a scene plucked from a Woody Allen movie, with 50 or so Jewish grandmothers pacing and practicing lines.

Every woman was given a joke to tell as part of their audition, but Slater forgot hers.

"I tried to memorize it, and I said, 'You know what? I screwed this up. But I have something, it's not really a joke, but it was funny," Slater said. "When I went to my doctor for my physical, when the assistant came in to take your pressure and check everything, ask questions ... I live in a house, she says what kind, I say I have a ranch house. Oh, she says do you have horses? I said no, I don't have horses, it's a ranch house! One floor. But the girl, she didn't understand, and they all laughed."

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It took JDate less than 24 hours to tell Slater — who had never auditioned for anything before — she had booked the ad.

The ads are all over New York and Chicago, with potential placement in Miami and Los Angeles next. Slater's favorite billboard may be right above Junior's Restaurant in Brooklyn, which gave her one of its famous cheesecakes after she told them who she was.

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Photo courtesy of JDate

Slater isn't on the app herself, however. She was happily married for more than 60 years before her husband passed away in August, 2009. He was a South Orange native, and she met him at the Colony Surf Club in Deal.

"We got married in 1948," Slater said. "He graduated the University of Pennsylvania one week, and we got married the next."

Slater was actually a photographer herself back in the 1940s, working for her father who was a commercial photographer. More than 70 years later she's stepped in front of the camera for the first time, and she's open to doing it again.

"I can't say more is going to happen, I never know. But if I get called for something and I'm up to it, I would go in," Slater said. "But right now I'm just enjoying my family, I have wonderful family."

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Photo courtesy of Mitch Slater

Jeremy Schneider may be reached at jschneider@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @J_Schneider. Find NJ.com on Facebook.