Gerrianne Raphael

Raphael was born in New York City to Sidney, a concert pianist and Evelyn Raphael, a former actress.^{[citation needed]} She was married three times, most recently to actor Noah Keen, from 2004 until his death in 2019. Her first husband was stage manager/actor, director John Weaver, (1955 - 1978).^[1] Gregory Allen Hirsch (1979 - 1986) was her second husband, a theatrical lighting designer. She has three daughters from her first marriage. She graduated from the Professional Children's School in New York City, in 1949.^[2]

Raphael's first professional performances were on radio when she was four years old^[3] on Let's Pretend, a children’s program of fairy tales. Her first Broadway show was at seven years of age in a play called Solitaire by John Van Druten. She understudied Patricia Hitchcock, the daughter of Alfred Hitchcock. Since then, her dozens of stage performances have included the landmark production of Threepenny Opera with Lotte Lenya and Beatrice Arthur^[4] and the original Broadway production of Man of La Mancha.^[5] Having started in radio as a child, the progression to commercial voice-overs, "audiobooks"^[6] and cartoons came naturally. At one point Raphael had voice-overs for Revlon, Gloria Vanderbilt, Geritol and Helena Rubinstein all running at the same time. She had also provided the voice for the littlest dwarf on the Ajax commercials in the 1950s.^[7][8]