Ilene Graff (born February 28, 1949) is an American actress and singer.
The Brooklyn native began her professional career as a teenager when she performed as a background singer and commercial actress while attending Van Buren High School in Queens Village. She graduated from Ithaca College in 1970.
Graff's Broadway credits include Promises, Promises, Grease, and I Love My Wife.
Graff's television work includes Barnaby Jones, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy, Three's Company, and St. Elsewhere. From 1985 until 1990, she played what is possibly her best known role, Marsha Owens, the wife of Bob Uecker's character, George, in the sitcom Mr. Belvedere.
In addition to her roles on television, Graff also appeared in the motion picture Ladybugs playing the girlfriend of Rodney Dangerfield and mother of Jonathan Brandis. Her most recent screen credit is the 2006 film Loving Annabelle.
Graff is the daughter of Jerry Graff, who was a member of the musical group The Pied Pipers. While performing in Grease she met and married composer Ben Lanzarone, and they have one daughter, Nikka, born 1983. She is the older sister of Tony Award-nominated actor and former Short Circus member Todd Graff and the cousin of Tony winner Randy Graff. She serves as the spokesperson for the AMC Cancer Research Center.
Daughter, Nikka, born in April 1983
Sister of Todd Graff.
Her father is singer-arranger Jerry Graff, a featured singer with the top vocal group Pied Pipers.
Her mom, Judy, who died in 1988 of cancer, was a piano teacher.
Is the national spokesperson for the AMC Cancer Research Center in Denver.
As a teenager, she worked as a studio singer doing background work and commercials.
Attended Ithaca College in upstate New York, graduating in 1970.
Returned to Broadway for two years as the first "Sandy" in "Grease".
It was during Grease that she met her future husband, musical director Ben Lanzarone, who sparked the move to the West Coast.
One of her and her husband's most favorite activities is to participate in the annual Cedar Rapids telethon.
In the year 1999, she spent her birthday helping to raise $45 million for the Variety Children's Club.
