Ilene Graff

Ilene Graff is an American actress and singer born on February 28, 1949, in Brooklyn, New York. The daughter of musician Jerry Graff and piano teacher Judy Graff, she attended Ithaca College before beginning her professional career. She is the older sister of Tony Award-nominated actor, writer, director, and former Short Circus member Todd Graff, and a cousin of Tony Award winner Randy Graff.

Graff's Broadway career spanned from 1968 to 1977 and included appearances in Promises, Promises, Grease, Truckload, and I Love My Wife. It was during her run in Grease that she met composer Ben Lanzarone, whom she married. The couple have one daughter, Nikka, born in 1983.

On television, Graff appeared in a recurring role as Penny Whitaker on Supertrain and made guest appearances on Barnaby Jones, Laverne and Shirley, Mork and Mindy, Three's Company, Lewis and Clark, and St. Elsewhere. From 1985 to 1990, she played Marsha Cameron Owens, the wife of Bob Uecker's character George, across 117 episodes of the sitcom Mr. Belvedere.

Graff's film work includes the 1992 motion picture Ladybugs, in which she played the girlfriend of Rodney Dangerfield's character and the mother of Jonathan Brandis's character. Additional screen credits include Loving Annabelle, The Things We Carry, and the South Korean release My Father. She also served as spokesman for the AMC Cancer Research Center.