Alice Playten | Character actor, 63

Alice Playten, 63, a versatile character actor and musical-comedy voice whose piping wail earned her comparisons to a baby Ethel Merman, died Saturday in New York.

The cause was heart failure after a lifelong battle with juvenile diabetes, complicated by pancreatic cancer, said her husband, Joshua White.

Ms. Playten was a two-time Obie winner, for the satirical revue National Lampoon's Lemmings and First Lady Suite, the Michael John LaChiusa chamber musical, in which she played Mamie Eisenhower.

Barely 5 feet tall, Ms. Playten was a natural comedian whose infectious laugh was the high-pitched snicker of an irrepressible mischief-maker. But she was also a serious actor who evolved from playing children's roles like Baby Louise in the original Broadway production of Gypsy to Emma in Michael Weller's drama Spoils of War.

She appeared in several movies, including Ridley Scott's Legend, in which, encrusted in layers of prosthetic makeup, she was the Goblin creature, Blix.

Ms. Playten enjoyed a secondary career doing voiceovers of cartoon characters and children in commercials. She was a frequent guest on The Dick Cavett Show and A Prairie Home Companion. - N.Y. Times News Service