Deborah Raffin Dead At 59

Deborah Raffin, an actress who ran a profitable audiobook company with the help of her celebrity pals, passed away. She was 59.

Her brother, William, revealed to the Los Angeles Times that Raffin died Wednesday of leukemia at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. She was diagnosed with blood cancer about a year ago.

It has to be noted that Raffin, the daughter of 20th Century Fox contract player Trudy Marshall, acted in movies such as "Forty Carats" and "Once Is Not Enough." She also starred in television miniseries, most notably portraying actress Brooke Hayward in "Haywire" and a businesswoman in "Noble House," based on the James Clavell saga set in Hong Kong.

She and her then-husband, music producer Michael Viner, launched Dove Books-on-Tape in the mid-1980s, which turned into a multimillion-dollar business. Raffin's job was getting celebrities to provide voices for some of the books.

Raffin also compiled celebrities' Christmas anecdotes for a 1990 book, "Sharing Christmas," which raised money for groups serving the homeless. It included stories from Margaret Thatcher, Kermit the Frog and Mother Teresa.

Raffin and Viner sold the company in 1997 and the pair divorced eight years later. Viner died of cancer in 2009. 






Raffin is survived by her two siblings, William and Judy Holston; and a daughter, Taylor Rose Viner.

R.I.P Deborah Raffin


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