Alice Playten, a versatile character actress and musical comedy voice whose piping wail earned her comparisons to a baby Ethel Merman, died Saturday in New York. She was 63 and lived in Manhattan.

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

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. She was called “a comic genius” by Marilyn Stasio in her New York Post review of the Mark O’Donnell comedy “That’s It, Folks!”

She made her stage debut at 11 playing Marie’s little boy in the Metropolitan Opera’s 1959 original production of “Wozzeck.” It began a career that spanned 52 years.

Barely 5 feet tall, Playten was a natural comedian whose infectious laugh was the high-pitched snicker of an irrepressible mischief-maker. But she was also a serious actress 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” and Grandma Gellman in the Tony Kushner-Jeanine Tesori musical, “Caroline, or Change.”

Her Tony-nominated supporting performance in “Henry, Sweet Henry,” a 1967 Broadway musical adapted from the Peter Sellers movie “The World of Henry Orient,” was a sensation. She was only 20. Despite the acclaim, the show lasted only 10 weeks.

She was born Alice Plotkin on Aug. 28, 1947, in New York. Hoping to be a dancer, she studied at the Metropolitan Opera ballet school.

Other Broadway roles included Bet in “Oliver!” Ermengarde in “Hello, Dolly!” and appearances in “George M!,” “Rumors” and “Seussical.” The most important among her many off-Broadway credits included the Al Carmines musical “Promenade,” and Mrs. Shlemiel in a musical adaptation of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s “Shlemiel the First.”

In addition to her husband, she is survived by a brother, Steven, of Port Washington, N.Y.