Shirley Adrienne Bell Cole (February 21, 1920 (another source says 1921[1]) – January 12, 2010), also known as Shirley Bell, was an American radio actress; best known as the voice of Little Orphan Annie in the eponymous radio show.
Born Shirley Adrienne Bell in Chicago's South Side, she grew up in various apartments as her family endured the Depression.
[2] Beginning when she was 10 years old, Bell was the primary voice actress of the character Little Orphan Annie from 1930 to 1940[4][5] (except for a brief time when a problem with her contract kept her out).
[6] In 1995, Bell was heard in a reenactment of Little Orphan Annie on Chuck Schaden's Those Were the Days radio show.
[5] She authored Acting Her Age: My Ten Years as a Ten-Year-Old: My Memories as Radio’s Little Orphan Annie (Stinehour Press, 2005).