Most obituaries cited Raft's year of birth as 1895, which the actor had stated was correct when he appeared on "The Mike Douglas Show", 7 months prior to his death. However, Raft is recorded in the New York City Birth Index as having been born on September 26, 1901, in Manhattan as "George Rauft" (although "Rauft" is likely a mistranscription of "Ranft"); the 1900 census for New York City lists his elder sister, Katie, as his parents' only child, with two children born and only one living. On the 1910 census, he is listed as being eight years old.<br>"After growing up in New York's tough Hell's Kitchen area, Raft was a boxer, electrician, and baseball player before landing a job as a dancer in nightclubs in the 1920s." A boyhood friend of gangster Bugsy Siegel, and later a "wheel man" for the mob, Raft acknowledged having narrowly avoided a life of crime.