DIED. MARTHA RAYE, 78, singer-comedian; in Los Angeles. Raye's calling card was her famous mouth, an impossibly broad swath of lips and pearly teeth that made her the logical pitchwoman for a popular denture adhesive in the final years of her seven decades in show business. Debuting in vaudeville at three, Raye was performing opposite Bing Crosby in Rhythm on the Range (1936) at 20. The films that followed were enormously popular and just as forgettable, with one stunning exception--Charles Chaplin's grim comedy Monsieur Verdoux (1947). Raye's performance as Chaplin's hilariously indestructible wife suggested the possibilities of an entirely different career had Hollywood heeded her desire to be cast for comedy instead of glamour. Raye hit a slump in the '60s--she blamed it on negative reaction to her USO tours in Vietnam. Coincidentally, the USO figured in the last controversy of her life--her lawsuit claiming that Bette Midler's movie For the Boys was based on Raye's career as a USO entertainer. The lawsuit failed--as did the film.