Sad news: Kitty Carlisle Hart- Page 2

[singingbackup]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 3:03pm

It just hit the wires:

Kitty Carlisle Hart, actress and advocate of the arts, dies at 96
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- Kitty Carlisle Hart, whose long career spanned
Broadway, opera, television and film, including the classic Marx
Brothers movie "A Night at the Opera," has died at age 96, her
son said Wednesday.

Christopher Hart said his mother had been in and out of the
hospital since contracting pneumonia over the Christmas holidays.

"She passed away peacefully" at home, said Hart. "She had
such a wonderful life, and a great long run, it was a blessing."

Hart had appeared for years on the popular game show "To Tell
the Truth" as a celebrity panelist.

The entertainer was also a tireless advocate for the arts,
serving 20 years on the New York State Council on the Arts. In
1991, she received the National Medal of Arts from the first
President Bush.

Well known for her starring role as Rosa Castaldi in the 1935
movie "A Night at the Opera," her other film credits included:
"She Loves Me Not" and "Here Is My Heart," both opposite Bing
Crosby; Woody Allen's "Radio Days"; and "Six Degrees of
Separation."

She began her acting career on Broadway in "Champagne Sec,"
and went on to appear in many other Broadway productions, including
the 1984 revival of "On Your Toes."

She made her operatic debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1967 in
"Die Fledermaus," and created the role of Lucretia in the
American premiere of Benjamin Britten's "Rape of Lucretia."


From 1956 to 1967, she appeared on the CBS prime-time game show
"To Tell the Truth" with host Bud Collyer and fellow panelists
such as Polly Bergen, Johnny Carson, Bill Cullen and Don Ameche.
The show featured three contestants, all claiming to be the same
person. The panelists asked them questions to determine which was telling the truth. (The popular show also had runs, sometimes including Carlisle, in daytime and in syndicated versions.)


Hart's late husband was the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright
Moss Hart, who wrote "You Can't Take It With You" and "The Man
Who Came to Dinner" with George S. Kaufman and won a Tony for
directing "My Fair Lady" on Broadway.


(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

[bjh2114]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 3:06pm

Playbill has an article too now:

Kitty Carlisle Hart, the stage and film actress who served as chairperson of the New York State Council of the Arts for 20 years beginning in 1976, and thereafter functioned as one of the city's most visible advocates and symbols of the performing arts, died on April 17, her longtime musical director David Lewis confirmed. She was 96. The cause was pneumonia.

Ms. Hart, always a lively presence and elegantly turned out, remained vital until the last. In recent years, she commemorated her birthdays in a very public way by performing a cabaret act at Feinstein's at the Regency, a swank night spot just blocks from her opulent Upper East Side apartment. There, she would sing a few songs and reminisce about her experiences working with such entertainment icons as George Gershwin (who once proposed to her), George S. Kaufman (who slapped her during a game of Gin Rummy) and Kaufman's writing partner Moss Hart, whom she married in 1946. The events routinely sold out.

Following Hart's death in 1961, she became the executrix of his estate and worked tirelessly to keep his plays alive and in the public eye. She was often seen in the company of Kaufman's daughter Anne Kaufman Schneider. No Kaufman and Hart revival went on the boards without their say-so.

Ms. Hart was such a steady and supportive presence in New York society and arts that, not long before her death, she was declared a Living Landmark by the state.

Kitty Carlisle Hart was born Catherine Conn in New Orleans, LA, on Sept. 3, 1910. Her father, Dr. Joseph Conn, was a gynecologist who died when she was only ten. Her mother Hortense was ambitious, however, and had her daughter educated in Switzerland, London, Paris and Rome. She was accepted into London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and went on to train at the Theatre de l'Atelier in Paris.

She said she changed her name because "there were too many Catherines." "Carlisle" came from the phone book. Her mother changed her own name in kind.

Her acting career was on the brief side, but noteworthy for the talents she came into contact with. She starred in the Depression era Broadway musicals Champagne Sec, White Horse Inn, Three Waltzes and Walk With Music. She is best remembered as a performer, however, for her turn as the romantic lead in the 1934 Marx Brothers feature "A Night at the Opera," in which she sang "Alone," a tune she said she hated. Other movie credits included "Murder at the Vanities" and "Here Is My Heart," in which she played opposite Bing Crosby.

She found fame again in the 1950s, as a frequent guest on the game show "To Tell the Truth."

Governor Nelson Rockefeller appointed her vice chairperson of the New York State Council for the Arts in 1971. She became chairperson in 1976 and it was in this role that she had her greatest impact on the arts. When George Pataki took office, her long service came to an end.

Along the way, she counted among her friends, Jackie Kennedy, Noel Coward, Harpo Marx, Irving Berlin and countless politicians.

She is survived by the two children she had with Hart.
Playbill's article

[uncageg]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 3:10pm

I loved her on "To Tell The Truth".

Rest in peace Kitty.

[Kringas]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 3:21pm

right about now St. Peter is saying "Hello, Kitty".

Wasn't she Jewish?

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 3:31pm

The old gal was a real class act.

And she lasted a LONG time. We should all age so gracefully!

[junglered]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 3:33pm

Rest in peace, Kitty.

[mateo]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 3:36pm

She will be missed.

[wonderfulwizard11]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 3:50pm

Very sad news. Rest in peace Kitty.

[thenewmoon]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 4:28pm

RIP, Gracious Lady.

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 4:30pm

Very sad, I just found out she was still performing in NYC in feb and was planning to see her show on my next trip to the city.

She seemed like a very lovely lady.

I am playing my recording of Roberta now and will have to watch "A night at the Opera" tonight.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 4:36pm

I had the pleasure of meeting Ms Hart several times. We had a wonderful time together backstage at Feinstein's when we both visited with Carol Channing. We met again last summer when we say LuPone's GYPSY at Ravinia. There were other times as well.

She was a great, gracious and witty lady.

We'll miss her.

[glimpseofstocking]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 5:56pm

Such sad news RIP, Kitty.

[DAME]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 6:07pm

I didn't look at the main board first. Great lady.

[erikaamato]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 6:28pm

Rest in peace. What a well-lived life!

[TomMonster]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 6:42pm

*sniff*

[Phantom2]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 6:59pm

A remarkable lady. So sad.

[jv92]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 7:07pm

How unfortunate. She will be missed.
Updated On: 4/18/07 at 07:07 PM

[Becoz_i_knew_you21]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 7:17pm

Sad news. At least she passed peacefully.

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 8:09pm

First Kurt Vonnegut and now Kitty Carlisle Hart...

The world is now officially a much less interesting, much less classy place.

I'll have to listen to the cast recording of "On Your Toes" tonight, even though she isn't on it. I saw her in it and treasured every moment of it.

I wasn't this sad when my Grandmother died...

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 4/18/07 at 8:17pm

just tragic.

[Sandy in Sable]

Posted: 4/19/07 at 3:12am

Oh no! I had the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Hart on two occasions, once at the MTC Spring Gala, and another time when a local college did a production of Light Up the Sky. A very charming lady, who I easily believed would be around for at least another ten years. But what a life lived!

[eslgr8]

Posted: 4/19/07 at 4:23am

Just last August 6, I had one of the most thrilling experiences of my theatergoing life when I attended Kitty Carlisle Hart's hour-long concert at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood. Ms. Hart STOOD for the entire performance (the third of a three-days-in-a-row series), as she told fascinating anecdotes of her many legendary friends including George Gershwin and Cole Porter (reading from a three-ring-bindered script atop a music stand), and sang over a dozen songs in the voice of a far younger woman. She was proud of having added a "new song" to her repertoire, Sondheim's Old Friend, which she sang with great feeling. At one point she raised her floorlenghth gown well above the knee to show the legs she was still proud of at nearly 96! I sensed at the time that this might be one of Ms. Hart's final appearances. Sadly it was. But it's a memory I will long cherish.

[philcrosby]

Posted: 4/19/07 at 8:04am

There is now less class and elegance in this sad old world. She lived a long and beautiful life, and we were the beneficiaries.

[bschneid76]

Posted: 4/19/07 at 9:21am

I do so agree Phil. I had the pleasure of meeting and shaking hands with Ms. Hart at the premiere of The Golden Age of Broadway, and I told her how much I adored her on To Tell The Truth and she chimed back with "You're too young to know To Tell The Truth" but it was a magical evening for me. She will be missed.

[holdmetouchme]

Posted: 4/19/07 at 5:18pm

The last Grande Dame. They don't make 'em like her any more.