Kitty Carlisle Hart

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Kitty Carlisle in Die Fledermaus, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1933

Kitty Carlisle Hart (also billed as Kitty Carlisle) (born September 3, 1910) is a United States singer, actress, and spokeswoman for the arts. She is best known from being a regular panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth.

She was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and named Catherine Conn (the surname was pronounced Cohen); her family was of German Jewish heritage. Her father, Dr. Joseph Conn, was a gynecologist who died when she was ten. Her mother was Hortense Holtzman, a daughter of the first Jewish mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, and a woman notoriously obsessed with breaking into Gentile society. (As Hortense Conn once said to a taxi driver who asked if her daughter was Jewish, "She may be, but I'm not.") Taken to Europe in 1921 -- Hortense Conn hoped to marry her daughter off to European royalty, believing them more amenable to a Jewish bride, and only ended up flitting around Europe and living in what her daughter recalled as "the worst room of the best hotel" -- she was educated in New Orleans and Switzerland (École Mont Choisi in Lausanne), then at the Sorbonne and the London School of Economics. She studied acting in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

After returning to New York in 1932 with her mother, she got her acting start in America at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania. She appeared, billed as Kitty Carlisle, on Broadway in several operettas and musical comedies, and in the American premiere of Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia. For a brief moment, she considered taking the stage name Kitty Vere de Vere.

Her early movies included Murder at the Vanities (1934), A Night at the Opera (1935) with the Marx Brothers, and two films with Bing Crosby.

She became a household name through To Tell the Truth, where she was a regular panelist for some 20 years, appearing on each version from 1956 to 2002. Carlisle also appeared as a frequent panelist on the 1968 revival of What's My Line?. During this period, ever conscious of her image she was always alert to fashion and was an early patron of Scaasi:

At Wednesday night's Broadway salute to the New York City Mission Society on its 175th anniversary at Avery Fisher Hall, the fan-bodice Scaasis unfurled again. At least one of them did, a turquoise number on Kitty Carlisle Hart, who said she's been Scaasified ever since the designer dressed her for the London opening of My Fair Lady.^[1]

Kitty Carlisle as a guest panelist on What's My Line?

She married playwright Moss Hart on August 10, 1946. He died December 21, 1961. They had two children.

On December 31, 1966, she made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera, as Prince Orlofsky in Strauss's Die Fledermaus. She sang the role ten more times that season, then returned in 1973 for four more performances. Her final performance with the company was on July 7, 1973.

Known for her gracious manners and personal elegance, late in life she became prominent in social circles of New York City as she crusaded for financial support of the arts. She was appointed to various state-wide councils, and was chairman of the New York State Council of the Arts for 20 years. She also served on the boards of various New York City cultural institutions.

She resumed her acting late in life, appearing in Woody Allen's Radio Days and in Six Degrees of Separation, as well as on stage in a revival of On Your Toes. In recent years, she has been linked romantically to financier and art collector Roy Neuberger. Though nearing her centenary, she still tours and performs with gusto; her act consists of anecdotes about the many great men in American musical theatre history that she has known, notably George Gershwin who proposed marriage (according to a recent interview in American Heritage magazine), Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, Oscar Hammerstein, and Frederick Loewe, interspersed with a few of the songs that made each one famous.

1 Theatre
2 Films
3 Television
4 Cultural activities
5 Book
6 Trivia
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Theatre

Champagne, Sec - 1933 (an operetta)
White Horse Inn - 1936 (a musical comedy)
Three Waltzes - 1937
Walk With Music - 1940
The Rape of Lucretia - 1948 (Benjamin Britten's opera)
Anniversary Waltz - 1954
Die Fledermaus - 1967 (as Prince Orlofsky at the Metropolitan Opera)
On Your Toes - 1983

[edit] Films

Murder at the Vanities - 1934
She Loves Me Not - 1934 (with Bing Crosby)
Here Is My Heart - 1934 (with Bing Crosby)
A Night at the Opera - 1935 (with the Marx Brothers)
Larceny with Music - 1943
Radio Days - 1987
Six Degrees of Separation - 1992

[edit] Television

What's My Line? - Guest panelist on both the CBS and the syndicated versions
To Tell the Truth - Panelist, 1956-68, 1969-78, 1980-81, 1990-91, 2000
Kojak: "Flowers for Matty" - 1990

[edit] Cultural activities

vice chairman of the New York State Council of the Arts 1971-1976
chairman of the New York State Council of the Arts - 1976 - abt 1996
chairman emeritus of the New York State Council of the Arts
board member of Empire State College
Honorary trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Honorary trustee of the Museum of Modern Art
board member of the Center for Arts Education
chairman of the New York Statewide Conference of Women
special consultant to Governor Nelson Rockefeller on Women's Opportunities.

[edit] Book

Kitty: An Autobiography

[edit] Trivia

Many souces have listed an incorrect date of birth. Her correct date of birth is, in fact, 1910. However there are souces that have said she was born in 1906, another lists 1926, and one other lists her date of birth as early as 1899, making her 106 years old.

[edit] References

^ The Evening Hours by Michael Gross, May 15, 1987, New York Times online retrieved June 29, 2006

[edit] External links

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