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Kitty Carlisle

April 10, 2023

Kitty Carlisle Hart (born Catherine Conn; September 3, 1910 – April 17, 2007)[1][2] was an American stage and screen actress, singer, television personality and spokeswoman for the arts. She was the leading lady in the Marx Brothers movie A Night at the Opera (1935) and was a regular panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth (1956-1978). She served 20 years on the New York State Council on the Arts.

Kitty Carlisle
Photograph by Carl Van Vechten, 1933
Born
Catherine Conn

(1910-09-03)September 3, 1910
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
DiedApril 17, 2007(2007-04-17) (aged 96)[1][2]
Upper East Side, Manhattan, New York, U.S.
Resting placeFerncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, New York
Other namesKitty Carlisle Hart
Alma materUniversity of Paris
London School of Economics
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Occupations
  • Actress
  • singer
  • TV personality
  • spokesman
Years active1932–2006
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1946; died 1961)​
Children2

In 1991, she received the National Medal of Arts from President George H. W. Bush. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1999.[3]

Early life

Kitty Carlisle was born as Catherine Conn (pronounced Cohen) in New Orleans, Louisiana, of German-Jewish heritage. Her grandfather, Ben Holzman, was the mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, and a Confederate veteran of the American Civil War. He had been a gunner on the CSS Virginia, the Confederate ironclad warship that fought the USS Monitor at the Battle of Hampton Roads. Her father, Joseph Conn, MD, was a gynecologist who died when she was ten years old. Her mother, Hortense Holzman Conn, was eager for her daughter to be accepted by local society. A taxi driver once asked if her daughter was Jewish, and she answered, "She may be, but I'm not."[4]

Carlisle's mother took her to Europe in 1921, where she hoped Kitty would marry European royalty, believing that nobility were more likely to marry a Jewish girl. The two traveled around Europe and often lived in what Carlisle recalled as "the worst room of the best hotel". Kitty was educated at the Château Mont-Choisi [de] in Lausanne, Switzerland, then at the Sorbonne and the London School of Economics. She studied acting in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.[5] She studied singing with Estelle Liebling, the teacher of Beverly Sills, in New York City.[6]

Career

Acting

 
1935 lobby card for film starring Carlisle

After returning to New York in 1932 with her mother, 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. She also sang the title role in Georges Bizet's Carmen in Salt Lake City. She privately studied voice with Juilliard teacher Anna E. Schoen-Rene, who had been a student of Pauline Viardot-Garcia and Manuel Garcia.[7]

Carlisle's 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 Loves Me Not (1934) and Here Is My Heart (1934). Carlisle resumed her film career later in life, appearing in Woody Allen's Radio Days (1987) and in Six Degrees of Separation (1993), as well as on stage in a revival of On Your Toes, replacing Dina Merrill. Her last movie appearance was in Catch Me If You Can (2002) in which she played herself in a dramatization of a 1970s To Tell the Truth episode.

For her contributions to the film industry, Carlisle was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 with a motion pictures star located at 6611 Hollywood Boulevard.[8]

Television

In the early 1950s, Carlisle was an occasional panelist on the NBC game show, Who Said That?, in which celebrities tried to determine the speaker of quotations taken from recent news reports.

Carlisle became a household name through To Tell the Truth, where she was a regular panelist from 1956 to 1978, and later appeared on revivals of the series in 1980, 1990–91 and one episode in 2000. (One of her most notable hallmarks was her writing of the number one: When she voted for the member of the team of challengers who occupied the number one seat, it was written with a Roman numeral I.) She was also a semi-regular panelist on Password, Match Game, Missing Links, and What's My Line?

Opera

On December 31, 1966, Carlisle made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera, as Prince Orlofsky in Strauss's Die Fledermaus. She sang the role 10 more times that season, then returned in 1973 for four more performances. Her final performance with the company was on July 7, 1973. She reprised this role during the Beverly Sills Farewell Gala in October 1980.

Personal life

 
Carlisle in 2000

Carlisle dated George Gershwin in 1933 "until George went to California".[9] On August 10, 1946, she married playwright and theatrical producer Moss Hart, whom she met at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania.[10][11] They had two children. Hart died on December 20, 1961, at their home in Palm Springs, California.[12] She never remarried, although she briefly dated former governor and presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey after the death of his wife. During the 1980s and 1990s, Carlisle was the partner of diplomatic historian Ivo John Lederer, a relationship that lasted 16 years until Lederer's death in 1998. In her later years, she kept company with financier and art collector Roy Neuberger.[13]

Carlisle was known for her gracious manner and personal elegance, and she became prominent in New York City social circles as she crusaded for financial support of the arts. She was appointed to various statewide councils, and was chairman of the New York State Council on the Arts from 1976 to 1996. One of the two state theaters housed at The Egg performing arts venue in Albany is named the Kitty Carlisle Hart Theatre in her honor.[14] She also served on the boards of various New York City cultural institutions and made an appearance at the annual CIBC World Markets Miracle Day, a children's charity event. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997.[15]

She also widely performed her one-woman show in which she told anecdotes about the many great men in American musical theater history whom she had known, notably George Gershwin (who had proposed marriage),[16] Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, Oscar Hammerstein, Alan Jay Lerner, and Frederick Loewe, interspersed with a few of the songs that made each of them famous.

Historic preservation

Carlisle Hart was a longtime champion of Historic Preservation in New York City and State. While chair of the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) from 1976 to 1996, Mrs. Hart directed many millions of dollars in support to preservation projects from the Niagara Frontier to Staten Island, in an effort to keep historic preservation as a core program of the New York State Council on the Arts, the only arts council in America that provides such funding. In 1980, she was crowned Queen of the Beaux Arts Ball, an annual event run by the Beaux Arts Society (American comedian Paul Lynde was crowned King the same year).[17]

In recognition of this legacy, the Historic Districts Council bestowed its Landmarks Lion award upon her in 2003.[18]

Death

Carlisle died on April 17, 2007, from congestive heart failure resulting from a prolonged bout of pneumonia.[19] She had been in and out of the hospital since she contracted pneumonia some time prior to November 2006. She died in her Upper East Side,[20] Manhattan apartment, with her son, Christopher Hart, at her bedside. She was interred in a crypt next to her husband, Moss Hart, at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.[citation needed]

Theatre credits

Filmography

Television

Cultural activities

Bibliography

  • Carlisle, Kitty (1988). Kitty: An Autobiography. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-24425-8. OCLC 18070708.
  • Kennedy, Harold J. (1978). No Pickle, No Performance. An Irreverent Theatrical Excursion from Tallulah to Travolta. New York: Doubleday.

References

  1. ^ a b . Townhall.com. April 18, 2007. Archived from the original on September 29, 2008. Retrieved April 18, 2007.
  2. ^ a b Barnes, Steve (April 19, 2007). "Theater world loses more than an actress: Kitty Carlisle Hart, champion of the arts in New York, dies at 96". Albany Times Union. Retrieved April 19, 2007.[dead link]
  3. ^ "On Stage: New class of theater hall of famers". Old.post-gazette.com. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  4. ^ Teicholz, Tom (July 1, 2005). . The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles. Archived from the original on May 16, 2006. Retrieved June 24, 2019.
  5. ^ Bernstein, Adam. "Kitty Carlisle Hart, 96; Singer, Arts Advocate", The Washington Post, April 19, 2007.
  6. ^ "Estelle Liebling Dies Here at 90; Was a Leading Operatic Coach". The New York Times. September 26, 1970.
  7. ^ Juilliard Archives: Anna E.Schoen-Rene scrapbooks
  8. ^ . walkoffame.com. Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. Archived from the original on April 3, 2016. Retrieved February 11, 2018.
  9. ^ Feinstein, Michael; Jackman, Ian (2012). The Gershwins and me : a personal history in twelve songs (First Simon & Schuster hardcover ed.). New York: Simon et Schuster. p. 173. ISBN 978-1451645309.
  10. ^ "Moss Hart And Kitty Carlisle", photograph of wedding of Hart and Carlisle on August 10, 1946, New Hope, Pennsylvania. Underwood Archives, Getty Images, Seattle, Washington. Retrieved November 3, 2019.
  11. ^ . Bucks County Playhouse. Archived from the original on February 10, 2007. Retrieved April 19, 2007.
  12. ^ Wallace, David (2008). . Fort Lee, NJ: Barricade. p. 163. ISBN 978-1569803493. LCCN 2008022210. OCLC 209646547. Archived from the original on June 17, 2013.
  13. ^ The passionate collector: eighty years in the world of art, by Roy R. Neuberger, Alfred Connable, Roma Connable
  14. ^ "Facilities & Rentals". The Egg. February 25, 2015. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  15. ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter H" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved July 25, 2014.
  16. ^ Holzer, Harold (February–March 2005). . American Heritage. Archived from the original on November 20, 2008.
  17. ^ . Archived from the original on September 14, 2016.
  18. ^ . Historic Districts Council. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved December 31, 2015.
  19. ^ . International Herald Tribune. Associated Press. April 18, 2007. Archived from the original on May 6, 2007. Retrieved April 18, 2007.
  20. ^ Alexander, Ron (September 21, 1988). "Kitty Carlisle Hart Reflects". The New York Times. Retrieved March 5, 2019.
  21. ^ "Wit & Wisdom — Off-Broadway | Tickets, Reviews, Info and More". Theatermania.com. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
  22. ^ . Archived from the original on September 14, 2016.
  23. ^ "George Foster Peabody Awards Board Members". The Peabody Awards. Retrieved December 15, 2015.

External links

April 10, 2023
kitty, carlisle, hart, born, catherine, conn, september, 1910, april, 2007, american, stage, screen, actress, singer, television, personality, spokeswoman, arts, leading, lady, marx, brothers, movie, night, opera, 1935, regular, panelist, television, game, sho. Kitty Carlisle Hart born Catherine Conn September 3 1910 April 17 2007 1 2 was an American stage and screen actress singer television personality and spokeswoman for the arts She was the leading lady in the Marx Brothers movie A Night at the Opera 1935 and was a regular panelist on the television game show To Tell the Truth 1956 1978 She served 20 years on the New York State Council on the Arts Kitty CarlislePhotograph by Carl Van Vechten 1933BornCatherine Conn 1910 09 03 September 3 1910New Orleans Louisiana U S DiedApril 17 2007 2007 04 17 aged 96 1 2 Upper East Side Manhattan New York U S Resting placeFerncliff Cemetery Hartsdale New YorkOther namesKitty Carlisle HartAlma materUniversity of ParisLondon School of Economics Royal Academy of Dramatic ArtOccupationsActresssingerTV personalityspokesmanYears active1932 2006SpouseMoss Hart m 1946 died 1961 wbr Children2In 1991 she received the National Medal of Arts from President George H W Bush She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1999 3 Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 2 1 Acting 2 2 Television 2 3 Opera 3 Personal life 3 1 Historic preservation 4 Death 5 Theatre credits 6 Filmography 6 1 Television 7 Cultural activities 8 Bibliography 9 References 10 External linksEarly life EditKitty Carlisle was born as Catherine Conn pronounced Cohen in New Orleans Louisiana of German Jewish heritage Her grandfather Ben Holzman was the mayor of Shreveport Louisiana and a Confederate veteran of the American Civil War He had been a gunner on the CSS Virginia the Confederate ironclad warship that fought the USS Monitor at the Battle of Hampton Roads Her father Joseph Conn MD was a gynecologist who died when she was ten years old Her mother Hortense Holzman Conn was eager for her daughter to be accepted by local society A taxi driver once asked if her daughter was Jewish and she answered She may be but I m not 4 Carlisle s mother took her to Europe in 1921 where she hoped Kitty would marry European royalty believing that nobility were more likely to marry a Jewish girl The two traveled around Europe and often lived in what Carlisle recalled as the worst room of the best hotel Kitty was educated at the Chateau Mont Choisi de in Lausanne Switzerland then at the Sorbonne and the London School of Economics She studied acting in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art 5 She studied singing with Estelle Liebling the teacher of Beverly Sills in New York City 6 Career EditActing Edit 1935 lobby card for film starring Carlisle After returning to New York in 1932 with her mother 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 She also sang the title role in Georges Bizet s Carmen in Salt Lake City She privately studied voice with Juilliard teacher Anna E Schoen Rene who had been a student of Pauline Viardot Garcia and Manuel Garcia 7 Carlisle s 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 Loves Me Not 1934 and Here Is My Heart 1934 Carlisle resumed her film career later in life appearing in Woody Allen s Radio Days 1987 and in Six Degrees of Separation 1993 as well as on stage in a revival of On Your Toes replacing Dina Merrill Her last movie appearance was in Catch Me If You Can 2002 in which she played herself in a dramatization of a 1970s To Tell the Truth episode For her contributions to the film industry Carlisle was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 with a motion pictures star located at 6611 Hollywood Boulevard 8 Television Edit In the early 1950s Carlisle was an occasional panelist on the NBC game show Who Said That in which celebrities tried to determine the speaker of quotations taken from recent news reports Carlisle became a household name through To Tell the Truth where she was a regular panelist from 1956 to 1978 and later appeared on revivals of the series in 1980 1990 91 and one episode in 2000 One of her most notable hallmarks was her writing of the number one When she voted for the member of the team of challengers who occupied the number one seat it was written with a Roman numeral I She was also a semi regular panelist on Password Match Game Missing Links and What s My Line Opera Edit On December 31 1966 Carlisle made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera as Prince Orlofsky in Strauss s Die Fledermaus She sang the role 10 more times that season then returned in 1973 for four more performances Her final performance with the company was on July 7 1973 She reprised this role during the Beverly Sills Farewell Gala in October 1980 Personal life Edit Carlisle in 2000 Carlisle dated George Gershwin in 1933 until George went to California 9 On August 10 1946 she married playwright and theatrical producer Moss Hart whom she met at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope Pennsylvania 10 11 They had two children Hart died on December 20 1961 at their home in Palm Springs California 12 She never remarried although she briefly dated former governor and presidential candidate Thomas E Dewey after the death of his wife During the 1980s and 1990s Carlisle was the partner of diplomatic historian Ivo John Lederer a relationship that lasted 16 years until Lederer s death in 1998 In her later years she kept company with financier and art collector Roy Neuberger 13 Carlisle was known for her gracious manner and personal elegance and she became prominent in New York City social circles as she crusaded for financial support of the arts She was appointed to various statewide councils and was chairman of the New York State Council on the Arts from 1976 to 1996 One of the two state theaters housed at The Egg performing arts venue in Albany is named the Kitty Carlisle Hart Theatre in her honor 14 She also served on the boards of various New York City cultural institutions and made an appearance at the annual CIBC World Markets Miracle Day a children s charity event She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997 15 She also widely performed her one woman show in which she told anecdotes about the many great men in American musical theater history whom she had known notably George Gershwin who had proposed marriage 16 Irving Berlin Kurt Weill Oscar Hammerstein Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe interspersed with a few of the songs that made each of them famous Historic preservation Edit Carlisle Hart was a longtime champion of Historic Preservation in New York City and State While chair of the New York State Council on the Arts NYSCA from 1976 to 1996 Mrs Hart directed many millions of dollars in support to preservation projects from the Niagara Frontier to Staten Island in an effort to keep historic preservation as a core program of the New York State Council on the Arts the only arts council in America that provides such funding In 1980 she was crowned Queen of the Beaux Arts Ball an annual event run by the Beaux Arts Society American comedian Paul Lynde was crowned King the same year 17 In recognition of this legacy the Historic Districts Council bestowed its Landmarks Lion award upon her in 2003 18 Death EditCarlisle died on April 17 2007 from congestive heart failure resulting from a prolonged bout of pneumonia 19 She had been in and out of the hospital since she contracted pneumonia some time prior to November 2006 She died in her Upper East Side 20 Manhattan apartment with her son Christopher Hart at her bedside She was interred in a crypt next to her husband Moss Hart at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale New York citation needed Theatre credits EditChampagne Sec 1933 White Horse Inn 1936 French Without Tears 1936 Three Waltzes 1937 Night of January 16th 1938 Walk With Music 1940 Larceny with Music 1943 The Merry Widow 1943 Design for Living 1943 There s Always Juliet 1944 The Rape of Lucretia 1948 The Man Who Came to Dinner 1949 Anniversary Waltz 1954 Die Fledermaus 1967 You Never Know 1975 On Your Toes 1983 Wit amp Wisdom 2003 21 Filmography EditMurder at the Vanities 1934 She Loves Me Not 1934 Here Is My Heart 1934 A Night at the Opera 1935 Larceny with Music 1943 Hollywood Canteen 1944 Radio Days 1987 Six Degrees of Separation 1993 Catch Me If You Can 2002 cameo Television Edit 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 The Movie Masters Panelist 1989 90 Kojak 1 episode 1990 Beyond Vaudeville Interview January 27 1993 Cultural activities EditVice Chair of the New York State Council of the Arts 1971 1976 Chair of the New York State Council of the Arts 1976 c 1996 Chair 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 Emeritus in Memoriam of The Center for Arts Education Chair of the New York Statewide Conference of Women Special consultant to Governor Nelson Rockefeller on Women s Opportunities Honorary Life Director of the Franklin amp Eleanor Roosevelt Institute FERI Life Member of the Beaux Arts Society Inc 1980 2007 22 Keynote speaker at the San Francisco Art Institute SFAI graduation ceremony 1999 Member of the Peabody Awards Board of Jurors from 1977 to 1983 23 Bibliography EditCarlisle Kitty 1988 Kitty An Autobiography New York Doubleday ISBN 0 385 24425 8 OCLC 18070708 Kennedy Harold J 1978 No Pickle No Performance An Irreverent Theatrical Excursion from Tallulah to Travolta New York Doubleday References Edit a b Actress Kitty Carlisle Hart Dies at 96 Townhall com April 18 2007 Archived from the original on September 29 2008 Retrieved April 18 2007 a b Barnes Steve April 19 2007 Theater world loses more than an actress Kitty Carlisle Hart champion of the arts in New York dies at 96 Albany Times Union Retrieved April 19 2007 dead link On Stage New class of theater hall of famers Old post gazette com Retrieved December 15 2015 Teicholz Tom July 1 2005 Heart to Hart The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles Archived from the original on May 16 2006 Retrieved June 24 2019 Bernstein Adam Kitty Carlisle Hart 96 Singer Arts Advocate The Washington Post April 19 2007 Estelle Liebling Dies Here at 90 Was a Leading Operatic Coach The New York Times September 26 1970 Juilliard Archives Anna E Schoen Rene scrapbooks Hollywood Walk of Fame Kitty Carlisle walkoffame com Hollywood Chamber of Commerce Archived from the original on April 3 2016 Retrieved February 11 2018 Feinstein Michael Jackman Ian 2012 The Gershwins and me a personal history in twelve songs First Simon amp Schuster hardcover ed New York Simon et Schuster p 173 ISBN 978 1451645309 Moss Hart And Kitty Carlisle photograph of wedding of Hart and Carlisle on August 10 1946 New Hope Pennsylvania Underwood Archives Getty Images Seattle Washington Retrieved November 3 2019 A Brief History of the Bucks County Playhouse Bucks County Playhouse Archived from the original on February 10 2007 Retrieved April 19 2007 Wallace David 2008 A City Comes Out Fort Lee NJ Barricade p 163 ISBN 978 1569803493 LCCN 2008022210 OCLC 209646547 Archived from the original on June 17 2013 The passionate collector eighty years in the world of art by Roy R Neuberger Alfred Connable Roma Connable Facilities amp Rentals The Egg February 25 2015 Retrieved December 15 2015 Book of Members 1780 2010 Chapter H PDF American Academy of Arts and Sciences Retrieved July 25 2014 Holzer Harold February March 2005 The 94 Years of Kitty Carlisle Hart American Heritage Archived from the original on November 20 2008 Royal Family Archived from the original on September 14 2016 Landmarks Lion Award 2015 Pride of Lions Historic Districts Council Archived from the original on December 22 2015 Retrieved December 31 2015 Kitty Carlisle Hart actress and advocate of the arts dies at 96 International Herald Tribune Associated Press April 18 2007 Archived from the original on May 6 2007 Retrieved April 18 2007 Alexander Ron September 21 1988 Kitty Carlisle Hart Reflects The New York Times Retrieved March 5 2019 Wit amp Wisdom Off Broadway Tickets Reviews Info and More Theatermania com Retrieved December 15 2015 In Memoriam Archived from the original on September 14 2016 George Foster Peabody Awards Board Members The Peabody Awards Retrieved December 15 2015 External links EditKitty Carlisle at the Internet Broadway Database Kitty Carlisle at Internet Off Broadway Database Kitty Carlisle at IMDb Kitty Carlisle at the TCM Movie Database Moss Hart and Kitty Carlisle Hart Papers at the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research Review Kitty Carlisle Hart s 95th birthday show at Feinstein s at the Regency New York Times Carlisle Kitty Mezzo Soprano Metropolitan Opera Association database Kitty Carlisle 1910 2007 Photographs Magazines Books Virtual History Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Kitty Carlisle amp oldid 1144777326, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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