Kitty Carlisle

About Kitty Carlisle

Who is it?: Actress, Soundtrack
Birth Day: September 03, 1910
Birth Place:  New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Died On: April 17, 2007(2007-04-17) (aged 96)\nManhattan, New York City, New York, U.S.
Birth Sign: Libra
Cause of death: Congestive heart failure
Resting place: Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, New York
Other names: Kitty Carlisle Hart
Education: Chateau Mont-Choisi
Alma mater: University of Paris London School of Economics Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Occupation: Actress, singer, spokeswoman
Years active: 1932–2006
Spouse(s): Moss Hart (m. 1946; his death 1961)
Children: 2

Kitty Carlisle Net Worth

Kitty Carlisle was born on September 03, 1910 in  New Orleans, Louisiana, United States, is Actress, Soundtrack. Kitty Carlisle Hart wore a cloak of many professional and elegant colors. Actress, opera singer, Broadway performer, TV celebrity, game show panelist, patron of the arts, and, at age 95, this vital woman continued her six-decade musical odyssey with songs and reminisces in her one-woman show: "Kitty Carlisle Hart: An American Icon," which toured from her beloved New York to Los Angeles. She developed pneumonia soon after her tour folded toward the end of 2006 and passed away of congestive heart failure in April of 2007.Kitty Carlisle Hart was born Catherine Conn (pronounced "Cohen") on September 3, 1910 in New Orleans, Louisiana, to a family of German Jewish ancestry. Her father, Dr. Joseph Conn, was a gynecologist who died when she was only ten. Her very ambitious mother, Hortense (Holzman), escorted Kitty to Europe in 1921 with the intentions of marrying her off, Grace Kelly-style, into European royalty. When that plan didn't pan out, they stayed in Europe where Kitty received her adult education in Switzerland, London, Paris and Rome. She finally zeroed in on her acting career after being accepted into London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and also went on to train at the Theatre de l'Atelier in Paris.She and her mother eventually returned to New York in 1932 wherein she first apprenticed with the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania. She attracted notice quite early in her career. Billed as Kitty Carlisle, she found radio work and made her first appearance on the musical stage in the title role of "Rio Rita." The legitimately-trained singer went on to appear in a number of operettas, including 1933's "Champagne Sec" (as Prince Orlofsky), as well as the musical comedies "White Horse Inn" (1936) and "Three Waltzes" (1937).Her early ingénue movie career included warbling in the musical mystery Murder at the Vanities (1934), and alongside Allan Jones amidst the zany goings-on of the Marx Brothers in the classic farce A Night at the Opera (1935). She also played a love interest to Bing Crosby's in two of his lesser known musical outings Here Is My Heart (1934) and She Loves Me Not (1934).Films were not her strong suit, however, and she returned to her theatre roots. Appearing in her first dramatic productions "French Without Tears" and "The Night of January 16th" in 1938, she went on to grace a number of chic and stylish plays and musicals throughout the 40s, including "Walk with Music (1940), "The Merry Widow" (1943, "Design for Living (1943) and "There's Always Juliet" (1944). She subsequently performed in Benjamin Britten's 1948 American premiere of "The Rape of Lucretia." In 1946, she married Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Moss Hart and appeared in a number of his works including his classic "The Man Who Came to Dinner" (1949) and the witty Broadway comedy "Anniversary Waltz" (1954). The couple had two children. He died in 1961 and she never remarried, spending much of her existing time keeping his name alive to future generations.It was the small screen that would make Kitty a welcome household commodity. The steadfast panelist of several quiz shows in the 1950s, it was the popular game show To Tell the Truth (1956) that anointed her game show doyenne and icon. A regular panelist for some 20 years, she appeared on each and every revamped format from its 1956 inception to its 2002 syndicated version. Known for her stately presence, infectious laugh, pouffy dark Prince Valiant hairstyle, and sweeping couture gowns on the show, audiences reveled at her effortless class to these simple parlor games. She also was a substitute panelist for other popular game shows such as "What's My Line?" and "I've Got a Secret."In later years, she became an important society maven of New York City, an avid patron and zealous supporter of the performing arts. Appointed to various state-wide councils, she was chairman of the New York State Council of the Arts in 1976 and served in that capacity for 20 years, also serving on the boards of various New York City cultural institutions. A noted lecturer, the civic-minded Carlisle Hart was active in administrative capacities as well, notably as Chairman of Governor Rockefeller's Conference on Woman (1966) and as special consultant to the Governor on women's opportunities. At one time she wrote the column "Kitty's Calendar" for Women's Unit News.Kitty never stopped entertaining. Making her Metropolitan debut on New Year's Eve 1966 as Prince Orlovsky in "Die Fledermaus," she joined the touring production the following year. She appeared in concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra and appeared with the Boston Opera Company at one point. She added stature to a number of summer stock plays including "Kiss Me Kate," "The Marriage-Go-Round" and her husband's "Light Up the Sky." Returning to Broadway as a replacement for Dina Merrill in the 1983 revival of "On Your Toes," she was later spotted in Woody Allen's Radio Days (1987) and Six Degrees of Separation (1993).Carlisle penned her autobiography, Kitty, in 1984.
Kitty Carlisle is a member of Actress

💰 Net worth: Under Review

Some Kitty Carlisle images

Biography/Timeline

1921

Carlisle's early education took place in New Orleans. In 1921, she was taken to Europe, where her mother hoped to marry her off to European royalty, believing the nobility there more amenable to a Jewish bride – only to end up flitting around Europe and often living in what Carlisle recalled as "the worst room of the best hotel." Carlisle was educated at the Chateau Mont-Choisi 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.

1932

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.

1934

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.

1946

Late in 1933, Kitty Carlisle dated George Gershwin, "until George went to California". Carlisle married Playwright and theatrical Producer Moss Hart on August 10, 1946, the two having met as actors at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania. The couple had two children. Hart died on December 20, 1961, at their home in Palm Springs, California. Carlisle never remarried, but briefly dated former governor and presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey after the death of his wife.

1950

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

1956

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?

1960

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.

1966

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.

1976

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 1976-1996, 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 (Paul Lynde was coronated King the same year). The Egg, a notable Mid-century modern structure at Albany, New York's Empire State Plaza, was also renamed in her honor.

1980

During the 1980s and 1990s, Kitty Hart was the partner of diplomatic Historian Ivo John Lederer, and their relationship lasted 16 years until Lederer's death in 1998. In her later years, she kept company with the financier and art collector Roy Neuberger. She also widely performed her one-woman show in which she told anecdotes about the many great men in American musical theatre history whom she had personally known, notably George Gershwin who had proposed marriage (according to an interview in American Heritage magazine), 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.

2003

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

2006

In 2006, Carlisle performed at Feinstein's at the Regency in New York City; in St. Louis, Missouri; Phoenix, Arizona; Atlanta, Georgia; and at the famed Plush Room in San Francisco. According to her official website, her appearances in Atlanta in November 2006 were her last public performances. In December 2006, she made her final public appearance as the special Celebrity guest for the annual Noël Coward Society birthday tribute in which she laid flowers in front of Coward's statue at The Gershwin Theatre in New York City.

2007

Carlisle died on April 17, 2007, from congestive heart failure resulting from a prolonged bout of pneumonia. She had been in and out of the hospital since she contracted pneumonia some time prior to November 2006. She died in her 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.