Kitty Carlisle (1910–2007)
Author of Kitty
About the Author
Image credit: Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery (image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)
Works by Kitty Carlisle
Associated Works
Murder at the Vanities [1934 film] — Actor — 4 copies
Here is My Heart [1934 film] — Actor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Carlisle, Kitty
- Legal name
- Hart, Kitty Carlisle
- Other names
- Conn, Catherine (birth name)
- Birthdate
- 1910-09-03
- Date of death
- 2007-04-17
- Burial location
- Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, New York, USA
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
- Place of death
- New York, New York, USA
- Places of residence
- New York, New York, USA
- Education
- Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
London School of Economics
Sorbonne
Château Mont-Choisi - Occupations
- actor
television personality
opera singer
patron of the arts - Relationships
- Hart, Moss (husband)
- Awards and honors
- National Medal of Arts (1991)
Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts (1997)
American Theater Hall of Fame (1999)
Hollywood Walk of Fame (1960)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1997) - Short biography
- Kitty Carlisle was born Catherine Conn to a family of German Jewish origin in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her father Joseph Conn, a physician, died when she was 10 years old, and her mother Hortense Holzman Conn then took her to Europe. Kitty traveled with her mother and attended a boarding school in Lausanne, Switzerland; she later studied at the Sorbonne and the London School of Economics. She decided on an acting career when she was accepted by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. In 1932, she returned to the USA to study singing with Estelle Liebling in New York City. Under the name Kitty Carlisle, she got work on the radio and appeared in operettas and musical comedies on Broadway. She also broke into the movies, making pictures that included A Night at the Opera (1935) with the Marx Brothers and two films with Bing Crosby. In 1946, she married playwright and theatrical producer Moss Hart, and appeared in number of his works, including The Man Who Came to Dinner. (1949). The couple had two children. Kitty became a household name as a panelist on the television show To Tell the Truth from 1956 to 1978. She also was a semi-regular panelist on other shows such as Password, Match Game, I've Got a Secret, and What's My Line?
She became an avid patron and supporter of the performing arts and a champion of historic preservation. She served as chair of the New York State Council of the Arts for 20 years, beginning in 1976. She resumed her theatrical career in 1966, making her debut with the Metropolitan Opera as Prince Orlofsky in Strauss's Die Fledermaus. She had the title role of Carmen in Salt Lake City. She toured widely with a one-woman show in which she told anecdotes about many great men in American musical theater history she had known, such as George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, Oscar Hammerstein, Alan Jay Lerner, and Frederick Loewe, interspersed with performing some of their famous songs. She appeared in the films Radio Days (1987) and Six Degrees of Separation (1993), as well as on stage in the 1983 revival of On Your Toes. In 1997, she was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She published Kitty: An Autobiography in 1988.
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Statistics
- Works
- 1
- Also by
- 9
- Members
- 31
- Popularity
- #440,253
- Rating
- 4.0
- Reviews
- 1
- ISBNs
- 3