Kitty Carlisle Hart, opera, movie star
Submitted by N.O.V.A.
Times Picayune 04-19-2007


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Kitty Carlisle Hart, the New Orleans-born opera singer and actress
who became a television game-show fixture and chairwoman of the New
York State Council on the Arts, died of pneumonia Tuesday in her
Manhattan apartment. She was 96.

She was the last surviving star of the 1935 Marx Brothers romp "A
Night at the Opera" and sang at the Metropolitan Opera, but she was
best known for her stint on television as a panelist on the game
show "To Tell the Truth."

She appeared in movies and nightclubs, and she toured the country in
a one-woman show. She continued performing well into her 90s.

In an Off-Broadway revue three years ago, Mrs. Hart performed a song
by Irving Berlin, a friend whose art decorated her home, as well as
the novelty song "Lime Jell-O Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise."

Mrs. Hart, a New York City resident who had not lived in New Orleans
since her childhood, said her success was due just as much to her
determination as to her talent.

"I wasn't the prettiest girl you ever saw," she wrote in her
autobiography. "I wasn't the best actress, and I certainly wasn't
the finest singer, but with a bit of courage and a dash of self-
discipline, a small talent can go a long, long way."

Mrs. Hart, who was born Catherine Conn, lived in a house on St.
Charles Avenue. An only child, she attended Isidore Newman School
and Louise S. McGehee School. Shortly after her father died of a
heart attack in 1920, her mother sold the house and left town.

Mrs. Hart started acting in 1932, but, she said in her book, she
needed a stage name. She came up with Kitty Carlisle, but she used
it only after a numerologist told her mother the name would be "a
big money-maker." She made her movie debut in 1934 in "Murder at the
Vanities."

She is survived by a son, Christopher Hart; a daughter, Dr.
Catherine Hart; and three grandchildren.