Kitty Carlisle

Lovely Kitty Carlisle in a glittering glamour sitting from 1934. She was born Catherine Conn on September 3, 1910 in New Orleans, Louisiana. 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 well as the musical comedies "White Horse Inn" (1936) and "Three Waltzes" (1937). 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). She again returned to her theatre roots, appearing in "French Without Tears" and "The Night of January 16th" in 1938. She then went on to grace a number of 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). Carlisle became a household name through “To Tell the Truth”, where she was a regular panellist from 1956 to 1978, and later appeared on revivals of the series in 1980, 1990–91 and one episode in 2000. She 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”. 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. 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 also widely performed her one-woman show, in which she told anecdotes about the great men of American musical theatre she had known, notably George Gershwin (who she dated in 1933), Irving Berlin, Kurt Weill, Oscar Hammerstein, and interspersed with songs that had made each of them famous. For her contributions to the film industry, Carlisle was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Carlisle passed away on April 17, 2007, from congestive heart failure resulting from a prolonged bout of pneumonia (aged 97).

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