Kitty Carlisle Hart (1910-2007)
For people of a certain age (we know who we are), “To Tell the Truth” was must see TV.
The prime-time CBS game show featured three contestants who all claimed to be the same person. With host Bud Collyer at the helm, celebrity panelists asked the contestants questions to determine which was telling the truth. “To Tell the Truth” ran from 1956 to 1967 and included panelists such as Polly Bergen, Johnny Carson, Bill Cullen and Don Ameche, but it was Kitty Carlisle who caught my young eye because she was drop-dead gorgeous, well spoken and very funny.
Carlisle Hart, who died this week at age 96 after a long bout with pneumonia, parlayed those assets into a diverse career that included cabaret and opera, Broadway shows and film. Her best known role was Rosa Castaldi in “A Night at the Opera,” the 1935 Marx Brothers Classic.
Her late husband was Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Moss Hart, who wrote “You Can’t Take It With You” and “The Man Who Came to Dinner” with George S. Kaufman and won a Tony for directing “My Fair Lady” on Broadway.
More here.
UPDATE: Also be sure to read The Glittering Eye HERE which also posts a clip of her singing.
3 Responses to “Kitty Carlisle Hart (1910-2007)”
Oh damn- she was great. She and Brett Somers- from the old Match Game, were my two favorite game show celebs. Well, at least female- Richard Dawson and Charles Nelson Reilly and Paul Lynde were great, too.
Ah, the good old days.
Life was so calm, by comparison. We were watching harmless game shows instead screaming hate mongers. We could discuss plays and authors instead of obsessing about politics. And we could see the grace of Kitty Carlisle instead of the current crop of crazies entertaining us.
Thanks for a pleasant moment down memory lane.
As a man of a certain age (I was born in 1951), I well remember Kitty Carlisle. Aside from my mother, the first women whom I fell in love with were Kitty Carlisle, Dorothy Kilgallen and Betsy Palmer. I also had a thing for Carol Burnette who I first remember from the old “Gary Moore Show.”