By Stone Martindale Apr 19, 2007, 1:54 GMT
A fixture of American theater, television and film, the singer and actress Kitty Carlisle Hart, whose credits ran the gamut, from Broadway to the Marx Brothers and even television game shows, died on Wednesday at 96, according her Web site.
Hart was the Queen of New York's performing arts, starring in a show of her stories from her life called "I Walk with Music" to celebrate her 96th birthday.
"Singing has made my life, and now that I'm 96 I have had the most wonderful renaissance of my career," she told Reuters last year in an interview. "I do gigs all over the place and they pay me a fortune."
The New Orleans born Carlisle, taken to Switzerland during the influenza epidemic and raised and schooled in theater in London, then returning to New York to make her way in showbiz landed a role in 1935 in the Marx Brothers' comedy "A Night at the Opera."
Later generations knew her as the classy and patrician guest on television's "To Tell the Truth," in the 1950s and 1960s. "What's My Line?" and "I've Got a Secret" had her on their panels too.
Reuters chronicles her rich life, noting her 1946 marriage to writer Moss Hart, who wrote "You Can't Take It With You" with George S. Kaufman. The play earned them a Pulitzer Prize in 1937. He died in 1961 according to Reuters.
Carlisle received many awards, including the National Medal of Arts in 1991. Her autobiography, "Kitty," was published in 1984.
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