Kitty Carlisle Hart dies; was actress, arts advocate

NEW YORK (AP) -- Kitty Carlisle Hart, whose long career spanned Broadway, opera, television and film, including the classic Marx Brothers movie "A Night at the Opera," has died at age 96, her son said Wednesday. Christopher Hart said his mother had been in and out of the hospital since contracting pneumonia over the Christmas holidays.
Hart had appeared from 1956 to 1967 on the popular game show "To Tell the Truth" as a celebrity panelist.
The entertainer was also a tireless advocate for the arts, serving 20 years on the New York State Council on the Arts. In 1991, she received the National Medal of Arts from the first President Bush.
Well known for her starring role as Rosa Castaldi in the 1935 movie "A Night at the Opera," her other film credits included: "She Loves Me Not" and "Here Is My Heart," both opposite Bing Crosby; Woody Allen's "Radio Days"; and "Six Degrees of Separation."
She began her acting career on Broadway in "Champagne Sec," and went on to appear in many other Broadway productions, including the 1984 revival of "On Your Toes."
She made her operatic debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1967 in "Die Fledermaus," and created the role of Lucretia in the American premiere of Benjamin Britten's "Rape of Lucretia."
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