She also played a love interest to Bing Crosby's in two of his lesser known musical outings Here Is My Heart (1934) and She Loves Me Not (1934).įilms were not her strong suit, however, and she returned to her theatre roots. Her early ingénue movie career included warbling in the musical mystery Murder at the Vanities (1934), and alongside Allan Jones amidst the zany goings-on of the Marx Brothers in the classic farce Вечір в опері (1935). 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 Prince Orlofsky), as well as the musical comedies "White Horse Inn" (1936) and "Three Waltzes" (1937). She attracted notice quite early in her career. She and her mother eventually returned to New York in 1932 wherein she first apprenticed with the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania. ![]() She finally zeroed in on her acting career after being accepted into London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and also went on to train at the Theatre de l'Atelier in Paris. When that plan didn't pan out, they stayed in Europe where Kitty received her adult education in Switzerland, London, Paris and Rome. Her very ambitious mother, Hortense (Holzman), escorted Kitty to Europe in 1921 with the intentions of marrying her off, Grace Kelly-style, into European royalty. Joseph Conn, was a gynecologist who died when she was only ten. Kitty Carlisle Hart was born Catherine Conn (pronounced "Cohen") on Septemin New Orleans, Louisiana, to a family of German Jewish ancestry. She developed pneumonia soon after her tour folded toward the end of 2006 and passed away of congestive heart failure in April of 2007. Actress, opera singer, Broadway performer, TV celebrity, game show panelist, patron of the arts, and, at age 95, this vital woman continued her six-decade musical odyssey with songs and reminisces in her one-woman show: "Kitty Carlisle Hart: An American Icon," which toured from her beloved New York to Los Angeles. The disc is augmented with three tracks drawn from Carlisle's Decca singles, notably a spirited version of "Beat Out Dat Rhythm on a Drum" from Carmen Jones.Kitty Carlisle Hart wore a cloak of many professional and elegant colors. And while the scores are incomplete, especially from a later perspective, they remain a brave early attempt to put the music on record. But Carlisle's voice cuts through easily singing operetta was really the strongest of her many modest skills. The present disc is not licensed legitimately from the copyright holders, and it clearly has been mastered from old records, since the sound is not great. ![]() ![]() Both albums, originally issued as sets of 78s, were reissued on LPs in the 1950s, but otherwise languished in the Decca (later MCA) vaults. Kapp then brought Carlisle and Evans back into the studio to cut a version of the 1926 operetta The Desert Song. The result was the most extensive recording of the score yet attempted. In 1943, Kitty Carlisle appeared in a production of the 38-year-old operetta The Merry Widow in Boston and her notices were good enough to persuade Decca Records president Jack Kapp to undertake a 1944 studio-cast recording using Wilbur Evans, also of the Boston production, and Lisette Verea of a recent New York staging. Box Office Recordings/Encore Productions does operetta fans a favor - even if one that may be legally dicey - by reissuing these two long out-of-print operetta recordings on a single disc.
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