Aug 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Herbert E. Nass, managing partner, Herbert E. Nass & Associates, New York

By: By Herbert E. Nass, managing partner, Herbert E. Nass & Associates, New York

On April 17, 2007, the nation lost a grande dame of the arts and culture: Kitty Carlisle Hart, chair of the New York State Council on the Arts from 1976 to 1996, a woman who had an extraordinarily long and varied career in show business.

Born with the name Catherine Conn (pronounced Cohen) to a Jewish family living in New Orleans, La., in 1910, Kitty was 96 years old when she died in New York City. In between, she appeared in numerous films, including the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera (1935), Woody Allen's Radio Days (1987) and Six Degrees of Separation (1992). She also starred in many Broadway plays and musicals. And she was married to the playwright and director Moss Hart from 1946 until his death in 1961. Moss was famous for such plays as You Can't Take It With You (1936, Pulitzer Prize), The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939), My Fair Lady (1956) and Camelot (1960).

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