This is a weekly feature on BroadwayLiving.com.
It’s just like the game “Six Degrees
of Kevin Bacon”. You know how it goes…someone
throws out an actor’s name and you have to
try to connect them to Kevin Bacon in six steps or
less.
I thought it might be fun to do the same thing with
the theater’s luminaries. I will be trying
to connect them to the longest running show in Broadway
history, The Phantom of the Opera and its very first “Phantom”,
Michael Crawford.
Broadway dimmed its lights this week to honor the
passing of Kitty Carlisle Hart. Mrs. Hart wore many
hats in her lifetime: actress, opera singer, game-show
panelist & government official. Her Broadway
debut was in the operetta, Champagne, Sec, an adaptation
of Strauss’ Die Fledermaus. After a short stint
in Hollywood on contract with Paramount Pictures
she returned to Broadway and operetta. While in Boston
doing a production of Lehar’s The Merry Widow
she came to the attention of Decca Records president,
Jack Kapp. What followed were a series of studio
cast recordings featuring Mrs. Hart (The Merry Widow,
Roberta, The Desert Song). She also helped Kapp in
a pinch by appearing on the cast album of Song of
Norway when original cast member, Irra Petina, was
unable to appear due to contractual obligations.
In 1946 Ms. Carlisle married playwright and director,
Moss Hart. Together they had two children. Kitty
was a regular panelist on several game shows in the ‘50s
and ‘60s (Who Said That?, I’ve Got a
Secret, What’s Going On) but it was her 20
year association with To Tell the Truth that brought
her notoriety beyond any she had known in the theater
world. In 1976 she became chairman of the New York
State Council on the Arts, a position she served
into the ‘90s.
Alright, here goes:
1) Kitty Carlisle Hart made her only non-singing
Broadway appearance in Anniversary Waltz with Warren
Berlinger (which was directed by her husband)
2) Warren Berlinger appeared in the short lived A
Broadway Musical with Irving Allen Lee
3) Irving Allen Lee did the ’86 Revival of
Sweet Charity with Jan Horvath
4) Jan Horvath was the original Innkeeper’s
Wife in “Don Juan Triumphant” in The
Phantom of the Opera with Michael Crawford
So that’s the game. Join me each week as I
try to come up with new ways of connecting Michael
Crawford to the entire theater community.
