Kitty Carlisle Hart, R.I.P.

To Tell the Truth, I always liked Kitty Carlisle's appearance in the Marx Brothers' "A Night at the Opera" more than any of the female romantic leads in their other movies. She was talented, smart, pretty, loyal, strong, and a whole bunch of other good things a girl could aspire to being, even after feminism kicked in. And, from what I read about her real life, she was pretty much typecast, there:

In a piece on CBS' "60 Minutes" in 2000, Marie Brenner, author of "Great Dames: What I Learned From Older Women," said: "A great dame is a soldier in high heels. ... They lived through the Depression. They lived through the war. They were tough, intelligent and brassy women."

Hollywood has lost something quietly great.