Georgiana Carhart

Georgiana Powers Carhart was an American mezzo-soprano opera singer, born on May 17, 1865, in Baltimore, Maryland. She later became known as a radio and television personality, and her career spanned several decades across the stage, broadcasting, and public life.

Carhart made her New York stage debut in 1893 at the Casino Theatre, appearing opposite Guy Standing in La Folote. Her stage work also included productions of Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore and Patience. In 1900, she appeared on Broadway in the musical Mam'selle 'Awkins, as well as in La Folote. From 1901 to 1911, she lived and performed in Dresden, Germany, before returning to the United States and retiring from the stage.

In her personal life, Carhart married Carrington E. Carhart of the Kansas City Times in the 1870s; he died in 1917. During the 1890s, she had an affair with the married music critic James Gibbons Huneker, who wrote that she "was the only female voice I've ever heard that could bring tears to my eyes."

Beginning in 1947, Carhart became a regular panelist on Life Begins at Eighty, a program that originated on radio before moving to television. The show was hosted by Jack Barry and featured a panel of octogenarians discussing a wide range of topics with candor. Carhart was noted on the program for her quick wit and flirtatiousness, qualities that brought her renewed public recognition late in her life.

She died on March 2, 1959, at the Mary Manning Walsh Home in Manhattan, at the age of 93.