Even into her mid-90s Miss Carlisle was indefatigable. “As she reminisced onstage, telling anecdotes that were just salty enough to suggest the foibles of the numerous legends she knew without toppling them, Broadway was ‘the American musical thea-tah,’ a term she trilled with the zest of a schoolgirl. She made you believe that the dazzling world of famous composers, directors, politicians and show folk in which moved constituted an exclusive place of ultimate glamour and civility that has now vanished.”