Kitty Bruce, the daughter of comedian Lenny Bruce and Harriett “Honey” Bruce, died May 13 in Pittston, Pennsylvania, following complications from a surgical procedure, her family confirmed to Variety. She was 70.
“On November 7, 1955, Kitty was born into a life that was anything but ordinary — from her very first days she entered a world already in motion, complicated, loud, and very public, shaped by forces larger than most people ever encounter,” her family wrote in a statement. “What is remarkable is not that she survived them, but what she chose to do because of them. She chose compassion. She chose service. She chose love.”
Bruce founded Lenny’s House, a sober living recovery home for women with substance use disorder that provided residents with treatment, counseling, shelter, sustenance, and critical life skills. Bruce established the nonprofit organization the Lenny Bruce Memorial Foundation in 2008, dedicated to providing lifesaving scholarships for individuals afflicted with substance use disorder. (Her father, Lenny, died of a drug overdose at 40.)
“These two endeavors were a natural extension of who Kitty was at her core: a woman driven by an abiding and unstoppable compassion for those who had nowhere else to turn,” her family wrote.
