Kitty Bruce Dies at 70, Preserving Lenny Bruce's Archive and Pardon Campaign

1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · May 22

Kitty Bruce died May 13 in a Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, hospital at 70 from complications of double knee replacement surgery, according to her cousin Jennifer Coleman Hesson.
For decades, she served as the chief steward of her father Lenny Bruce’s legacy, building an archive of his life and work at Brandeis University and helping produce a boxed set of recordings.
She also backed the successful push for a governor’s pardon of his obscenity conviction, a case tied to the comedian’s battles over First Amendment limits in the 1950s and 1960s.
Living in Pittston, Pennsylvania, for more than 35 years, Bruce ran a foundation for addiction recovery after her own treatment there and had been sober for 20 years.
Her preservation work gathered tapes and documents from her home attic into a collection Brandeis acquired in 2014 with support from the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation.

With his 'keeper of the legacy' gone, what is the future for Lenny Bruce's controversial estate?

How did Kitty Bruce transform the trauma of her father's addiction into a foundation that saved others?

As a play revives his trial, what does her death mean for his free speech fight today?