[Vision2020] Provocative Eartha Kitt Dies

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (December 26, 2008) Spokesman Review -

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Provocative Eartha Kitt dies
Humble start became award-studded career spanning six decades

In this May 12, 1993, file photo, Eartha Kitt performs in Frankfurt, 
Germany.
http://www.spokesman.com/photos/2008/dec/26/65968/
  
NEW YORK – Eartha Kitt, a sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from 
South Carolina cotton fields to become an international symbol of elegance 
and sensuality, has died, a family spokesman said. She was 81.

Andrew Freedman said Kitt, who was recently treated at Columbia 
Presbyterian Hospital, died Thursday in Connecticut of colon cancer.

Kitt, a self-proclaimed “sex kitten” famous for her catlike purr, was one 
of America’s most versatile performers, winning two Emmys and nabbing a 
third nomination. She also was nominated for several Tonys and two Grammys.

Her career spanned six decades, from her start as a dancer with the famed 
Katherine Dunham troupe to cabarets and acting and singing on stage, in 
movies and on television. She persevered through an unhappy childhood as a 
mixed-race daughter of the South and made headlines in the 1960s for 
denouncing the Vietnam War during a visit to the White House.

Through the years, Kitt remained a picture of vitality and attracted fans 
less than half her age even as she neared 80.

When her book “Rejuvenate,” a guide to staying physically fit, was 
published in 2001, Kitt was featured on the cover in a long, curve-hugging 
black dress.

Once dubbed the “most exciting woman in the world” by Orson Welles, she 
spent much of her life single, though romances with the rich and famous 
peppered her younger years.

After becoming a hit singing “Monotonous” in the Broadway revue “New Faces 
of 1952,” Kitt appeared in “Mrs. Patterson” in 1954-55. (Some references 
say she earned a Tony nomination for “Mrs. Patterson,” but only winners 
were publicly announced at that time.) She also made appearances 
in “Shinbone Alley” and “The Owl and the Pussycat.”

Her first album, “RCA Victor Presents Eartha Kitt,” came out in 1954, 
featuring such songs as “I Want to Be Evil,” “C’est Si Bon” and the saucy 
gold digger’s theme song “Santa Baby,” revived each Christmas.

The next year, the record company released the follow-up album “That Bad 
Eartha,” which featured “Let’s Do It,” “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and “My 
Heart Belongs to Daddy.”

In 1996, she was nominated for a Grammy in the category of traditional pop 
vocal performance for her album “Back in Business.” She also had been 
nominated in the children’s recording category for the 1969 record “Folk 
Tales of the Tribes of Africa.”

Kitt also acted in movies, playing the lead female role opposite Nat King 
Cole in “St. Louis Blues” in 1958 and more recently appearing 
in “Boomerang” and “Harriet the Spy” in the 1990s.

On television, she was the sexy Catwoman on the “Batman” series in 1967-
68, replacing Julie Newmar, who originated the role. A guest appearance on 
an episode of “I Spy” brought Kitt an Emmy nomination in 1966.

“Generally the whole entertainment business now is bland,” she said in a 
1996 interview. “It depends so much on gadgetry and flash now. You don’t 
have to have talent to be in the business today. I think we had to have 
something to offer, if you wanted to be recognized as worth paying for.”

Kitt was plainspoken about causes she believed in. Her anti-war comments 
at the White House came as she attended a luncheon hosted by Lady Bird 
Johnson.

“You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed,” she told 
the group of about 50 women. “They rebel in the street. They don’t want to 
go to school because they’re going to be snatched off from their mothers 
to be shot in Vietnam.”

For four years afterward, Kitt performed almost exclusively overseas. She 
was investigated by the FBI and CIA, which allegedly found her to be foul-
mouthed and promiscuous.

“The thing that hurts, that became anger, was when I realized that if you 
tell the truth – in a country that says you’re entitled to tell the truth –
 you get your face slapped and you get put out of work,” Kitt told Essence 
magazine two decades later.

In 1978, Kitt returned to Broadway in the musical “Timbuktu!” – which 
brought her a Tony nomination – and was invited back to the White House by 
President Jimmy Carter.

In 2000, Kitt earned another Tony nod for “The Wild Party.” She played the 
fairy godmother in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Cinderella” in 2002. As 
recently as October 2003, she was on Broadway after replacing Chita Rivera 
in a revival of “Nine.”

She also gained new fans as the voice of Yzma in the 2000 Disney animated 
feature “The Emperor’s New Groove.”’

In an online discussion at Washingtonpost.com in March 2005, shortly after 
Jamie Foxx and Morgan Freeman won Oscars, she expressed satisfaction that 
black performers “have more of a chance now than we did then to play 
larger parts.”

But she also said: “I don’t carry myself as a black person but as a woman 
that belongs to everybody. After all, it’s the general public that made 
(me) – not any one particular group. So I don’t think of myself as 
belonging to any particular group and never have.”

Kitt was born in North, S.C. In her autobiography, she wrote that her 
mother was black and Cherokee while her father was white, and she was left 
to live with relatives after her mother’s new husband objected to taking 
in a mixed-race girl.

An aunt eventually brought her to live in New York, where she attended the 
High School of Performing Arts, later dropping out to take various odd 
jobs.

By chance, she dropped by an audition for the dance group run by Dunham, a 
pioneering African-American dancer. In 1946, Kitt was one of the Sans-
Souci Singers in Dunham’s production “Bal Negre.” Kitt’s travels with the 
Dunham troupe landed her a gig in a Paris nightclub in the early 1950s. 
Kitt was spotted by Welles, who cast her in his production of “Faust.” 

That led to a role in “New Faces of 1952,” which featured such other stars-
to-be as Carol Lawrence, Paul Lynde and, as a writer, Mel Brooks.

Over the years, Kitt had liaisons with wealthy men, including Revlon 
founder Charles Revson. In 1960, she married Bill McDonald but divorced 
him after the birth of their daughter, Kitt.

While on stage, she was daringly sexy and always flirtatious. Offstage, 
however, she described herself as shy and almost reclusive, remnants of 
feeling unwanted and unloved as a child. 

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"Smoke Gets In Your Eyes"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oipCyU5HYgU

"Santa Baby"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOMmSbxB_Sg

"Just an Old Fashioned Girl"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IfGBQ-T_GY

"Lilac Wine"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJtSMQDvxyc

"Let's Do It - Let's Fall In Love"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0hzu-ShDHc

"This is My Life"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3hEEqkxlwQ

"Here's to Life"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGRcLhzedXo

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Earth Kitt as Batman's Catwoman (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpsKkHVUlgk

Eartha Kitt as Batman's Catwoman (Part 2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VMn4ens6jA

Eartha Kitt as Batman's Catwoman (Part 3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnraWZ-GuKE

Rest well, Eartha.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 

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