Dig A Hole: Eartha Kitt
December 26th, 2008 by Scott Marks
She had a “G-r-r-r-r-r-r-r” that rivaled Bob Hope’s, was dubbed “the most exciting woman in the world” by Orson Welles and for my money played the definitive Catwoman. Eartha Kitt, sultry chanteuse, dancer, occasional actress and self-proclaimed “sex kitten” died Thursday in Connecticut of colon cancer. She was 81.
Eartha Mae Keith was born on a cotton plantation in Columbia, South Carolina. Ms. Kitt claimed that she was conceived by rape; her mother, Mamie, was a sharecropper of Cherokee and African-American descent and her “father” a white plantation owner. Given away by Mamie, she was raised by an aunt whom she believed was her mother. After her aunt’s death, she was sent to live in New York City with her biological mother. The only knowledge she had of her father was that his surname was Kitt and that he was supposedly a son of the owner of the farm she had been born on.
Her career spanned six decades and legend has it that Kitt was inspired to go into show business after witnessing the wild reception an audience gave José Ferrer after one of his stage performances as Cyrano de Bergerac in 1946. Kitt began her career performing as a member of the Katherine Dunham Dance Company. She toured Europe and became the toast of the Continent.
In 1968, Kitt shot her career in the foot after she made anti-war statements during a White House luncheon. It was reported that her comments made First Lady Lady Bird Johnson cry. (Easily one of the proudest moments of her life!) The public reaction to Kitt’s statements was much more extreme, both for and against her statements. Professionally exiled from the U.S., she devoted her energies to overseas performances. She was eventually welcomed back to the White House by Jimmy Carter who took office in January of 1977.
She became a singing sensation in the Broadway revue New Faces of 1952 and two years later Kitt released her first album, RCA Victor Presents Eartha Kitt. The LP featured such songs as I Want to Be Evil, C’est Si Bon and her cheeky Santa Baby, which has become a Christmas standard.
A scorching hit on vinyl and in nightclubs, Ms. Kitt did little to set movie theatre screens ablaze. She appeared with the Katherine Dunham Group in Casbah (1948), starred opposite Nat King Cole in the W.C. Handy biopic St. Louis Blues (1958) and played the lead in Anna Lucasta (1959). Throughout the 60s she appeared in guest star roles on many popular TV shows including Batman and I Spy, for which she received an Emmy nomination. She had one more memorable film appearance, as the evil “Madame Rena” in the Pam Grier blaxploitation epic Friday Foster, before selling her soul to cartoon voiceovers, kiddie TV show and regrettable features (Eric the Viking, Ernest Scared Stupid, Boomerang).
The ageless sex kitten did her best to keep her age a mystery until 1998, when a group of students from her hometown in South Carolina unearthed her birth certificate. The document revealed that her true birthday is January 17, 1927.
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