You know how you just happen to key in on something or someone for no apparent reason? This morning, I keyed in on Eartha Kitt. Just felt like looking up her bio, as I had included her song "Santa Baby" in my "Christmas master mix" of songs to play in the house for today. Well, she died today, at age 81, of colon cancer. Just found out.
Kitt came from troubled beginnings, to become one of the first bonafide black sex symbols who crossed over to white America, including via her role as Cat Woman in the Batman television series in the 1960s (starring Adam West and Burt Ward.) Unlike Dorothy Dandridge and Lena Horne, whose sex appeal to white America was considered threatening in a slightly earlier era (which is why Max Factor was hired to create a makeup that would darken Ms. Horne's skin,) Kitt boldly asserted her sexuality. Orson Wells, with whom she apparently had a brief relationship, famously called her "the most exciting woman alive." Kitt was one of a kind, and an international sensation. Though the majority of her career took place before I was born, my mother, who was in her generation, loved her (though Lena Horne was her all-time favorite actress,) and we watched the "Batman" re-runs when I was a kid. Plus she was hilarious in "Boomerang," doing a clever "cougar" send-up of her sex kitten past. She even crossed over to my kids' generation, via her role as the voice of Empress Yzma in "The Emperoror's New Groove," as well as the "Emperor's New School" cartoon series. Kitt was also a risk taker, openly opposing the Vietnam war, and being blacklisted for it, and advocating for children. From the New York Times Obit:
Yet for all the camp appeal and sexually charged hauteur of Ms. Kitt’s cabaret act, she also played serious roles, appearing in the films “The Mark of the Hawk” with Sidney Poitier (1957) and “Anna Lucasta” (1959) with Sammy Davis Jr. She made numerous television appearances, including a guest spot on “I Spy” in 1965, which brought her her first Emmy nomination.
For these performances Ms. Kitt very likely drew on the hardship of her early life. She was born Eartha Mae Keith in North, S.C., on Jan. 17, 1927, a date she did not know until about 10 years ago, when she challenged students at Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., to find her birth certificate, and they did. She was the illegitimate child of a black Cherokee sharecropper mother and a white man about whom Ms. Kitt knew little. She worked in cotton fields and lived with a black family who, she said, abused her because she looked too white. “They called me yella gal,” Ms. Kitt said.
At 8 she was sent to live in Harlem with an aunt, Marnie Kitt, who Ms. Kitt came to believe was really her biological mother. Though she was given piano and dance lessons, a pattern of abuse developed there as well: Ms. Kitt would be beaten, run away and return. By her early teenage years she was working in a factory and sleeping in subways and on the roofs of unlocked buildings. (She would later become an advocate, through Unicef, on behalf of homeless children.)
Here's Eartha singing "I want to be evil" in 1962:
Here's "Santa Baby", circa sometime in the 60s:
Here's Eartha, who performed in 10 languages, singing "C'est si bon" in 1962:
Here's "Extra special guest Eartha Kitt" in an episode of Batman, also from the 1960s:
Watch more episodes here. And someone has put together a terrific compilation of Kitt photos here.
Rest in peace, Eartha. You were a rare talent!
Kitt wasn't the only Christmastime passing. Among what I'm sure are many others, playwright Harold Pinter also died, on Christmas Eve. Godspeed to the families.
