Groundbreaking singer/actress Eartha Kitt died of colon cancer on Christmas Day this year at the age of 81. Eartha had a career that spanned six decades, so I thought a blog about her life was only fitting.
Eartha was born in North, South Carolina (one of the funniest city names I’ve ever heard!) in 1927. Her parentage was of a Cherokee/African-American mother and a German/Dutch father, which gave the singer/actress an unusually striking beauty.
This photo, by Carl Van Vechten, is in the public domain.
She started her career as a dancer for the Katherine Dunham Company in the 40s. By 1948, she had made her first screen appearance in Casbah. She would not have her first starring role until 1950, in the Orson Welles’ film Helen of Troy. It was rumored that Eartha and Welles had an affair in 1954, but she denied it, saying in a 2001 interview that “I never had sex with Orson Welles. It was a working situation and nothing else.” She starred with Sidney Poitier in The Mark of the Hawk while continuing to work on television and in nightclubs. She joined the television series “Batman” as the character Catwoman in the ‘60s after the original star of the role, Julie Newmar, left.
Eartha was also a talented singer, releasing such hits as “Let’s Do It,” “Just an Old Fashioned Girl,” and one of her most famous hits “Santa Baby.” Although released in 1953, “Santa Baby” remains a staple of Christmas music today. She even had disco hit (“Where Is My Man”) in 1984.
Eartha’s career stumbled a bit in 1968 when she made a controversial speech about the Vietnam War while attending a White House luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson. She told the group that “You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. They rebel in the street. They don’t want to go to school because they’re going to snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam.” Reportedly, her comments made the First Lady cry. Eartha was then the subject of investigations by both the FBI and CIA. After that, she performed overseas for many years.
She returned to Broadway in 1978, being nominated for a Tony for her performance in “Timbuktu!” She appeared in the Eddie Murphy film Boomerang in 1992 and in the late ‘90s, starred as the Wicked Witch of the West with the touring company of The Wizard of Oz.
Eartha had a tireless work ethic and worked right up to the end, starring in the off-Broadway musical Mimi le Duck in late 2006 and appearing in And Then Came Love with Vanessa L. Williams in 2007. She had taped a PBS special, which will air in February, only six weeks before her death.