Eartha Kitt
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Eartha Kitt, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1952 |
Eartha Mae Kitt (born
January 17,
1927), is an
actress,
singer, and
cabaret star whose mother was
African American and
Cherokee, and whose father was a White-American.
She was born out of wedlock, as would have to be the case given the laws regarding
miscegenation at the time, in tiny
North, South Carolina, but jokes about the fact that many audiences assume her to be from somewhere more exotic. Her hits include "Let's Do It", "C'est Si Bon", "Just an Old Fashioned Girl", "Monotonous", "Love for Sale", "I'd Rather Be Burned as a Witch", "Uska Dara", "Mink, Schmink", "Under the Bridges of Paris", and arguably her most recognizable hit, the sexily sung Christmas song "
Santa Baby". Kitt's unique style was enhanced as she became fluent in
French during her years performing in
Europe. She dabbled in other languages as well, which she demonstrates with finesse in many of the live recordings of her cabaret performances.
Eartha Kitt got her start as a member of the
Katherine Dunham Company and made her film debut with them in
Casbah (1948). In 1950,
Orson Welles gave her her first starring role: as
Helen of Troy in his staging of
Dr. Faust. A few years later, she was cast in the revue
New Faces of 1952 introducing "Monotonous", "C'est Si Bon" and "
Santa Baby", three songs with which she continues to be identified. During her run,
20th Century-Fox filmed a version of the play. Orson Welles and Kitt allegedly had a torrid affair during her run in
Shinbone Alley, which earned her the nickname by Welles as "the most exciting woman in the world". In 1958, Kitt made her feature film debut opposite
Sidney Poitier in
The Mark of the Hawk. Throughout the rest of the 1950s and early 1960s, Kitt would work on and off in film, television and on nightclub stages. In the late 1960s
television series
Batman, she played
Catwoman in succession to
Julie Newmar. This is the role for which she would best be remembered, owing to her purring feline drawl. She was married to Bill McDonald from 1960 to 1965 and had one child, a daughter, Kitt Shapiro. Eartha has two grandchildren, Justin and Rachel.
In 1968, however, Kitt encountered a substantial professional setback after she made anti-war statements during a
White House luncheon that reportedly made first lady
Lady Bird Johnson weep uncontrollably. Professionally exiled from the U.S., she devoted her energies to overseas performances before returning to
New York in a triumphant turn in the Broadway spectacle
Timbuktu! (a version of the perennial
Kismet set in Africa) in 1978. In the musical, one song gives a 'recipe' for
mahoun, a preparation of cannabis, in which her sultry purring rendition of the refrain
"constantly stirring with a long wooden spoon" was distinctively Eartha Kitt, one of the more memorable moments of the production.
In 1984, she returned to hit music with a dance song,
Where Is My Man; the first certified Gold record of her career. Kitt found new audiences in nightclubs across the country, including a whole new generation of gay male fans, and she responded by frequently giving benefit performances in support of
HIV/AIDS organizations.
In 2000, Kitt again returned to Broadway in the short but notable run of the revival of the 1920s-themed,
The Wild Party, opposite
Mandy Patinkin and
Toni Collette. In 2003, she replaced
Chita Rivera in
Nine. In recent years she has also appeared as the Wicked Witch in the North American national touring company of
The Wizard of Oz.
One of her more unusual roles was as
Kaa the
python in a 1994
BBC Radio adaptation of
The Jungle Book. Kitt lent her distinctive voice to the role of Yzma in
The Emperor's New Groove and is currently doing other voiceover work such as the voice of
Queen Vexus on the animated TV series
My Life as a Teenage Robot. She continued her role as Yzma on the spin-off TV series of The Emperor's New Groove,
The Emperor's New School.
In recent years, Kitt's annual appearances in New York have made her a fixture of the Manhattan
cabaret scene. She takes the stage at venues such as The Ballroom and, more recently, the Café Carlyle to explore and define her highly stylized image, alternating between signature songs (such as
Old Fashioned Millionaire), which emphasize a witty, mercenary world-weariness, and less familiar repertoire, much of which she performs with an unexpected ferocity and bite that present her as a survivor with a seemingly bottomless reservoir of resilience â€" her version of
Here's to Life, frequently used as a closing number, is a sterling example of the latter. This side of her later performances is reflected in at least one of her recordings,
Thinking Jazz, which preserves a series of performances with a small jazz combo that took place in the early 1990s in
Germany and which includes both standards (
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes) and numbers (such as
Something May Go Wrong) that seem more specifically tailored to her talents; one version of the CD includes as bonus performances a fierce, angry
Yesterdays and a live take of
C'est Si Bon that good-humoredly satirizes her sex-kitten persona.
Casbah (1948)
New Faces (1954)
The Mark of the Hawk (1958)
St. Louis Blues (1958)
Anna Lucasta (1959)
Saint of Devil's Island (1961)
Uncle Tom's Cabin (1965) (voice only)
Synanon (1965)
All About People (1967) (short subject) (narrator)
Up the Chastity Belt (1971)
Friday Foster (1975)
All By Myself: The Eartha Kitt Story (1982) (documentary)
The Serpent Warriors (1985)
The Pink Chiquitas (1987)
Dragonard (1987)
Master of Dragonard Hill (1989)
Erik the Viking (1989)
Living Doll (1990)
Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)
Boomerang (1992)
Fatal Instinct (1993)
Unzipped (1995) (documentary)
Harriet the Spy (1996)
Ill Gotten Gains (1997)
I Woke Up Early the Day I Died (1998)
The Emperor's New Groove (2000) (voice)
The Making and Meaning of 'We Are Family' (2002) (documentary)
The Sweatbox (2002) (documentary)
Anything But Love (2002)
Holes (2003)
On the One (2005)
Kronk's New Groove (2005) (voice)
Lieutenant Schuster's Wife (1972)
To Kill a Cop (1978)
Desperately Seeking Roger (1991)
Feast of All Saints (2001) (miniseries)
Santa Baby! (2001) (voice)
The Emperor's New School (2006-present) (voice)
* Batman
*
Official site*
Eartha Kitt at
TV.com*
The 1966 Batman Villains - Eartha Kitt*
Maison d'Eartha Kitt's Home*
Eartha Kitt Fan Club
