Eartha Kitt
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| Eartha Kitt | |
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 photo by Carl Van Vechten, 1952 |
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| Born | Eartha Mae Keith January 17, 1927 North, South Carolina, USA |
| Spouse(s) | Bill McDonald (1960-1965) |
Eartha Mae Kitt (born on January 17, 1927)[1] is an American actress, singer, and cabaret star. She is known for her role as Catwoman in the 1960s TV series Batman, and for her 1953 Christmas song "Santa Baby." Orson Welles once called her "the most exciting woman in the world."[2]
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Kitt was born Eartha Mae Keith on a cotton plantation in the tiny town North, South Carolina. Though her ancestry is somewhat uncertain, she states her mother was of African-American and Native American descent, and her father, German- or Dutch-American. She was conceived of rape.[3] Kit was raised by Anna Mae Riley, a black woman whom she believed to be her mother, but after Riley's death, she was sent to live in New York City with Mamie Kitt, reportedly Riley's sister. Eartha Kitt believes that Mamie Kitt was her biological mother; she still has no knowledge of her father's identity, except that his surname was Kitt and that he was the son of the owner of the plantation on which she had been born.[3] Kitt suffered terrible abuse and neglect at the hands of a family to whom Anna Mae Riley entrusted her, or "given away for slavery" as Kitt describes in many interviews.
[edit] Career
Kitt got her start as a member of the Katherine Dunham Company and made her film debut with them in Casbah (1948). A talented singer with a distinctive voice, 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 her most recognizable hit, "Santa Baby." Kitt's unique style was enhanced as she became fluent in the French language 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.
[edit] 1950s–1960s
In 1950, Orson Welles gave her her first starring role, as Helen of Troy in his staging of Dr. Faustus. A few years later, she was cast in the revue New Faces of 1952 introducing "Monotonous" and "Bal, Petit Bal," two songs with which she continues to be identified. In 1954, 20th Century-Fox filmed a version of the revue simply titled New Faces. 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 1960s television series Batman, she played Catwoman after Julie Newmar left the role.
In 1964, Kitt helped open the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos, California.
In 1968, however, Kitt encountered substantial professional setback after she made anti-war statements during a White House luncheon. It was reported that she made First Lady Lady Bird Johnson cry. The public reaction to Kitt's statements were much more extreme, both for and against her statements. Professionally exiled from the U.S., she devoted her energies to overseas performances.
[edit] 1970s–1980s
During that time, cultural references to her grew, including outside the United States, such as the well-known Monty Python sketch, "the cycling tour", where an amnesiac believes he is first Clodagh Rodgers, then Trotsky and finally Eartha Kitt (while performing to an enthusiastic crowd in Moscow). She returned 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 distinctive.
In 1984, she returned to hit music with a disco song, "Where Is My Man", the first certified Gold record of her career. "Where Is My Man" reached the Top 40 on the UK Singles Chart, where it peaked at #36;[4] the song also made the Top 10 on the US Billboard dance chart, where it reached #7.[5] Kitt found new audiences in nightclubs across the UK and the US, including a whole new generation of gay male fans, and she responded by frequently giving benefit performances in support of HIV/AIDS organizations. Her 1989 follow-up hit "Cha-Cha Heels" (featuring Bronski Beat), and originally intended to be recorded by Divine, received a positive response from UK dance clubs and reached #32 in the UK charts.
[edit] 1990s–2000s
In the late 1990s she appeared as the Wicked Witch of the West in the North American national touring company of The Wizard of Oz. In 2000, Kitt again returned to Broadway in the short-lived run of Michael John LaChiusa's The Wild Party opposite Mandy Patinkin and Toni Collette. Begininng in late 2000, she starred as the Fairy Godmother in the National tour of Cinderella alongside Deborah Gibson and then Jamie-Lynn Sigler. In 2003, she replaced Chita Rivera in Nine. She reprised her role of the Fairy Godmother at a special engagement of Cinderella which took place at Lincoln Center during the holiday season of 2004.
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 Disney's The Emperor's New Groove and returned to the role in the straight to video sequel Kronk's New Groove and the spin-off TV series The Emperor's New School, for which she has won an Emmy Award and two Annie Awards for Voice Acting in an Animated Television Production. She had a voiceover as the voice of Queen Vexus on the animated TV series My Life as a Teenage Robot.
In recent years, Kitt's annual appearances in New York have made her a fixture on 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 — 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 rendering "C'est Si Bon" that good-humoredly satirizes her sex-kitten persona.
From October to early December, 2006, Kitt co-starred in the Off-Broadway musical Mimi Le Duck. She also appeared in the 2007 independent film And Then Came Love opposite Vanessa L. Williams.
[edit] Personal life
After romances with the cosmetics magnate Charles Revson and banking heir John Barry Ryan III, she was married to Bill McDonald from 1960 to 1965. They had one child, a daughter, Kitt Shapiro. Eartha has two grandchildren, Jason and Rachel. She lived for many years in Pound Ridge, NY, but recently moved to Westport, Connecticut to be near her daughter's family. In 2007, she performed at the Hotel Carlyle in New York.
Kitt wrote three autobiographies – Thursday’s Child (1956), Alone with Me (1976), and I’m Still Here: Confessions of a Sex Kitten (1989).
Kitt was the spokesperson for MAC Cosmetics Smoke Signals collection in August 2007. She re-recorded Smoke Gets In Your Eyes for the occasion, was showcased on the MAC website and the song was played at all MAC locations carrying the collection for the month.
[edit] Awards and nominations
Kitt has two Daytime Emmy Awards, three Annie Awards, and in 1960, honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.[6] She received nominations for two Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, a one Drama Desk Award
[edit] Work
[edit] Filmography
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[edit] Television
[edit] Stage
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[edit] References
- ^ Blase DiStefano (June 2004). "Eartha Kitt Purr-severes", OutSmart magazine. Retrieved on 2008-07-12.
- ^ Kate X Messer (2006-07-21). "Just An Old Fashioned Cat", The Austin Chronicle. Retrieved on 2008-07-12.
- ^ a b James Bone (11 April 2008). "Legendary seductress Eartha Kitt — The Original Pussycat Doll", The Times. Retrieved on 2008-07-31.
- ^ UK Singles Chart info at chartstats.com
- ^ Whitburn, Joel (2004). Hot Dance/Disco 1974-2003, (Record Research Inc.)
- ^ Staff writers (2008-01-24). "Eartha Kitt tickets competition", The Telegraph. Retrieved on 2008-07-31.
[edit] External links
- Eartha Kitt official website
- Eartha Kitt at the Internet Broadway Database
- Eartha Kitt at the Internet Movie Database
- Eartha Kitt at TV.com
- "Eartha Kitt talks about her early childhood" on the WGBH series, Say Brother
- "The Long View: Eartha Kitt Still Sizzling", feature story on National Public Radio, December 31, 2007.
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