Sultry Singer Eartha Kitt Dead At 81

Mixed-Race Singer And Actress Also Known For Her Condemnation Of The Vietnam War

(CBS/AP)  Eartha Kitt, a sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to become an international symbol of elegance and sensuality, has died, a family spokesman said. She was 81.

Andrew Freedman said Kitt, who was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, died Thursday in Connecticut of colon cancer.

Kitt, a self-proclaimed "sex kitten" famous for her catlike purr, was one of America's most versatile performers, winning two Emmys and nabbing a third nomination. She also was nominated for several Tonys and two Grammys.

Her career spanned six decades, from her start as a dancer with the famed Katherine Dunham troupe to cabarets and acting and singing on stage, in movies and on television. She persevered through an unhappy childhood as a mixed-race daughter of the American South and made headlines in the 1960s for denouncing the Vietnam War during a visit to the White House.

Through the years, Kitt remained a picture of vitality and attracted fans less than half her age even as she neared 80.

When her book "Rejuvenate," a guide to staying physically fit, was published in 2001, Kitt was featured on the cover in a long, curve-hugging black dress with a figure that some 20-year-old women would envy. Kitt also wrote three autobiographies.

Once dubbed the "most exciting woman in the world" by Orson Welles, she spent much of her life single, though brief romances with the rich and famous peppered her younger years.

After becoming a hit singing "Monotonous" in the Broadway revue "New Faces of 1952," Kitt appeared in "Mrs. Patterson" in 1954-55. (Some references say she earned a Tony nomination for "Mrs. Patterson," but only winners were publicly announced at that time.) She also made appearances in "Shinbone Alley" and "The Owl and the Pussycat."

Her first album, "RCA Victor Presents Eartha Kitt," came out in 1954, featuring such songs as "I Want to Be Evil," "C'est Si Bon" and the saucy gold digger's theme song "Santa Baby," which is revived on radio each Christmas.

The next year, the record company released follow-up album "That Bad Eartha," which featured "Let's Do It," "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" and "My Heart Belongs to Daddy."

In 1996, she was nominated for a Grammy in the category of traditional pop vocal performance for her album "Back in Business." She also had been nominated in the children's recording category for the 1969 record "Folk Tales of the Tribes of Africa."

Kitt also acted in movies, playing the lead female role opposite Nat King Cole in "St. Louis Blues" in 1958 and more recently appearing in "Boomerang" and "Harriet the Spy" in the 1990s.

On television, she was the sexy Catwoman on the popular "Batman" series in 1967-68, replacing Julie Newmar who originated the role. A guest appearance on an episode of "I Spy" brought Kitt an Emmy nomination in 1966.

"Generally the whole entertainment business now is bland," she said in a 1996 Associated Press interview. "It depends so much on gadgetry and flash now. You don't have to have talent to be in the business today.

"I think we had to have something to offer, if you wanted to be recognized as worth paying for."

Kitt was plainspoken about causes she believed in. Her anti-war comments at the White House came as she attended a White House luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson.

"You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed," she told the group of about 50 women. "They rebel in the street. They don't want to go to school because they're going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam."

For four years afterward, Kitt performed almost exclusively overseas. She was investigated by the FBI and CIA, which allegedly found her to be foul-mouthed and promiscuous.

"The thing that hurts, that became anger, was when I realized that if you tell the truth - in a country that says you're entitled to tell the truth - you get your face slapped and you get put out of work," Kitt told Essence magazine two decades later.

Kitt returned to the White House in 2006, helping to light the national Christmas tree, The CBS Evening News reported Thursday.

In 1978, Kitt returned to Broadway in the musical "Timbuktu!" - which brought her a Tony nomination - and was invited back to the White House by President Jimmy Carter.

In 2000, Kitt earned another Tony nod for "The Wild Party." She played the fairy godmother in Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella" in 2002.

As recently as October 2003, she was on Broadway after replacing Chita Rivera in a revival of "Nine."

She also gained new fans as the voice of Yzma in the 2000 Disney animated feature "The Emperor's New Groove."'

In an online discussion at Washingtonpost.com in March 2005, shortly after Jamie Foxx and Morgan Freeman won Oscars, she expressed satisfaction that black performers "have more of a chance now than we did then to play larger parts."

But she also said: "I don't carry myself as a black person but as a woman that belongs to everybody. After all, it's the general public that made (me) - not any one particular group. So I don't think of myself as belonging to any particular group and never have."

Kitt was born in North, South Carolina, and her road to fame was the stuff of storybooks. In her autobiography, she wrote that her mother was black and Cherokee while her father was white, and she was left to live with relatives after her mother's new husband objected to taking in a mixed-race girl.

An aunt eventually brought her to live in New York, where she attended the High School of Performing Arts, later dropping out to take various odd jobs.

By chance, she dropped by an audition for the dance group run by Dunham, a pioneering African-American dancer. In 1946, Kitt was one of the Sans-Souci Singers in Dunham's Broadway production "Bal Negre."

Kitt's travels with the Dunham troupe landed her a gig in a Paris nightclub in the early 1950s. Kitt was spotted by Welles, who cast her in his Paris stage production of "Faust."

That led to a role in "New Faces of 1952," which featured such other stars-to-be as Carol Lawrence, Paul Lynde and, as a writer, Mel Brooks.

While traveling the world as a dancer and singer in the 1950s, Kitt learned to perform in nearly a dozen languages and, over time, added songs in French, Spanish and even Turkish to her repertoire.

"Usku Dara," a song Kitt said was taught to her by the wife of a Turkish admiral, was one of her first hits, though Kitt says her record company feared it too remote for American audiences to appreciate.

Song titles such as "I Want to Be Evil" and "Just an Old Fashioned Girl" seem to reflect the paradoxes in Kitt's private life.

Over the years, Kitt had liaisons with wealthy men, including Revlon founder Charles Revson, who showered her with lavish gifts.

In 1960, she married Bill McDonald but divorced him after the birth of their daughter, Kitt.

While on stage, she was daringly sexy and always flirtatious. Offstage, however, Kitt described herself as shy and almost reclusive, remnants of feeling unwanted and unloved as a child. She referred to herself as "that little urchin cotton-picker from the South, Eartha Mae."

For years, Kitt was unsure of her birthplace or birth date. In 1997, a group of students at historically black Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, located her birth certificate, which verified her birth date as Jan. 17, 1927. Kitt had previously celebrated on Jan. 26.

The research into her background also showed Kitt was the daughter of a white man, a poor cotton farmer.

"I'm an orphan. But the public has adopted me and that has been my only family," she told the Post online. "The biggest family in the world is my fans."

[dbstevens]

Eartha, you will be deeply missed. Thank you for being so wonderful and for letting me have the privilege of designing and maintaining your website for 10 years. You and your family are wonderful... go in peace, knowing that you brightened this world considerably.

[hypnotoad72]

She WILL be missed.

And thank you for posting the quote:

"I don''t carry myself as a black person but as a woman that belongs to everybody. After all, it''s the general public that made (me) %u2014 not any one particular group. So I don''t think of myself as belonging to any particular group"

[beth.cornell]

Eartha Kitt was my favorite Catwoman of all of them. She also had a way of being who she really was. Nothing fake about that lady. A True American Legend!

[mwolfe500]

Eartha;Thank You for the memories along with the great
entertainment you shared with us!!!

[actornaught]

Even as a kid, when she was on tv variety shows, i was hypnotized by her style and class. And she only got better.

[roscoe2400-2009]

What a wonderful person--- she will be missed!

[robert7562]

Thank You Eartha, for everything you brought us. May you rest in peace.

[yeswecan2]

Rest in peace Cat Lady. You will be truly miss.

[hypnotoad72]

I recall her "I Spy" episode. She should have won.

[Renegade.Rivers]

Was this the right thing to do?

Posted by fsw3
---------------------------------------------------
When Eartha Kitt came out against the war in Vietnam I was 17 years old, and a senior in high school, it was in 1968, not 1967. The draft was in full force, and all of my older friends were waiting to be drafted. He11 we had hardly heard of Vietnam just a few years before, now it was the top news story, and on the TV every night. Americans knew that we were into something that we weren''t going to get out of soon, and that there were a lot of Americans dying there.

When Miss Kitt went public about here apprehension to the war, and what it was doing to our country, Most older Americans were eating up the propaganda that the Johnson administration was telling them. Yet Miss Kitt bravely spoke her mind, and stood up for what she believed. It was a top news story on the news for several days after, and I think it shocked a lot of people and made them think.

Was she right to do it? Of course she was, every American has the right and the duty as an American to stand up for what they believe, and whether it is right and wrong.

Unfortunately that is a really problem today, to many Americans are afraid to stand up and say what they believe, and look at where we are because of it.

[divinemslou]

What a lovely & gracious lady she was. I write this with tears in my eyes. My friend & I were fortunate to see this talented lady perform live in Phoenix, AZ this summer. Her performance was flawless but more important than that, she was extremely generous with her time. After the show she spent over an hour signing autographs (no one in the line was turned away). She had something personal to say to everyone (she & I joked about being shorties).
My deepest sympathies to her daughter & grandchildren.
Kitt, don''t ever doubt that your mother loved you. During the show she told a story about being in bobmb scare in London: when she got to her hotelroom the first thing she did was write a poem about you.