Eartha Mae Kitt (née Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She was known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Baby".
Kitt began her career in 1942 and appeared in the 1945 original Broadway theatre production of the musical Carib Song. In the early 1950s, Kitt had six US Top 30 entries, including "Uska Dara" (1953) and "I Want to Be Evil" (1953). Her other recordings include the UK Top 10 song "Under the Bridges of Paris" (1954), "Just an Old Fashioned Girl" (1956) and "Where Is My Man" (1983). Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the world". Kitt starred as Catwoman in the third and final season of the television series Batman in 1967.
In 1968, Kitt's career in the U.S. deteriorated after she made anti-Vietnam War statements at a White House luncheon with Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson. Ten years later, Kitt made a successful return to Broadway in the 1978 original production of the musical Timbuktu!, for which she received the first of her two Tony Award nominations. Kitt's second was for the 2000 original production of the musical The Wild Party. She wrote three autobiographies.
Kitt found a new generation of fans through her various voice acting roles in the last decade of her life. She was the voice of two villainous characters in animated works during the twenty-first century: Yzma in The Emperor's New Groove franchise, and Vexus in My Life As A Teenage Robot, with the former role earning her two Daytime Emmy Awards. Kitt posthumously won a third Emmy in 2010 for her guest performance on Wonder Pets!.
Eartha Mae Keith was born in the small town of North, South Carolina, on January 17, 1927. Her mother, Annie Mae Keith (later Annie Mae Riley), was of Cherokee and African descent. Though she had little knowledge of her father, it was reported that he was the son of the owner of the plantation where she had been born, and that Kitt was conceived by rape. In a 2013 biography, British journalist John Williams claimed that Kitt's father was a white man, a local doctor named Daniel Sturkie. Kitt's daughter, Kitt McDonald Shapiro, has questioned the accuracy of the claim.
Eartha's mother soon went to live with a black man who refused to accept Eartha because of her relatively pale complexion. Kitt was raised by a relative named Aunt Rosa, in whose household she was abused. Interviewed on BBC Wales' Late Call in 1971, Kitt said:
I remember at times when we didn't have anything to eat for what seemed like an insurmountable amount of time. We had to rely on the forest and whatever we could dig out of the ground, such as weeds or a grass I remember that had a kind of onion growing at the bottom of it. And when we could find things like that to eat then we were alright. ... I'm very glad that [her childhood self] will always be a part of me because she helps me do what she knows I have to do out there on that stage.
After the death of Annie Mae, Eartha was sent to live with another close relative named Mamie Kitt (who Eartha later came to believe was her biological mother) in Harlem, New York City, where Eartha attended the Metropolitan Vocational High School (later renamed the High School of Performing Arts).
Kitt began her career as a member of the Katherine Dunham Company in 1943 and remained a member of the troupe until 1948. A talented singer with a distinctive voice, Kitt recorded the hits "Let's Do It", "Champagne Taste", "C'est si bon" (which Stan Freberg famously burlesqued), "Just an Old Fashioned Girl", "Monotonous", "Je cherche un homme", "Love for Sale", "I'd Rather Be Burned as a Witch", "Kâtibim" (a Turkish melody), "Mink, Schmink", "Under the Bridges of Paris", and her most recognizable hit "Santa Baby", which was released in 1953. Kitt's unique style was enhanced as she became fluent in French during her years performing in Europe. Kitt spoke four languages and sang in 11, which she demonstrated in many of the live recordings of her cabaret performances.
In 1950, Orson Welles gave Kitt her first starring role as Helen of Troy in his staging of Dr. Faustus. Two years later, Kitt was cast in the revue New Faces of 1952, introducing "Monotonous" and "Bal, Petit Bal", two songs with which she is still identified. In 1954, 20th Century-Fox distributed an independently filmed version of the revue entitled New Faces, in which Kitt performed "Monotonous", "Uska Dara", "C'est si bon", and "Santa Baby". Though it is often alleged that Welles and Kitt had an affair during her 1957 run in Shinbone Alley, Kitt categorically denied this in a June 2001 interview with George Wayne of Vanity Fair. "I never had sex with Orson Welles," Kitt told Vanity Fair: "It was a working situation and nothing else." Her other films in the 1950s included The Mark of the Hawk (1957), St. Louis Blues (1958) and Anna Lucasta (1958).
Throughout the rest of the 1950s and early 1960s, Kitt recorded; worked in film, television, and nightclubs; and returned to the Broadway stage, in Mrs. Patterson (during the 1954–1955 season), Shinbone Alley (in 1957), and the short-lived Jolly's Progress (in 1959). In 1964, Kitt helped open the Circle Star Theater in San Carlos, California. In the late 1960s, Batman featured Kitt as Catwoman after Julie Newmar had left the show in 1967. She appeared in a 1967 Mission: Impossible episode "The Traitor", as Tina Mara, a contortionist.
In 1956, Kitt published an autobiography called Thursday's Child, which would later serve as inspiration for the name of the 1999 David Bowie song "Thursday's Child".
The Royal Variety Performance in the London Palladium on 29th October 1962 featured Kitt singing solo, but also appearing in a skit with Harry Secombe. The review of the event in the Illustrated London News described them as "perhaps the two outstanding performers of the evening.
In 1963, Kitt traveled to the Philippines for a concert at the Araneta Coliseum, where she learned the song phonetically entitled "Waray-Waray," which she included in her repertoire and later appeared in her live album.
On January 18, 1968, during Lyndon B. Johnson's administration, Kitt encountered a substantial professional setback after she made anti-war statements during a White House luncheon. Kitt was asked by First Lady Lady Bird Johnson about the Vietnam War. She replied: "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot."
During a question-and-answer session, Kitt stated:
The children of America are not rebelling for no reason. They are not hippies for no reason at all. We don't have what we have on Sunset Blvd. for no reason. They are rebelling against something. There are so many things burning the people of this country, particularly mothers. They feel they are going to raise sons—and I know what it's like, and you have children of your own, Mrs. Johnson—we raise children and send them to war.
Kitt's remarks reportedly caused Mrs. Johnson to burst into tears. It is widely believed that Kitt's career in the United States was ended following her comments about the Vietnam War, after which she was branded "a sadistic nymphomaniac" by the CIA. A CIA dossier about Kitt was discovered by Seymour Hersh in 1975. Hersh published an article about the dossier in The New York Times. The dossier contained comments about Kitt's sex life and family history, along with negative opinions of her that were held by former colleagues. Kitt's response to the dossier was to say: "I don't understand what this is about. I think it's disgusting." Following the incident, Kitt devoted her energies to performances in Europe and Asia.