Posted on 12/25/2008 2:03:43 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
Edited on 12/25/2008 2:09:59 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
A family friend says 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. She was 81.
Andrew Freedman says Kitt died Thursday of colon cancer and was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Rest in Peace Madam Zeroni.
My kids all loved you the best from Holes.
Kellie Pickler did a passable version recently. But none will ever top Eartha’s.
Hmmm, I thought it was the other way around. My mistake.
Newmar and Kitt played the role in the series. Meriwether played the role in the movie.
I’m sorry she died ....but I couldn’t stand to listen to her sing!
Didn’t realize she was 81 years old. So she was about 40 years of age playing Catwoman on the Batman series.
I just saw her doing Santa Baby for the first time, yesterday.
My thoughts are with her family and friends. I know she performed for President Bush and his wife, merely two-three years ago, and looked and sounded wonderful.
Loved her TV show in the ‘60s. Prayers up for a great entertainer.
Maybe not the first, but the best. So perhaps “The Original” may still be in order.
God Speed Eartha, you were a true talent and made this world just a little better place.
One of her stranger accomplishments -
She did the definitive cover of “Waray-waray”, which is really odd, as that is a Filipino “redneck” piece. Just goes to show that she could take ANY material and make it hers. People remember her in Manila.
http://www.mabuhayradio.com/content/view/685/51/
was she black listed in the entertainment biz for a bit? I seem to remember hearing about that sometime long ago.
Eartha Kitt also has the great distinction of having lashed out at Lady Bird Johnson at a White House function, enough to make her cry.
Invited to a reception about juvenile delinquency, she snapped at Lady Bird about black children, “They don’t want to go to school because they’re going to be snatched from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam.”
To put this in context, VP Humphrey was attending the National Book Awards ceremony, where the novelist Mitchell Goodman screamed at him “We are burning children in Vietnam!” The anti-war pressure was intense, mean and often violent.
Later, Eartha Kitt was invited back to the White House, and took that opportunity to snap out at President Nixon, both over Vietnam and racism in America.
I guess we are better off without her.
And to think Eartha Kitt originally hailed from just a few miles south of here in the town of North, SC.
I was about to listen to “Santa Baby” on youtube when I read this.
Miss her as Catwoman, too. I remember when Eartha gave Lady Bird a piece of her mind at the White House (biting the hand that invited her); it was a shot heard round the world in early ‘68.
My wife recorded some episodes of the old Nate King Cole show from BET. He had her on as a guest and did a couple of sets with her. I made the mistake of remarking to my wife how incredibly sexy she was. (She deleted those episodes to “free up some space” on the DVR.)
Actually, I surprised even colored folks could get away with the sex kittenish shtick she was pulling, back in the day.
Amazingly talented singer. Also a very good Catwoman, though I preferred Julie Newmar in that role (rrrroowwwl!)
RIP, Ms. Kitt.
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