Eartha Kitt Dies at 81
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.
Kitt, whose saucy rendition of “Santa Baby” became a holiday pop music classic, died in Connecticut on Christmas Day. Family spokesman Andrew Freedman said Kitt was recently treated at New York’s Columbia Presbyterian Hospital for colon cancer.
A self-proclaimed “sex kitten,” famous for her catlike purr, Kitt 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 South and made headlines in the 1960s for denouncing the Vietnam War during a visit to the White House.
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 garnering notice for 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 gold digger’s theme song “Santa Baby,” which is revived on radio each Christmas.
“I Want to Be Evil”
