January 17 - Eartha Kitt

On this day, in 1927, Eartha Mae Keith was born near North, South Carolina (and, yes, that is a confusing name for a town). Her early life was anything but idyllic. Born on a cotton plantation to a mother of American Indian and African descent, it's widely believed that Eartha was the product of a rape perpetrated by the plantation owner's son. When her mother began living with a man who refused to take her in, Eartha began living with a relative known as Aunt Rosa, who abused her. When her mother died, Eartha was shipped off to the Harlem neighborhood of New York City to live with another relative, Mamie Kitt. Life took a decided upturn with her arrival in New York, which may have prompted the name change from Keith to Kitt.

Eartha attended the Metropolitan Vocational High School, better known after its own name change as The High School of Performing Arts (it's the setting for Fame if that helps you place it, but since that's a terrible movie, try to henceforth think of it as the birthplace of the careers of Eartha and Liza Minnelli, to name just two). Her professional career began in 1943 with the Katherine Dunham Company, the country's first African American modern dance troupe. She would tour with the company for the next five years.

Image courtesy of flickr.com

As the Fifties rolled around, Eartha began extensively touring the cabaret halls of Europe. This wasn't a big stretch for her as she reportedly spoke four languages (English, German, Dutch and French) and could sing in eleven. During the decade, she recorded a number of hits including Let's Do It, C'est si bon, which made it into the top ten, and her most well known song (another top ten), Santa Baby, which is still played repeatedly every Christmas.

In between the European tours and studio recordings, Eartha managed to find time to appear on Broadway as well. In 1950, she starred as Helen of Troy in an Orson Welles directed production of Dr. Faustus. She reteamed with Orson in 1957 for Shinbone Alley (co-written by a young Mel Brooks). Eartha was also in a handful of films including 1958's St. Louis Blues and Anna Lucasta with Sammy Davis Jr.

Image lifted from pinterest.com

With the dawn of the Sixties, Eartha continued to make records, sing in nightclubs, and appear in films. Near the end of the decade she added television to her resume in a big way when she replaced Julie Newmar as Catwoman during the final season Batman. With her career growing all the time, it all came crashing down in 1968.

At a luncheon at the White House in January of that year, then First Lady Ladybird Johnson asked Eartha what her thoughts were on the Vietnam War. Never one to hold back, Eartha replied "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot." She also made comments about mothers raising their children to be sent off to war and asked Ladybird about her own children. The First Lady reportedly burst into tears at the luncheon table and, as a result, a smear job was begun against Eartha lead by the CIA, who branded her a sadistic nymphomaniac. She was now basically unemployable in the US.

Luckily, Europe didn't care what the CIA said. Eartha spent most of the Seventies making appearances on BBC variety shows and touring her old cabaret haunts. By 1978 the furor had died down in the States and she made a triumphant return to Broadway in Timbuktu! Her sultry performance was nominated for a Best Actress Tony. In 1987, she took London's West End by storm as Dolores Gray in Follies. Throughout the Nineties and into the Aughts, she joined several productions: as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, The Wild Party, Nine and, in a touring show that I had the pleasure of seeing, the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella.

Image copyright Disney

Earth joined the Disney family in 2000 when she voiced the deliciously evil Yzma in The Emperor's New Groove. The animators apparently loved her performance as they found her distinct way of enunciating really easy to work with. They weren't the only ones to enjoy Yzma; Eartha won an Annie Award for her performance. She would continue to bring the old crone to life in the sequel, Kronk's New Groove, and for the animated television series, The Emperor's New School. During the two seasons the latter one ran, Eartha would manage to win two Emmy Awards and two more Annie Awards.

Eartha was an activist for most of her life. She established the Kittsville Youth foundation to help underprivileged youth in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. She supported a group of youths in the Anacostia part of Washington DC. She was a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. As the AIDS crisis heated up, she frequently sang at benefit concerts. She was an out spoken advocate of LGBT rights. Having been down and out and repressed herself, she constantly looked out for anyone she saw in the same position.

In 2008, faced with inoperable colon cancer, Eartha lived out her last days near her only daughter in Weston, Connecticut. Kitt, her daughter, says that, characteristically, Eartha did not leave this life quietly but fought and literally screamed until the end. Perhaps fittingly, she breathed her last on Christmas day. She was 81.