How Eartha Kitt went from 'extreme poverty' to superstardom

The singer and actress exudes sophistication with her sexy drawl and feline charm. But Eartha Kitt, born on January 17, 1927, had the most difficult childhood. “History” tells the story of how she transcended her troubled beginnings to become a star of stage and screen and the first black Catwoman.

Eartha Kitt was hailed as “the most exciting woman in the world” by Orson Welles and smeared as a “sadistic nymphomaniac” by the CIA , she had an extraordinary life and career. After joining Katherine Dunham's A pioneer in African-American dance troupes, she was on Broadway at age 19 and became a cabaret sensation in London and Paris. Her smoldering performances of 1950s songs, such as Santa baby“Just an Old School Girl” and “I Wanna Be Evil” have never been surpassed. In 1967, she wowed mainstream television audiences catwoman In classic Batman Season 3. She later won over a new generation of fans by playing the villain Yzma in Disney's 2000 animated feature emperor's new rhythm. She died on Christmas Day 2008 at the age of 81.

She was born Eartha Mae Keith on January 17, 1927, on a cotton plantation in South Carolina. Her life had a very difficult beginning. She never knew her father, and her mother left her to be raised by various relatives. She told BBC Wales' Late Call program in 1971: “I remember there were times when we didn't have anything to eat and the hours seemed insurmountable. We had to rely on the forest and anything we could dig up.” Things on the ground , like weeds or grass, I remember it had a kind of onion growing at the bottom, and when we could find something like that to eat, we were fine. “

Describing her childhood self as a “naughty brat,” she said: “I'm glad she will always be a part of me because she helped me do what she knew I had to do on stage.”

Even though Kit is such a confident, poised performer, raw emotion is never far from the surface when Kit is interviewed, as Late Call host Ronnie Williams reads one of her lines As shown when: “You say, 'My mother left me when I was five years old. If my mother gave me away, she wouldn't want me anymore, so why would anyone want me?'” Kit replies that because of this abandonment, she lives with the feeling of being “on top of everything.” The important people in the world don't want you.” She added: “I think I can explain a lot of why my mother sent me away, and I think that even though I've tried to explain to myself why she sent me away, I still have a hard time accepting this. “”.

Decades later, Kit's beloved daughter Kit Shapiro revealed that the singer did not know the identity of her white father when he died. she told the Observer Her mother cried in 2013 when she finally saw her birth certificate, only to find the man's name had been redacted by officials to protect his reputation in the segregated American South.

Because of her mixed-race heritage, Kit told Williams in “The Late Call” that she was not accepted by the black community. “They don't understand, I don't think of myself as a black person,” she said. “I think of myself as someone who belongs to everyone, but I think people should always feel that way. I think as long as you feel like you belong to only one race, A nationality, a religion, you have to have prejudices… I am an illegitimate child, and at the same time I am not My father is said to be a white man, my grandparents are Cherokee Indians, and my mother is half black, so my blood belongs to your blood and anyone's blood, so I have always believed that It's pretty stupid of me to be that way and to be biased against anyone else.”

According to Kit, her travels convinced her that financial inequality is the root of so much prejudice around the world: “When we can recognize that no matter what color or religion you are, you have the ability to earn as much as you want. “Just like the next guy, no matter what race or religion he is, I think it would be a lot healthier. “

The singer and actress is being interviewed by BBC Wales to promote her week-long residency at the theatre. Double Diamond Club Located in the scenic town of Caerphilly near Cardiff. While this popular venue hosted big stars like Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash in its day, it was still a long way from Broadway.

In America at the time, Kitt was cancelled. Her career is in trouble after an incident white house luncheon 1968 Discussing the causes of juvenile delinquency with Lady Bird Johnson, wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson. As protests against the Vietnam War swept the United States, Kit's diagnosis of the cause of the problem unsettled polite viewers. She told the first lady: “You're sending the best people in this country to be shot and maimed. They're rebelling in the streets. They're going to smoke pot, they're going to do drugs. They don't want to go to school because they're going to be ripped away from their mothers. walked and got shot in Vietnam.”

In response, the CIA compiled a dossier on her. The New York Times revealed In 1975, the wide-ranging report contained “second-hand gossip about the entertainers but no evidence of any foreign intelligence connections.” In later years, when asked about the document's infamous “nymphomaniac” reference, Kitt said: Extremely dismissive: “If I am, what does that have to do with the CIA?”

When her career hit a slump back home, she spent time with provincial clubs in England. During a residency at the unglamorous Bartley Variety Club in West Yorkshire, a BBC reporter asked her how such an established celebrity could relate to the locals there. She responded: “I wasn't born into such a different world. I came out of extreme poverty. I've gained some things, yes. Those things didn't gain me.”

It wasn't until 1978, ten years after the White House incident, that Kit starred in the musical Timbuktu! ” makes a triumphant return to Broadway. She remains a regular in the UK, often making shocking appearances on TV talk shows. Once again, her vulnerability is never far from the surface. In a spectacular year 1989 British Broadcasting Corporation Appearsshe started by placing her feet flirtatiously on host Terry Wogan's lap. Minutes later, she admitted that her public persona was completely different from her private self.

She said: “Mr Wogan, you know what? I'm not an extrovert. I can make fun of 'Eartha Kitt' but not 'Eartha Mae'? Never mind, I'm hiding behind a bush, chair Behind, behind all my stuff.” I would probably hide in the back because I never had that sense of security in Eartha Mae that made me feel like she would ever be accepted. “

Kit's eternal love is her fans and her daughters. After Kit was abandoned by his mother, he insisted on traveling around the world with his daughter. Her marriage to businessman Bill McDonald in 1960 lasted less than four years and she never remarried. When Wogan asked her if she was reluctant to let her guard down, she said: “A man kept trying to get me down, but he never wanted to pick me up.”

She said that it was the love from the crowd that “made me feel like I was really a valuable person.” However, she also explained: “When I got back to the dressing room and I took my makeup off, I wasn't 'Eartha Kitt' anymore, I was Eartha Mae again.”