EARTHA KITT:EARTHA KITT, who has died aged 81, had a purring sensuality, saucy seductiveness and indomitable determination which helped her rise from southern cotton fields to singing stardom and world celebrity.
She died on Christmas Day in Connecticut after suffering from colon cancer but, a family spokesman noted, "she never stopped working".
In a career that stretched over six decades, the lithe and lissome Kitt, who became a symbol of international sophistication, scored a series of sultry voiced song hits, among them Santa Baby, I Want to Be Evil and C'est Si Bon.
She acted on Broadway and in movies, won two Emmy awards and ultimately became known for the sheer longevity and seeming agelessness of her vocal talents and slinky figure.
Over the years, she danced with Katherine Dunham's troupe, became a fixture in Parisian cabarets, cut record albums and created the role of the Catwoman on an early and much-remembered Batman TV series.
She drew vast notoriety during a 1968 meeting at the White House when she startled Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of president Lyndon Johnson, with a vehement criticism of the Vietnam War, one which she herself later called a diatribe.
That incident proved a setback to her career, costing her bookings for years, but it could not break her spirit. When she sang the disco hit I Will Survive during a 1999 appearance at Blues Alley in Washington, a reviewer said she turned it into a "highly personal anthem of pride and perseverance".
Those were among the qualities ascribed to her during a life she once said had been one "of cotton and caviar". The cotton referred to the place of her birth, given in references as either North, South Carolina or St Matthews in South Carolina, and to her childhood on hardscrabble, sharecropping farms during the Great Depression.
"In essence, I'm a sophisticated cotton picker," she wrote in an autobiography, Alone with Me.
According to published references, Kitt, who at one point lacked shoes and wore a dress made from a potato sack, was the daughter of a white father and a black Cherokee mother. Abandoned by her mother as a child, she said she thought of herself as an orphan. While she was still small, an aunt took her to live in a Harlem apartment.
In New York, a teacher recognized her abilities, leading to her enrolment in the famous High School of Performing Arts, the incubator of many stars.
A chance encounter led to an audition with the Katherine Dunham Dance Company, and at 16, she was earning $10 a week and touring with the troupe.
While in Paris in 1949, she left the group to begin singing in nightclubs. After her debut at Carrolls, she became the toast of the city.
Soon, Orson Welles cast her in a play as Helen of Troy, whose legendary beauty inspired the Trojan War. She appeared on Broadway in New Faces of 1952, which led to RCA recording work and to a glittering lifestyle that included romances with various aristocrats, celebrities and playboys. She was married in 1960 to William McDonald, from whom she was divorced. A daughter survives. Kitt performed in Las Vegas, in Paris, on television and on Broadway, and she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
The White House incident came during a meeting on juvenile delinquency. Her longtime efforts with antipoverty groups apparently helped win her an invitation. According to a news account, she asserted that a main reason for delinquency was that "there's a war going on and America doesn't know why".
That cost her. "I lost a lot of valuable years," she said. She worked mostly in Europe for about 10 years and then returned to the United States. Her album, the first she cut in the United States in almost 20 years, was called Back in Business.
In Washington, she drew admiring audiences to Blues Alley.
During a 2005 appearance there, she thanked the management for leaving an orchid in her dressing room. "But next time," she said, "bring me a man."
Eartha Kitt: January 17th 1927; died December 25th 2008