Eartha Kitt

Eartha Mae Keith was born on the seventeenth of January 1927 near North, in St. Matthews, South Carolina, the daughter of Annie Mae Keith, a young woman of Cherokee and African descent, and a white father she never knew. Her earliest years were marked by poverty and displacement in the rural South before, from about the age of eight, she was sent to live with relatives in the ethnically diverse Harlem of New York City.

In her teens she won a place in Katherine Dunham's celebrated dance troupe, touring the United States, Mexico, South America, and Europe. When the company returned home, the multilingual Kitt remained in Paris, where she captivated nightclub audiences and became one of the defining voices of mid-century international cabaret. Recordings such as "C'est Si Bon," "Santa Baby," and "I Want to Be Evil" carried that sultry, unmistakable voice around the world.

Her artistry crossed every stage: Broadway, where she earned Tony Award nominations for Timbuktu! and The Wild Party; film; and television, where in 1967 she became the first Black actress to play Catwoman on Batman. Along the way she gathered Grammy and Emmy recognition, winning multiple Daytime Emmys in her later years. In 1968 she spoke out against the Vietnam War at a White House luncheon, an act of conscience that cost her much of her American career yet revealed her courage.

She endured that exile abroad and returned in triumph, working with grace until her death on the twenty-fifth of December 2008 in Weston, Connecticut. Eartha Kitt turned a hard beginning into a life of dazzling, defiant beauty — and her voice endures, honored.