Eartha Kitt
Kisha Green
Black History Month comes every February
and all we get to hear about is Martin Luther
King, Rosa Parks, Tuskegee Airmen and
hear people mention Alex Haley’s Roots. I
knew who Eartha Kitt was but watching her
in Boomerang was hilarious but I wanted to
know more about her and to my surprise,
she was quite the trendsetter. Thinking and
creating outside the box. She overcame
experiences that many may have crumbled
from. I admire her for her thinking, her beauty,
and her undeniable talent.
Eartha Mae Kitt was born on January 26,
1928, in South Carolina. Her sharecropper
parents abandoned Kitt and her half-sister
as young children, forcing them to live with
a foster family until they moved to New York
City to live with their aunt in 1938.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Kitt
performed for sold-out crowds in cabarets and
nightclubs throughout the United States and
abroad. In 1953, she released the popular
Christmas song “Santa Baby.” Two years
later she starred in the Broadway play Mrs.
Patterson, earning a Tony nomination for
her performance. Kitt also starred in several
movies during this period, and earned an
Oscar nomination for her 1959 role in Anna
Lucasta. In 1960 Kitt was honored with a star
on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Later in the
decade she was widely known for her role as
Catwoman in the TV series Batman.
Kitt’s unconventional freedom of expression
and sexuality during a time when black
America was still struggling under segregation
made her a successful and intriguing star.
While at times a controversial figure, Kitt
managed to maintain a successful career that
spanned several decades, and she became
an African American icon in the entertainment
world. Eartha Kitt died in her Connecticut
home on Christmas Day, 2008. She was 81.
30 | NKLC Magazine
She leaves a legacy of undeniable strength,
beauty, poise and courage.