Born: 17 January 1927, United States
Died: 25 December 2008
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Eartha Mae Keith
American singer and actor Eartha Kitt was known for her distinctive voice, with hit songs like C’est si bon, Santa Baby, Uska Dara, I Want to Be Evil, Under the Bridges of Paris, Just an Old Fashioned Girl and Where Is My Man.
Kitt first performed on Broadway in 1945 as a company member for Katherine Dunham’s Blue Holiday and the musical Carib Song. She would go on to appear in dozens of film and television roles over the course of 60 years, including an iconic 1967 turn as Catwoman in the third and final season of the Batman television series. The following year, her career suffered due to statements she made against the Vietnam War, but she returned to Broadway in 1978 in the musical Timbuktu!, earning the first of her two Tony Award nominations. The second was for her performance in the original 2000 production of The Wild Party.
That same year, Kitt reached new audiences with her performance as the villain Yzma in The Emperor’s New Groove, earning two Daytime Emmy Awards for her reprisal of the role in the subsequent animated series The Emperor’s New School (2006 to 2008). She also received a posthumous third Emmy for her guest performance on Wonder Pets!
Kitt published three autobiographies: Thursday’s Child (1956), Alone with Me (1976) and I’m Still Here: Confessions of a Sex Kitten (1989).