Eartha Kitt: Passed away : Netglimse.com News

Eartha Kitt: Passed away

Eartha Kitt, a sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to a symbol of elegance and sensuality of the whole world, has passed away. A family spokesman Andrew Freedman has confirmed the news. At the time of her death she was eighty one.

Sources have thrown more light on the news of Eartha Kitt. According to Freedman Kitt, who was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, died on Thursday in Connecticut of colon cancer.

Eartha Kitt, a self-proclaimed "sex kitten" famous for her catlike purr, was one of America's most versatile performers, thereby winning two Emmys and grabbing a third nomination. She also was nominated for several Tonys and two Grammys.

The career of Eartha Kitt spanned almost 6 decades, starting from her start as a dancer with the famed Katherine Dunham troupe to cabarets and acting and singing on stage, in movies and on television. She persevered through an unhappy childhood as a mixed-race daughter of the South and made headlines in the 1960s for disparaging the Vietnam War during a visit to the White House.

Throughout the years, Kitt remained a picture of vitality and attracted fans for less than half of her age even as she neared 80.

Apart from singing Eartha Kitt also acted in movies, thereby portraying the lead female role opposite Nat King Cole in "St. Louis Blues" in the year 1958 and more recently appearing in "Boomerang" and "Harriet the Spy" during 1990s.

On television, she played sexy Catwoman on the popular "Batman" series in 1967-68. There she replaced Julie Newmar who originated the role. A guest appearance on an episode of "I Spy" brought Kitt an Emmy nomination in the year 1966.

Once during the interview with the reporters of a popular news agency Eartha Kitt commented, "Generally the whole entertainment business now is bland." "It depends so much on gadgetry and flash now. You don't have to have talent to be in the business today.

She continued, "I think we had to have something to offer, if you wanted to be recognized as worth paying for."

Eartha Kitt was born in North, S.C., and her road to fame was the stuff of storybooks. In her autobiography, she wrote that her mother was black and Cherokee while her father was white, and she was left to live with relatives after her mother's new husband objected to taking in a mixed-race girl.

Over the years, Eartha Kitt had liaisons with rich men like Revlon founder Charles Revson, who showered her with lavish gifts.

In the year 1960, she tied knots with Bill McDonald but later divorced him after the birth of their daughter.

While on stage, she was daringly sexy and always flirtatious. Offstage, however, Kitt described herself as shy and almost reclusive, remnants of feeling unwanted and unloved as a child. She referred to herself as "that little urchin cotton-picker from the South, Eartha Mae."

For years, Kitt was unsure of her birthplace or birth date. In the year 1997, a group of students at historically black Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., located her birth certificate, which verified her birth date on January 17, 1927. However Eartha Kitt had previously celebrated her birthday on Jan. 26.

The research into her background also showed Kitt was the daughter of a white man, a poor cotton farmer.

Once Eartha Kitt told, "I'm an orphan. But the public has adopted me and that has been my only family," "The biggest family in the world is my fans."