Author Topic: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies  (Read 9265 times)

Offline CellarDweller

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Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« on: December 25, 2008, 09:39:35 pm »

sad news on the holiday!

 :'( :'( :'( :'(




Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies

By POLLY ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer


Eartha Kitt, a sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to become an international symbol of elegance and sensuality, has died, a family spokesman said. She was 81.

Andrew Freedman said Kitt, who was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, died Thursday in Connecticut of colon cancer.

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

Her career spanned six decades, 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 denouncing the Vietnam War during a visit to the White House.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081225/ap_on_en_tv/obit_eartha_kitt


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline CellarDweller

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #1 on: December 25, 2008, 09:42:38 pm »
Eartha Kitt - Where Is My Man?


[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5m88CoGLno[/youtube]


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline CellarDweller

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #2 on: December 25, 2008, 09:44:09 pm »
Eartha Kitt - I Love Men


[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbg5i6TI5xg[/youtube]


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline delalluvia

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #3 on: December 25, 2008, 10:31:04 pm »
RIP  :(

Offline Lynne

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #4 on: December 25, 2008, 11:59:35 pm »
The passing of an icon.   :'(

You know, there's an allusion to her in Latter Days:

Keith is played by Erik Palladino.  He is an AIDS patient, speaking with Christian, played by Wes Ramsey, who is making his first delivery of a meal to Keith as a volunteer for Project Angelfood:

Keith:  "Sometime I read people and I...I pick up the Oracle at Delphi"
Christian:  "And sometimes I growl at people, doesn't make me Eartha Kitt."
"Laß sein. Laß sein."

Offline Meryl

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #5 on: December 26, 2008, 02:05:21 am »
I was surprised to hear about Eartha Kitt.  I worked on "Cinderella" a few years ago, when she played the Fairy Godmother.  She was in fantastic shape and seemed a likely candidate to reach 100.  A very nice lady and fine colleague, too.  God bless, Eartha.  :-*
Ich bin ein Brokie...

Offline David In Indy

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #6 on: December 26, 2008, 02:13:32 am »
Such DREADFUL news on an otherwise perfect Christmas Day!  :'(

I was so sorry to hear about this. When I was a kid I would stand in front of the bathroom mirror with a hair brush in my hand for a microphone and imitate Eartha Kitt. I've loved her ever since my youth. I will truly miss her! :(

I was surprised to hear about Eartha Kitt.  I worked on "Cinderella" a few years ago, when she played the Fairy Godmother.  She was in fantastic shape and seemed a likely candidate to reach 100.  A very nice lady and fine colleague, too.  God bless, Eartha.  :-*

You actually got to meet her Meryl?!!! How wonderful! :D




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Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #7 on: December 26, 2008, 10:05:53 pm »


Eartha Kitt: Santa Baby (Gorgeous and ageless.)

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOMmSbxB_Sg&eurl=[/youtube]

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzd6oCP3FKk&feature=related[/youtube]

"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


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Offline Artiste

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #8 on: December 26, 2008, 11:37:10 pm »
She was interesting!

Merci - thanks Eartha Kitt!


Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #9 on: December 26, 2008, 11:55:40 pm »


http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/12/26/arts/20081226_KITT_SLIDESHOW_index.html

Eartha Kitt: A Diva and Legend




Eartha Kitt rehearsing for a show in Paris in 1950.

Ms. Kitt, who purred and pounced her way across Broadway stages, recording studios and movie and television screens in a show-business career that lasted more than six decades, died on Dec. 25, 2008. She was 81 and lived in Connecticut.




Eartha Kitt dancing in a television version of Oscar Wilde's play,
"Salome"  in 1955.




Ms. Kitt as Catwoman for the television show "Batman"  in 1967.




Ms. Kitt, on the shoulders of Tony Carroll, Mr. Universe of 1977,
at New York's Waldorf Astoria in 1978.




Ms. Kitt in 1978.




Eartha Kitt in her suite at the Hotel Carlyle in 1999.




Ms. Kitt performing at the Café Carlyle in 2007.



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/arts/26kitt.html

Eartha Kitt, a Seducer of Audiences, Dies at 81
By ROB HOERBURGER
Published: December 25, 2008
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


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and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
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Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #10 on: December 27, 2008, 12:09:16 am »

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/arts/music/27kitt.html


An Appraisal
Forever Feline, Forever Fierce




By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: December 26, 2008


“Je cherche un billionaire,” Eartha Kitt purred last year from the stage of the Café Carlyle, the chic, intimate club in the Carlyle Hotel that had been her regular stomping ground for more than a decade.

It was an ideal setting for Ms. Kitt to strut her archetypal show business persona: a glamorous, calculating international gold digger enslaving rich men with exaggerated feline wiles, then treating them like cat toys. If this ageless catwoman, who died at 81 on Christmas Day, was an amusing caricature, the role was fueled by a steady current of anger.

Ms. Kitt, like so many divas before her, seemed driven by an unquenchable anger. Her childhood rejection by both black and white society because of her mixed and uncertain parentage might have left her with a profound sense of having to go it alone.

This cat who walked by herself had few qualms about criticizing the Vietnam War to Lady Bird Johnson when she visited the White House in 1968. Ms. Kitt paid dearly for her remarks when she found bookings canceled, and her career nearly evaporated for a number of years.

Her catwoman archetype is now as embedded in our collective pop psyche as Mae West’s swiveling sex goddess. Both personas were comic inventions with dashes of seriousness. But where sex came first with Ms. West, and the usual tokens of male appreciation — diamonds, mink, Champagne and caviar — followed, it was the other way around for Ms. Kitt’s colder, harder vamp. You didn’t have to prove yourself in the bedroom with her, only in the boardroom and the bank. Once you possessed her, she would bestow her favors, but only at her discretion; she remained aloof.

As with Ms. West, unabashed candor was central to her strategy. Young male suitors were jokingly advised to be patient until she had finished with their wealthy fathers. Singing “Too Young to Be Meant for Me,” she brushed off a 20-year-old admirer by reminding him, “Can’t you see I’ve got a date with someone rich and 82?”

To one and all she would address “Speaking of Love,” an early-’30s song by Vernon Duke and E. Y. Harburg that became one of her signatures. “Give me a frank account/How is your bank account?” go the lyrics, which promise, “I’d be compassionate/If there was cash in it.” Or as this sultry emblem of avarice cooed in her 1953 Christmas hit, “Santa Baby,” “One little thing I really need is the deed to a platinum mine.”

Many years later Madonna, the so-called Material Girl, covered “Santa Baby.” But Madonna’s gold digger was only one of dozens of images through which she riffled. Ms. Kitt remained true to a fixed image established more than 50 years ago.

Her first hit, “Uska Dara,” an adaptation of a Turkish song with Turkish and English lyrics and a belly-dancing pulse, established her as an exotic international voice. The hits that followed, including “C’est Si Bon” and “I Want to Be Evil,” refined the image of a dangerous wildcat.

It is no accident that Ms. Kitt’s seesawing career reascended during what has been called the new gilded age, now suddenly behind us. Especially in the 1970s age of feminist consciousness, the very term “gold digger” was considered offensive, along with “cat fight,” “chick” and a whole dictionary of sexist slang that has since roared back into style. For a while at least, Ms. Kitt’s catwoman persona seemed a nostalgic, camp artifact.

That persona is a complicated mixture of ingredients. Ms. Kitt’s early years in Europe were a crucial formative factor. Marlene Dietrich’s imperious femme fatale, Josephine Baker’s exotic expatriate, the emotionally exacerbated cry of Édith Piaf and even the voice of Maria Callas could be detected in her singing

An important step in her career renaissance was her 1996 engagement at the Café Carlyle. It came shortly after her appearance in “Unzipped,” the documentary about the designer Isaac Mizrahi, in which she held her own among a pantheon of supermodels, a number of whom showed up at her opening night.

Suddenly everything about Ms. Kitt that had seemed benighted clicked and became contemporary, made more so by her extraordinarily fit physical condition. Almost until the end Ms. Kitt would extended her long, shapely legs in the direction of male ringside patrons; during “Uska Dara,” she would perform a modest belly dance.

I will never forget the moment I sat too close for comfort to the stage, and she fixed her eyes on mine with an intensity that made it impossible for me to look away. I was scared to death. I never sat so close again, but over the years I would see her play the same trick on unsuspecting ringside patrons, who were both flattered and intimidated.

Men at ringside were sometimes subjected to deadpan comic interrogations about their backgrounds and finances. Because Ms. Kitt was fluent in several languages, these interviews were sometimes conducted in shifting tongues, as if to determine if the man were as cosmopolitan as she; of course he never was.

In later years Ms. Kitt added to her repertory many of the same summing-up songs associated with Frank Sinatra later in his career — “When the World Was Young,” “It Was a Very Good Year” and “September Song” — along with “I’m Still Here,” “I Will Survive,” “Here’s to Life” and “All by Myself.” The comedy would fall away, and you were listening to a woman telling her story, fiercely, and in charge to the end.
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #11 on: December 27, 2008, 12:20:35 am »


Eartha Kitt - I Want To Be Evil (1962)                (3:02)
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ5VaBgXzuM[/youtube]


Eartha Kitt - I Want To Be Evil                                (2:57)
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6BNzvhRlCk[/youtube]

"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline CellarDweller

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #12 on: December 27, 2008, 12:22:15 am »
Not only was Eartha Kitt an icon, she knew who her fan base was.

This is a quote from Eartha Kitt in a book I have called "The Book Of Gay Lists".  This list is "14 Gay Icons, and what They've Said About Gay Men."


"When I got into trouble in the '60s, gay men were the ones who kept my career alive.  They were looking for my records and female impersonators contantly imitated Eartha Kitt.  They kept my memory going until I returned, and I'm grateful for that."


Tell him when l come up to him and ask to play the record, l'm gonna say: ''Voulez-vous jouer ce disque?''
'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #13 on: December 27, 2008, 12:41:45 am »
Not only was Eartha Kitt an icon, she knew who her fan base was.

This is a quote from Eartha Kitt in a book I have called "The Book Of Gay Lists".  This list is "14 Gay Icons, and what They've Said About Gay Men."


"When I got into trouble in the '60s, gay men were the ones who kept my career alive.  They were looking for my records and female impersonators contantly imitated Eartha Kitt.  They kept my memory going until I returned, and I'm grateful for that."


Brilliant. 

Thanks for the quote, Chuck--and the thread!
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Aloysius J. Gleek

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #14 on: December 27, 2008, 12:48:06 am »

Eartha Kitt
A Turkish tale - in Turkish (Üsküdar'a gider iken)
   
[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOMw3oO27kM&feature=related[/youtube]
                                                                                 (3:08)



http://www.drcetiner.com/category/turkish-music/
Literal Translation of the Song from the Turkish

On the way to Uskudar, rain came down, it really did.
The clerk I love wears a frock coat with its long skirt muddied.
I guess he is just up from sleep: his eyes are still languid.
That clerk is mine - I am his - that’s no one else’s business.
It looks so lovely on my clerk; that frock coat with trousers (that starched shirt of his).

Going to Uskudar, I found a kerchief dropped by him.
And I filled my kerchief with Turkish delight to the brim…

Looking for that clerk of mine, I found myself right by him.

That clerk of mine - I am his - that’s no one else’s business.
It looks so lovely on my clerk: that starched shirt of his.


About Üsküdar
Üsküdar is a large and densely populated suburb of Istanbul, on the Anatolian shore of the Bosphorus right opposite the heart of the great city, next to Kadıköy. It is home to about half a million people.
"Tu doives entendre je t'aime."
(and you know who I am...)


Cowboy Curtis (Laurence Fishburne)
and Pee-wee in the 1990 episode
"Camping Out"

Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #15 on: December 27, 2008, 01:03:51 am »
I've been looking for a good video of her as Catwoman from the original Batman TV series, and this is the best I could find.  I guess the bonus is it includes Cesar Romero as The Joker.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VMn4ens6jA[/youtube]


Offline southendmd

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #16 on: December 27, 2008, 12:39:39 pm »
I've been looking for a good video of her as Catwoman from the original Batman TV series, and this is the best I could find.  I guess the bonus is it includes Cesar Romero as The Joker.

Eartha was always my favorite Catwoman.

OT, but could that be Pierre Salinger as Lucky Pierre?

Offline Shakesthecoffecan

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #17 on: December 27, 2008, 12:43:25 pm »
Eartha Kitt was born in North, South Carolina, which I always thought was just wonderful .  O0

I checked out the website for the town and found no mention of her at all, but in 1933 they began providing sewer service to all their residents.

http://www.townofnorth-sc.gov/History.htm
"It was only you in my life, and it will always be only you, Jack, I swear."

Offline Lynne

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #18 on: December 27, 2008, 01:01:17 pm »
Eartha Kitt was born in North, South Carolina, which I always thought was just wonderful .  O0

I checked out the website for the town and found no mention of her at all, but in 1933 they began providing sewer service to all their residents.

http://www.townofnorth-sc.gov/History.htm

Thanks for giving me a Laugh-Out-Loud moment today, Truman!  Only you.   :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
"Laß sein. Laß sein."

Offline Ellemeno

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #19 on: December 28, 2008, 04:01:45 pm »


OT, but could that be Pierre Salinger as Lucky Pierre?


Well played, M. le docteur.  He wasn't even credited:

http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0758415/



Offline HerrKaiser

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Re: Eartha Kitt, sultry 'Santa Baby' singer, dies
« Reply #20 on: December 30, 2008, 05:48:10 pm »
I recall when Kitt was performing live in San Francisco a few years ago and she was interviewed on a morning radio show. The interviewer/DJ kept trying to jive with her about politically left issues, and she literally put him down on air and told him not to misjudge her positions, particularly as it related to President Bush. She had an intelligent blend of conservative ideals tempered by liberal understandings.

Each Christmas season, the signal that the season is in full swing is her "Santa Baby" over the airwaves. Madonna's version conjures up, in my mind, the response Marlene Dietrich gave to the question about how she felt should Madonna portray her (Dietrich) in a bio drama. The response....."puuuuuulllleeeeeeeesssss.