BIOGRAPHY
Eartha Kitt, born on January 17, 1927 and died on December 25, 2008, was an American singer, actress, dancer, comedian, activist, and voice artist. She is best known for her successful 1953 recording of "C'est Si Bon" and her version of the Christmas song "Santa Baby". She was born in North Carolina and was raised in Harlem, New York. Her mother, Anna Mae Bullock, was a sharecropper of African-American and Cherokee descent. Kitt began her career in 1943 and appeared in the original Broadway theatrical production of the musical comedy Carib Gold in 1945. She first gained recognition as a dancer and stage actress, and was the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy Film. In the 1950s, she had six Top 30 hits in the US, including two number one songs in 1953 with "C'est Si Bon" and "Santa Baby". Kitt played Catwoman in the final season of the television series Batman in 1967. Among her other notable film roles are The Sign of the Cross (1957), and Mr. Arkadin by Orson Welles (1955). She appeared in two episodes of The Love Boat in 1977 and 1984. In the 1980s, Kitt appeared in the soap opera Dynasty as witch Maya. She returned to Broadway in the original 1998 production of the musical The Wild Party. Kitt's distinctive style was shaped by her early career in New York nightclubs, where she developed her own persona as an eccentric, flamboyant and highly sexual performer. She was known for the range of her voice, which spanned four octaves, and for her distinctive purring voice. Kitt wrote and recorded two autobiographies, Thursday's Child (1956) and I'm Still Here: Confessions of a Holocaust Survivor (2009). She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 and was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1984. In 2008, she received the Legend Award from the Society of Singers.
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