Eartha Kitt, 1927 - 2008.

A family friend says 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. She was 81....

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

Polly Anderson, AP.

See also: the official site and the Wikipedia entry.

Updated through 12/29.

Update: "Ms Kitt, who began performing as a dancer in New York in the late 40s, went on to achieve success and acclaim in a variety of mediums long before other entertainment multitaskers like Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler," writes Rob Hoerberger in the New York Times. "With her curvaceous frame and unabashed vocal come-ons, she was also, along with Lena Horne, among the first widely known African-American sex symbols. Orson Welles famously proclaimed her 'the most exciting woman alive' in the early 50s, apparently just after that excitement prompted him to bite her onstage during a performance of Time Runs, an adaptation of Faust in which Ms Kitt played Helen of Troy."

Updates, 12/26: "In the 20s and 30s, other non-white American stars - Paul Robeson, Josephine Baker, Nina Mae McKinney, Anna May Wong - had left their homeland with its crushing racial roadblocks, to find work and acclaim on the continent," writes Richard Corliss for Time. "But they were in the middle of their careers, and never matched their European eclat back home. Eartha was just starting hers. And in postwar America, the movies, Broadway and cabaret were more welcoming to black performers, especially ones with a touch of aristocratic or sexual exotica: Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte and Eartha - not Keith - Kitt."

"Even today it's difficult to imagine an entertainer, upon an invitation to the White House, having the guts to use the occasion to directly confront the administration." Ted Johnson recalls the famous incident at a luncheon hosted by Lady Bird Johnson.

"[I]t wasn't until I interviewed Eartha Kitt at the 1982 Toronto Film Festival that I learned what a wuss I truly am when it comes to serious imbibing." Joe Leydon's got a great story to tell.

Online viewing tips. Rosie Swash gathers two clips for the Guardian and Bob Westal's got four more.

Updates, 12/27: "It is no accident that Ms Kitt's seesawing career reascended during what has been called the new gilded age, now suddenly behind us," writes Stephen Holden in the NYT. "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."

"By chance, I spent Christmas Eve at an Olvera Street restaurant, where the entertainment included LA's marionette master Bob Baker and his matchless puppets," writes Reed Johnson in the Los Angeles Times. "One number had Baker pulling the strings of a larger-than-life-size pink female pussycat, purring out one of Kitt's signature tunes, 'Santa Baby.' The kids loved it. The adults smiled. It was sexy and fun, naughty but nice. Which is to say, it was pure Eartha Kitt."

Update, 12/29: "There have been many attempts to describe Kitt's extraordinary voice," writes Adrian Jack in the Guardian. "Kenneth Tynan got it wrong when he spoke of her vibrato, for she hardly used it. Although she cultivated a tremor for special effect, her pitch was remarkably clean, and she would bend it, very often sharp, with slow deliberation. She said she understood everything her voice could and could not do."

Posted by dwhudson at December 25, 2008 2:13 PM