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Eartha Kitt

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Eartha Kitt (Music)

"The audience has always been my best director."

Our moment of triumph approaches, ahahahaha! It's description time! *Dramatic Thunder*

Eartha Kitt (born Eartha Mae Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer and actress.

She began her career in 1943, joining the Katherine Dunham Company, touring worldwide. When the company eventually returned to the United States, she chose to remain in Paris as a nightclub singer. It was here that she was discovered by director Orson Welles, who gave her her first leading role as Helen of Troy in his play Doctor Faustus in 1950.

From there, Kitt became a regular on Broadway, and recorded many of her notable songs, with perhaps her most famous being the Christmas standard, "Santa Baby." Kitt's most famous TV role is the Catwoman in the third season of Batman (1966), where she wasn't allowed to have the established underlying sexual tension with the white title character, but infused an appealing cat-like slinkiness to her role.

Things came to an abrupt stop in 1968, however, when, during a visit to the White House, she made several statements opposing The Vietnam War. The incident led to her being blacklisted in the United States, and she was relegated to touring in Europe for the better part of The '70s.

Her career was eventually revived after a starring role in the 1978 musical Timbuktu, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. She would continue to sing and act, particularly as a voice actor, until her death from colon cancer in 2008.


Notable acting roles:


Her work contains examples of:

  • Bad Guys Play Pool: She sings, "I want to shoot pool" as an example of her wicked plans in "I Want to Be Evil".
  • Christmas Songs: She was known for writing and initially performing "Santa Baby", and even did a "sequel" record called "This Year's Santa Baby" in which she bemoans the condition of the previous year's goodies and asks Santa for a new batch.
  • Evil Is Hammy: Even if nothing she sings about in "I Wanna Be Evil" is that bad, she sings with tremendous campy relish, especially in a 1990 recording.
  • Gold Digger: A subject of a couple of her songs. "Santa Baby" has the narrator asking Santa for various luxury goods in a sultry manner, while "Just an Old Fashioned Girl" has the subject disguising her expensive demands as simple requests.
  • Naked in Mink: One notable performance of "Santa Baby" had her barely covered by a length of white fur.
  • LGBT+ Periphery Demographic: Between her often camp acting and singing and her activism, she was and is well liked by queer audiences, and explained this as a Commonality Connection in an interview. [invoked]
    We're all rejected people, we know what it is to be refused, we know what it is to be oppressed, depressed, and then, accused, and I am very much cognizant of that feeling. Nothing in the world is more painful than rejection. I am a rejected, oppressed person, and so I understand them, as best as I can, even though I am a heterosexual.
  • Poke the Poodle: "I Want To Be Evil" differs from standard Villain Songs in that she doesn't sing about riches, power, or triumphing over the hero, just everyday rudeness, slightly unwholesome behavior, and some things that flat-out aren't objectionable except to the kind of girl her character in the song is, someone who's celebrated for being sweet, Straight Edge, and never having been kissed. For all that she says she wants to be horrid and cruel, the specifics are all things like "hurt flies", step on peoples' feet at the theater, drink booze, win at card games, and lose her virginity.
  • Refuge in Audacity: In "Santa Baby," she seductively croons to Santa that because she has been a good girl all year, he should gift her with increasingly extravagant gifts like a '54 convertible, a duplex and checks, and the deed to a platinum mine.
  • Villain Song: "I Want To Be Evil" is about a "pure", sweet girl who wants to "become evil" and set aside her frills to... party and be mildly rude, basically, but it's sung with a tremendous relish.
    I wanna go to the Devil!
  • Word, Schmord!: One of her well-known songs is called "Mink Schmink".

 
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Video Example(s):

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The subject of the song "Santa Baby" (in this case, an animated Eartha Kitt), wants a ring, and they don't mean on the phone.

How well does it match the trope?

4.83 (6 votes)

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Main / FunWithHomophones

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