Eartha Kitt dies of cancer aged 81
Published:
EARTHA Kitt, the sultry singer, dancer and actress who rose from South Carolina cotton fields to become a star, has died.
Family friend Andrew Freedman said Kitt, 81, died yesterday of colon cancer. She was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York.
Kitt a self-proclaimed “sex kitten” famous for her catlike purr, was a versatile performer, winning two Emmys.
She also was nominated for a number of 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 in southern USA and made headlines in the 1960s for speaking out against the Vietnam War.
Through the years, Kitt remained a picture of vitality and attracted fans less than half her age even as she neared 80.
When her book Rejuvenate, a guide to staying physically fit, was published in 2001, Kitt was featured on the cover in a long, curve-hugging black dress with a figure that some 20-year-old women would envy. She also wrote three autobiographies.
Once dubbed the “most exciting woman in the world” by Orson Welles, she spent much of her life single, though brief romances with the rich and famous peppered her younger years.
She played the role of sexy Catwoman on the popular Batman television series in 1967-68.
