Although she can look back on a long and successful career, life has not always been easy for Eartha Kitt. She had a difficult and impoverished childhood and lost track of her roots. Kitt worked hard to get to the top, but when she was a child, she had to fight prejudice within the African-American community because of her light skin color. Ironically, as an adult trying to succeed in show business, Eartha Kitt found that most of the available roles went to caucasian actresses.
[The picture shown here was sent by Eartha Kitt for use on this Web Page.]
The singer-actress was born on a cotton farm in North in 1927. Because the harvest was good that year, her father named her "Eartha." But the family was poor and when she was still quite young, her father left them. The family moved from place to place, trying to support themselves. Kitt was of mixed racial parentage, and her light skin made her unwelcome to some. When her mother met a man and decided to get married, he told her he would take her half-sister Pearl but not Eartha. Finally, her mother left the two children with a neighbor family, choosing not to separate them. The young Eartha Mae had to cook, clean, weed the garden, keep track of the cow, pick cotton, and do many other chores to cover her room and board. She recounts that she was not treated well in her new home. She saw her mother only a few times during the three years she lived there, once when she was taken to see her new half-sister, Almita. About six months later, her mother died.
Soon after, an aunt who lived in Harlem sent for Eartha. Kitt left South Carolina to live with her aunt when she was 8, losing touch with any family connections in the state. She attended school in New York, and started down the road that would eventually lead to a career in show business. Because her aunt wanted her to be a concert pianist, Eartha began to take piano lessons, although she disliked playing the piano and practising. At church, she sang in the choir and acted in plays. But times were hard, and for awhile, Eartha and her aunt were on relief. They ate so many apples that for years after she couldn't eat them. As she entered her teens, their finances began to improve. Kitt recounts that they had more food to eat and better clothing. After an audition, she was admitted to a high school for the performing arts. But her relationship with her aunt, which had never been good, deteriorated. Eartha found a part-time job to pay for her food and expenses. Finally, her aunt threw her out of the house. After staying with friends for a few days, Kitt decided to drop out of school and get a job. She found work as a seamstress in a factory, but lost her job after an illness kept her out of work for two weeks. She briefly returned to school and unsuccessfully tried to reconcile with her aunt before leaving for good.
Kitt had decided on a life in the theater, but meanwhile, she had to support herself. She found temporary work in a factory and then spent the summer at a camp in Connecticut working on a farm. That fall, back in New York, she met a young woman on the street who was looking for directions. The young woman was a dancer for Katherine Dunham, a choreographer who had a dance school. She offered to introduce her, and told her that Dunham was holding auditions for dancers. Despite her apprehension, Kitt was persuaded to try out. Just sixteen years old, she was on her way.
After winning a scholarship to the Katherine Dunham Dance School, she began to tour with the group and achieved her first professional success. As a member of the troupe, the sixteen year old Kitt toured in Mexico, Europe and South America as well as the U.S. Choosing to stay in Paris, she began to sing in nightclubs. Subsequently, Kitt became known as a singer and actress as well as a dancer. In 1950 she began her acting career as Helen of Troy in an Orson Welles production entitled Time Runs. In 1952 she starred in a Broadway musical, New Faces of 1952. She recorded a number of successful songs in the early 1950s as well. Kitt continued to act in both theater and on film, and to perform in nightclubs.Unwilling to contribute to the discrimination rampant in American society, Kitt decided that she would not perform before segregated audiences and included that requirement in her contracts. She appeared in several films, including St. Louis Blues in 1958 and Anna Lucasta in 1959. In the 1960s she played the role of Catwoman on the Batman television show. Kitt had seemingly achieved the American dream, and was a success in show business.