Eartha Kitt Net Worth

Eartha Kitt's Quotes

• I am the original Material Girl.
• I have a great need for affection from an audience. I don't know whether this is because I had such a tough life when I was a child.
• [at the White House in 1968] I am a mother and I know the feeling of having a baby come out of my gut. I have a baby and then you send him off to war. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot.
• [on her friendship with James Dean] Jamie and I were like brother and sister. He told me, in fact, he thought of me as a sister. Our relationship was strictly platonic and spiritual.
• I don't carry myself as a black person but as a woman that belongs to everybody. After all, it's the general public that made me - not any one particular group. So I don't think of myself as belonging to any particular group and never have.

Interesting Facts about Eartha Kitt

1. Daughter: Kitt McDonald. Grandchildren: Justin and Rachel Shapiro.
2. Kitt's age was always a mystery, until 1998, when a group of students from her hometown in South Carolina unearthed her birth certificate. The document revealed that her true birthday is January 17, 1927.
3. Ranked #89 on VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock N Roll
4. Was virtually exiled from the United States after making anti-war statements during a White House luncheon with Lady Bird Johnson in 1968. However, she was welcomed back to the White House in 1978 by Jimmy Carter who took office in January 1977, after a successful return to Broadway in the original production of the musical Timbuktu!.
5. Was nominated twice for Broadway's Tony Award: in 1978, as Best Actress (Musical) for "Timbuktu!"; and in 2000, as Best Actress (Featured Role - Musical) for "The Wild Party".
6. Was inspired to go into show business after witnessing the wild applause that the audience gave José Ferrer after one of his stage performances as Cyrano de Bergerac in 1946.
7. Her name can be seen on a marquee in the infamously terrible Edward D. Wood Jr. cult film Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957).
8. Her husband, William O. McDonald, was a real estate developer. They were married from 1960 to 1964. They had one daughter: Kitt McDonald.
9. She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6656 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.
10. Replaced Chita Rivera for a time in the Broadway revival of the musical "Nine".
11. In 1968, she suffered a substantial professional setback after she made anti-war statements during a White House luncheon. It was reported that she made Lady Bird Johnson, the First Lady at the time, cry when she bluntly told her, "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. They rebel in the street. They don't want to go to school because they're going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam." However, the public reaction to Kitt's statements was even more extreme both for and against her statements. Professionally exiled from the United States, she devoted her energies to overseas performances for nearly a decade.
12. Became fluent in French during her long years performing in Europe.
13. An aunt brought her to New York City where she attended the High School of Performing Arts, before dropping out to take on various menial jobs, including one in a factory.
14. Among her liaisons with wealthy men included Charles Revson, the Revlon cosmetics founder, and actor Orson Welles, who spotted her in a Paris nightclub and cast her in his Paris stage production of "Faust".
15. Was nominated in 1996 for a Grammy Award in traditional pop vocal performance for her album "Back in Business".
16. She was awarded the 1996 Joseph Jefferson Award for Actress in a Principal Role in a Musical for "Lady Day at the Emerson's Bar & Grill" at the Broadway Productions and New Athenaeum Theatre in Chicago, Illinois.
17. Well-known for her recordings of "Santa Baby" in the 1950s and 1960s. She died on Christmas Day 2008 at her home in Weston, Connecticut.
18. On March 13, 1953, she recorded with Henri Rene and his Orchestra the American version of the French song "C'est si bon" which was written in 1947 by Henri Betti (music) and André Hornez (lyrics). The English lyrics were written by Jerry Seelen in 1949 but Eartha Kitt sings the song in French. Eartha Kitt sang the song in New Faces (1954) and in The Nanny: A Pup in Paris (1996). Her cover version has been used in several American films and television advertisements.
19. Friends with Freda Payne, and Dick Gregory.
20. Holds two Daytime Emmy Award records. She is both the only performer to win the Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program award three times, as well as the only winner to win three consecutive awards.