Manic Monday: Kit

Todays word is Kit:

The first thing I thought of when I saw the word Kit was KITT the car from Knight Rider. Duh..how many of us who grew up in the 80's thought that one. So... I skipped it.

The second thing I thought of was Catwoman. Yes, that's right Catwoman: Eartha Kitt. I know, I know, the name is spelled with two "t"s instead of one, but that's what you're getting today.

I absolutely LOVED to watch that 1960's Batman show. It came on every afternoon after school where I lived. All my friends and I watched those reruns religiously. "Same Bat-time, Same Bat Channel". Somewhere, I even have Adam West's and Burt Ward's autographs. We would play "Batman and Robin" for hours on end. I would always be Catwoman or Batgirl...not like there were a lot of choices, but Catwoman was my favorite. (I have a thing for villians)

Now, Eartha Kitt was not my favorite Catwoman....no way jose'. That will always be Julie Newmar. She was just soooooooo sexy, slinky, cool. But, Eartha Kitt had that voice....WOW, she could purr like no one's business. Here are some facts about the wonderful Eartha Kitt, who is best known as Catwoman, but is also a renown singer.

Eartha Kitt was born on January 26, 1928 in South Carolina to a family of sharecroppers. When she was eight years old she was sent to live with her aunt in Harlem. While in high school she became involved in the performing arts and studied dance. She was part of her church choir and also took piano lessons.

At sixteen she joined the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe and toured in Europe. While in Europe she had to fill in for a singer during the tour and decided she liked singing more than dancing. Orson Wells called her "the most exciting woman in the world" and signed her to star as Helen of Troy in his stage production of Dr. Faust in Paris. Her first film was Time Runs, an Orson Wells film. She acted in Batman in 1967, supposedly because they wanted to make it seem that Batman was in love with Batgirl rather than Catwoman.

While attending a White House luncheon in 1968 she denounced the Vietnam War in front of Mrs. Johnson, which led to her blacklisting, where she could not get a job in America for six years. She performed solely overseas from 1968 until 1974. "It wasn't that the American public didn't want me. It was that I couldn't get work anywhere. Even people I had contracted with wouldn't work with me," Kitt said.

She was watched by the C I A , which for years kept a thick file on her. "I was rejected artistically, emotionally and personally. I remember thinking, my own mother had given me away and now my country didn't want me either,"

She was one of only a handful of performers to be nominated for an Emmy, a Tony, two Grammys and an Academy Award. She has made a comeback of late, has released a book, a new recording and performs on a regular basis. Still, an activist, she is outspoken for her stance on Gay Rights which she feels is the community that stuck with her through the bad times when she was blacklisted.

She lives in Westchester, New York where she still amazes audiences with her one-of-a-kind personality.