Eartha
Eartha Kitt was once one of the world’s most glamorous entertainers. Born on a cotton plantation in South Carolina she was given up by her parents and raised by her Aunt in New York City.
Eartha knew she was different than the rest, she was half white and half black which did not allow her to completely fit in either group. She experienced a discrimination that few of her day had.
Her talent was her savior. She rose to the heights of the show business world performing in the finest showrooms and cabarets.
She found love several times in her life including a passionate affair with Arthur Lowe Jr. the heir of studio boss Arthur Lowe from MGM fame. The family forbid Lowe Jr. from marrying Eartha because the board of directors didn’t want a “black” heir.
She then fell passionately for Orson Wells (Citizen Kane) who cast her as “Helen of Troy” in Dr. Faustus. Orson introduced her to Paris and the best that the “City of Light” had to offer.
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artha was a bright light herself and she was determined not to be denied.
Nominated for an Oscar, a Tony and an Emmy she came back to America to conquer Broadway and Hollywood.
President Lyndon Johnson invited her to the White House to meet with his wife Lady Bird. Eartha took this time not to bask in the limelight but when it was her time to speak she looked directly into the cameras and steadfastly renounced the Vietnam War. For almost a decade after Hollywood, Broadway and the rest of America blacklisted her.
Again she was abandoned.
Love evaded her again and again as she was always afraid her family, her lovers and her audience would abandon her just like her parents did 50 years before.
This recurring theme brings a bittersweet sadness to the success she experienced in her life.
One of her final grand performances was at the 2000 Tony Awards when she sang the haunting lyric “You think the party is going to last forever, and you’ll always fly this high but that depends, the higher the high, the harder you’re gonna crash. Your body won’t matter and love won’t matter if you don’t have support to fight that one last fight”.
Eartha fought that fight.