Sophisticated, highly accomplished African-American performer with a husky, purring voice, once dubbed "the most exciting woman alive" by no less than Orson Welles. Kitt began her career as a Katherine Dunham dancer and as a chanteuse and actor in Europe before returning to the US as a cabaret singer with an international, indeed multilingual, repertoire. A self-styled "sex kitten", Kitt created a world-weary feline femme fatale image onstage, performing songs in over a dozen languages. She made her mark in film in the 1950s, beginning with her dazzling quartet of songs in the otherwise dreary "New Faces of 1952"/"New Faces" (1954), a screen record of the popular Broadway revue.
Although Kitt starred in the musical biography of W C Handy, "St. Louis Blues", in the title role in "Anna Lucasta" (both 1958), and was the subject of a 1981 documentary "All By Myself", her career has been uneven. Kitt for one has remarked on an unofficial "blacklisting" against her after she publicly stated that she was against the Vietnam War. For many, Kitt is best remembered for her exciting turn as the Catwoman in the deliberately campy 60s TV series, "Batman". She also garnered praise, though, for her return to Broadway after over two decades in "Timbuktu", a 1978 all-black revamp of "Kismet".
Kitt has for years kept busiest in cabaret, nightclub and concert hall performances, where her charismatic presence, self-mocking humor and still stunning vocal prowess have enchanted her legion of fans with such trademark songs as "C'est si Bon", "I Want to Be Evil", "Monotonous" and "Santa Baby". The late 80s, though, saw Kitt beginning to act more regularly in features, most typically in exotic or outlandish turns in films including "The Serpent Warriors" (1986), "Ernest Scared Stupid" (1991) and the Eddie Murphy vehicle, "Boomerang" (1992). She also made a welcome, if too brief, return to Broadway to play a Tony-nominated featured role in "The Wild Party" (2000), a downbeat musical drama based on Joseph Moncure March's acid portrait of 1920s nightlife culture. Reviews of the show were mixed, but critics were invariably transfixed and impressed with the still-striking diva's potent presence.
Copyright © Baseline 2006.