Eartha Kitt Dead at 81

I can’t help but think that legendary chanteuse Eartha Kitt would be at least a little pleased at the timing of her final exit. The singer best known for her 1953 recording of “Santa Baby” died on Christmas Day. J. Kingston Pierce at The Rap Sheet points out the irony:

This is both sad and ironic news for Christmas Day: Singer and actress Eartha Kitt, whose renditions of the song “Santa Baby” were likely heard millions of times today, has died of colon cancer. She was 81 years old.

Kitt had a long and lustrous career that included replacing Julie Newmar as Catwoman in the final season of Batman. Though it was mere television -- and silly television at that --- and Kitt was by then already a significant star, that role seems to symbolize the real power she held. At a time when the United States was reeling under civil rights issues, Kitt was beyond race. Above it, somehow. Was she a black woman? Well, of course she was. But she was a woman first. All woman. It was an aspect of her persona that was clear in every one of her roles. Orson Welles, who gave Kitt her first staring role -- as Helen of Troy -- called her “the most exciting woman in the world.”

Kitt would have been 82 next month.