Eartha Mae Kitt (January 17, 1927 - December 25, 2008), was an American act… Read Full Bio ↴Eartha Mae Kitt (January 17, 1927 - December 25, 2008), was an American actress, singer, and cabaret star. She was perhaps best known for her 1953 Christmas song Santa Baby. Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the world". She took on the role of Catwoman for the fourth season of the 1960s Batman TV series, replacing Julie Newmar who was unavailable for the final series.

Born in tiny North, South Carolina to Mamie Kitt, who was of Cherokee and African-American descent, and an American father (surname Kitt) of German and Dutch descent, she was raised by her maternal aunt Anna Mae Riley, whom she believed was her mother up until after Riley's death, when she was sent to live in New York City with her real mother.

Kitt began her career as a member of the Katherine Dunham Company and made her film debut with them in Casbah (1948). A talented singer with a distinctive voice, her hits include Let's Do It, C'est Si Bon (It's So Good), Just an Old Fashioned Girl, Monotonous, Love for Sale, I'd Rather Be Burned as a Witch, Uska Dara, Mink, Schmink, Under the Bridges of Paris, and arguably her most recognizable hit, the sexily sung Christmas song Santa Baby. She sang quite a few songs in French, a language she picked up during her years performing in Europe, but she never lost her American accent, which made her French songs sound rather amusing to native French speakers. She dabbled in other languages as well, which she demonstrated in many of the live recordings of her cabaret performances.

In 1950, Orson Welles gave her her first starring role, as Helen of Troy in his staging of Dr. Faustus. A few years later, she was cast in the revue New Faces of 1952, introducing "Monotonous", "C'est Si Bon" and "Santa Baby", three songs with which she continues to be identified. During her run, 20th Century Fox filmed a version of the play. Welles and Kitt allegedly had a torrid affair during her run in Shinbone Alley, which earned her the nickname by Welles as "the most exciting woman in the world". In 1958, Kitt made her feature film debut opposite Sidney Poitier in The Mark of the Hawk. Throughout the rest of the 1950s and early 1960s, Kitt would work on and off in film, television and on nightclub stages. In the late 1960s television series Batman, she played Catwoman after Julie Newmar left the role. This was the role for which she would best be remembered, owing to her purring feline drawl.

In 1968, however, Kitt encountered a substantial professional setback after she made anti-war statements during a White House luncheon that reportedly made First Lady Lady Bird Johnson weep uncontrollably. Professionally exiled from the U.S., she devoted her energies to overseas performances before returning to New York in a triumphant turn in the Broadway spectacle Timbuktu! (a version of the perennial Kismet set in Africa) in 1978. In the musical, one song gives a 'recipe' for mahoun, a preparation of cannabis, in which her sultry purring rendition of the refrain "constantly stirring with a long wooden spoon" was distinctive.

In 1984, she returned to hit music with a dance song, Where Is My Man; the first certified Gold record of her career. Kitt found new audiences in nightclubs across the country, including a whole new generation of gay male fans, and she responded by frequently giving benefit performances in support of HIV/AIDS organizations.

In 2000, Kitt again returned to Broadway in the short but notable run of the revival of the 1920s-themed, The Wild Party, opposite Mandy Patinkin and Toni Collette. In 2003, she replaced Chita Rivera in Nine. In recent years she had also appeared as the Wicked Witch in the North American national touring company of The Wizard of Oz.

One of her more unusual roles was as Kaa the python in a 1994 BBC Radio adaptation of The Jungle Book. Kitt lent her distinctive voice to the role of Yzma in Disney's The Emperor's New Groove and also did other voiceover work such as the voice of Queen Vexus on the animated TV series My Life as a Teenage Robot. She continued her role as Yzma on the spin-off TV series of The Emperor's New Groove, The Emperor's New School.

In recent years, Kitt's annual appearances in New York made her a fixture of the Manhattan cabaret scene. She took the stage at venues such as the Ballroom and, more recently, the Café Carlyle to explore and define her highly stylized image, alternating between signature songs (such as "Old Fashioned Millionaire"), which emphasized a witty, mercenary world-weariness, and less familiar repertoire, much of which she performed with an unexpected ferocity and bite that presented her as a survivor with a seemingly bottomless reservoir of resilience - her version of Here's to Life, frequently used as a closing number, was a sterling example of the latter. This side of her later performances is reflected in at least one of her recordings, Thinking Jazz, which preserves a series of performances with a small jazz combo that took place in the early 1990s in Germany, and which includes both standards (Smoke Gets in Your Eyes) and numbers (such as Something May Go Wrong) that seem more specifically tailored to her talents; one version of the CD includes as bonus performances a fierce, angry Yesterdays and a live take of "C'est Si Bon" that good-humoredly satirizes her sex-kitten persona.

Personal life
Kitt was married to John William McDonald, an associate of a real-estate investment company, from 1960 to 1965. They had one child, a daughter, Kitt (b. 1962, married Charles Lawrence Shapiro); and two grandchildren, Jason and Rachel Shapiro.

Eartha Kitt died of colon cancer on Christmas Day, December 25, 2008.

Smoke gets in your eyes
Eartha Kitt Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

They asked me how I knew
My true love was true
Oh, I, of course, replied
Something here inside
Cannot be denied

They said someday you'll find
All who love are blind

Oh, when your heart's on fire
You must realize
Smoke gets in your eyes

So I chaffed them, and I gaily laughed
To think they could doubt our love
Yet today, my love has flown away
I am without my love

Now laughing friends deride
Tears I cannot hide
So I smile and say:

"when a lovely flame dies
Smoke gets in your eyes,"

Overall Meaning

Eartha Kitt's rendition of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" is a melancholic ballad that showcases the pain and sorrow of a broken-hearted lover. The opening lines of the song, "They asked me how I knew, My true love was true, Oh, I, of course, replied, Something here inside, Cannot be denied," describes the feeling of a lover who is so in love with their partner that they cannot deny it.

The lover is then warned that love can make us blind, and the fire within the heart can cause problems. In this case, they are warned that "smoke gets in your eyes." In this metaphor, smoke symbolizes the pain and sadness that comes with love, and how it can cloud our judgment.

The third stanza shows the lover dismissing their friends' doubts about how strong their love is. Yet, in the last verse, we see that their love has left them, and the pain is so much that even tears cannot be hidden. They are forced to put on a brave face while saying "When a lovely flame dies, Smoke gets in your eyes."

Overall, Eartha Kitt's emotional portrayal of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" demonstrates the fragility of love, how it can lead to both joy and pain, and how challenging it is to navigate.

Line by Line Meaning

They asked me how I knew
They inquired about how I was sure

My true love was true
Of my love had the quality of being genuine

Oh, I, of course, replied
I immediately provided an answer

Something here inside
I have a feeling within me

Cannot be denied
I cannot reject or disavow it

They said someday you'll find
They made a prediction that someday I would discover

All who love are blind
Everyone who loves is unable to see clearly

Oh, when your heart's on fire
When you feel intense passion or desire

You must realize
You need to comprehend or acknowledge that

Smoke gets in your eyes
Emotions can obscure your view of reality

So I chaffed them, and I gaily laughed
I lightly teased them and laughed cheerfully