Quoting Eartha Kitt

"I've always been multicultural myself. I'm not black and I'm not white and I'm not pink and I'm not green. Eartha Kitt has no color, and that is how barriers are broken."
Eartha Kitt



"Aging has a wonderful beauty and we should have respect for that."
Eartha Kitt



"We're not thought of in terms of color because we are entertainers. We are there to entertain you not because we are black, white, pink, or green or gay or straight or because we are Catholic or Protestant."
Eartha Kitt



"I do think that same gender partners should be able to be married. Why not? If you share a life together then who in the world should have anything to say about it?"
Eartha Kitt



 "I don't carry myself as a black person but as a woman that belongs to everybody. After all, it's the general public that made me - not any one particular group. So I don't think of myself as belonging to any particular group and never have."
Eartha Kitt



"Just because you are different does not mean that you have to be rejected."
Eartha Kitt

 

Eartha Kitt (1927-2008), among other roles Catwoman in the final season of Batman, was - according to Orson Welles - the "most exciting woman in the world". Her mother was of African-American and Cherokee descent, her father of German (or Swiss) descent (via). This "mixed parentage was a matter of shame for all concerned and would go on to blight her early life." (Williams, 2013).



Eartha Kitt was known for her activism, for supporting underprivileged young people, peace and LGBT rights which to her were civil rights. In an interview she said: "We're all rejected people, we know what it is to be refused, we know what it is to be oppressed, depressed, and then, accused, and I am very much cognizant of that feeling. Nothing in the world is more painful than rejection. I am a rejected, oppressed person, and so I understand them, as best as I can, even though I am a heterosexual." (via) It is reported that Kitt herself was rejected by her mother's husband because she was "too pale". She was sent away and later said: "If you're mulatto you're not black enough to belong to the blacks and not white enough to belong to the whites." (via)



Williams, J. L. (2013) America's Mistress: Eartha Kitt, Her Life and Times. London: Quercus Editions
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