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Eartha Kitt Dead at 81

By Jess Kilby, Newser User

Posted Dec 25, 2008 6:15 PM CST

(Newser) – The versatile and ever-sultry Eartha Kitt died today at age 81, the AP reports. Kitt, with her trademark purr, had a career as a dancer, singer, and actor that spanned six decades. Among her musical hits was “Santa Baby," now in common rotation during the holidays. Kitt, who retained her self-proclaimed “sex kitten” image well into old age, died of cancer in a Connecticut hospital.

Born to a white father and a mother who she says was half black and half Cherokee, Kitt never identified herself by her race. "I don't carry myself as a black person but as a woman that belongs to everybody,” she once said. Dubbed “the most exciting woman in the world” by Orson Welles, Kitt briefly played Catwoman on the Batman TV series, and once publicly denounced the Vietnam War while on a visit to the White House.

[Images (6)]

[Videos (1)]

Eartha Kitt arrives to the launch party of 'Unforgivable Woman', the first woman's scent released under the Sean John name, New York, Wednesday, Sept., 19, 2007. (AP Photo/Stuart Ramson)

Eartha Kitt, star of the Broadway Play "Timbuktu", arrives on the shoulders of Tony Carroll, Mr. Universe of 1977, at New York's Waldorf Astoria. (AP Photo/Ira Schwarz, File)

Brad Oscar, dressed as Santa Claus, watches Eartha Kitt perform during the Christmas Pageant of Peace Opening Ceremony on the Ellipse in Washington, Dec. 7, 2006. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, file)

In this Dec. 23, 1950, file photo, Eartha Kitt, rehearses for a show in Paris. (AP Photo, File)

This Feb. 7, 1996, file photo shows singer Eartha Kitt in a New York hotel room. (AP Photo/Rick Maiman, file)

This Dec. 13, 1977, file photo shows singer Eartha Kitt. (AP Photo/Carlos Rene Perez, file)

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Eartha Kitt performs in French, one of the many languages she learned to master over the years. (cnewq5)

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