Singer/Actress Eartha Kitt Dies of Colon Cancer at 81 (Photos/Video)

Eartha Kitt, an American singer and actress died at the age of 81. Read more below on the life and death of Earth Kitt.

Eartha Kitt was very outspoken, but her words also led to a self-imposed exile to Europe in the 1960s and 70s after her harsh words about the war in Vietnam. During her career, Kitt won two Emmy television awards and was nominated for two Tony awards and a two Grammys.

Eartha Kitt had been receiving treatment for colon cancer at a hospital in New York City.

“She was certainly a legendary performer and while I think there may have been many imitations, she was an original,” Freedman said. She was one of the few artists nominated for Tony, Grammy and Emmy awards.

Kitt described her own self as a “sex kitten,” and in fact played the role of Catwoman in the US hit TV series “Batman” in the 1960s. Her feline purr and uncanny persona won her millions of fans, among them Hollywood’s Orson Welles, who called her “the most exciting woman in the world.”

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She acted in movies as well, starring with Nat King Cole in “St. Louis Blues” (1958) and with Sydney Poitier in “The Mark of the Hawk” (1957).

“I do not have an act. I just do Eartha Kitt,” she told the British newspaper The Times in April. “I want to be whoever Eartha Kitt is until the gods take me wherever they take me.”

“I Want to Be Evil” and “Santa Baby,” still a Christmas favorite today, were among her best-selling songs. She produced another hit in 1984 with the disco song “Where is My Man.”

Singing in 10 different languages, Kitt performed in over 100 countries.

She launched her career as a dancer in Paris with the famed Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe. Before hitting age 20, she had already toured the world as a dancer and vocalist with the company.

“Since that period in the early 40s and 50s, Europe has always held a special place in her heart, particularly Paris,” Freedman said.

“Paris was one of her great loves. One of her first big hits was ‘La Vie en Rose,’” the Edith Piaf original.

In December 2006, Kitt went to the White House to light the National Christmas Tree alongside President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush.

Kitt was known to have legions of fans sometimes less than half her age. She was the voice of the flamboyant Yzma in the animated Disney movie “The Emperor’s New Groove” (2000), and continued to voice the character in a sequel and subsequent TV series.

Eartha Kitt kept up her Broadway theater work and continued her cabaret act, performing at the reopening of New York’s Cafe Carlyle in September 2007.

Our condolences to Earth Kitt’s friends and family.

Images: WENN

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