Page 7 - Pop History: Eartha Kitt

Episode Date: July 7, 2020

We explore the life and times of the mother of slink, Eartha Kitt.Want even more Page 7? Support us on Patreon! Patreon.com/Page7Podcast Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, ladies and gents. Just want to give you a quick heads up. This episode is full of fun and laughter, but we also do talk a bit about some sexual assault and some racial issues based on the story of the incredible Eartha Kit. So just so you know. Santa baby. Put something under the tree for me.

That's a staple. And my dirty, you know, either way. Whatever. We're doing an episode on Earth of Kit, and that's the way we're starting it. And I don't care. I'm so sorry, Eartha Kit. I'm sorry that we've done this to you. Yes, we are talking about Eartha Kit today, and yes, she has been called two parts

cat and one part woman sprinkled liberally with dynamite powder. I love Eartha Kit. And actually just even in realizing I didn't even get into my deep in-depth research about Ernest scared stupid because... Her most important pivotal role. That's what brought me into loving Earth-A-Kid. get though. That's hilarious. And then I found everything else. I got to say I am shamefully I was unaware of her until this and I I wish she was my mommy. Man she was like a

great mom and we'll get into that for sure. I for me I had always meant to watch Emperor's New Groove and this gave me the excuse to finally sit down and watch that delightful film and she's amazing in it. Probably for me, my first exposure to her was as Catwoman because I loved the Batman and live action corny as fuck TV series back in the day with Adam West and she was amazing in it and I was probably confused as to why Black or Catwoman turned black after the third season but I do welcome to change because she killed it. She fucking

crushes it. Slink, she's the mother of Slink but also again Natalie for the second week in a row would you like to try it? Oh, all. Oh. Oh. Grr. Still. Still hard.

So it sounds like we both So it sounds like we both, or all three of us, had certain. I mean, I don't know. Do you have a, you have a gusher, I guess, Jackie.

Because for us, I think Natalie and I were taken through, shown the ropes, as it were, about this person. An epic American tale, like,

just classic. insane American story that really tells the story of this country in like eight different moments. And a lot of times in a very, very negative, ugly, realistic way, which I appreciate. Very much so. She seems like a pretty, though very cold and things of that nature, which was she does attribute to her upbringing, which makes sense completely that we will definitely get into. She does seem like that model American person. that is born into horribleness and rises above it and perseveres and just becomes, you know,

and speaks her mind and stands up for herself. And has to work every single day to be herself and to get what she wants. And I was saying about this before we started recording, it's reminiscent of the trajectory of Joan Rivers and how no matter how much they kept knocking her back down, she's like, fuck you. you're not gonna knock me down. And now, Eartha kid, I was obsessed with again, because of Ernest scared, stupid.

But then I found out that she was a singer. And I found out that she was an actress doing other awesome things. Things other than Ernest movies? And other than holes. Yes, she was great in holes as well. She was also in holes, yes. And Isma an impersonating group. But that's the cool thing about her is that, you know,

there's so many people that know her by her nightclub act. Then there's all these, the whole other generation that knows her. this great character voice actress. But also as well for someone that has always had a deep voice for a woman, I used to seek out other women that had deep voices because I wanted to feel more normal about it. And Eartha Kit was one of the people that I used to look to. I had her records and then I would buy her CDs and I would try to get other people to listen

to Eartha Kit because I just thought she was, now realizing too, in all of this research that this was a persona that she put on, but she was so sexy and effortless. I believe she was effortlessly sexy and even with the husky voice and with this presence that she wasn't a normal, quote unquote, what you would look to as a Hollywood starlit beauty-wise. But she's gorgeous. She is. She's stunning and also very charming, very intelligent and has a great sense of humor, which is something that I always, you know, appreciate.

And now I think if you, what an inspiration and how she views and way, way progressive for her time period, how she views men and relationships and love. And what an activist. Yes, in so many different ways. Amazing stuff. And going back to the voice thing, yeah, what people may not know is that Jackie has sounded like a dragon since she was a baby. Always.

voice has, her voice made the, it made the nurses cry. They thought that, they were like, did you, they asked her mom if she had had sex with some kind of a rabid, forest creature. When I came out of that egg, when I got out of the egg and I went, Mother! My mom wept, immediately wept, and I said, that's not the last time you will cry for me, Mama. And then you were like, not the baby.

Yes, not the baby. Not the mama. Not the mama. Yeah, always. say I'm not the mama to the literal dinosaur that her mother had sex with a creator. And it is very sweet that Henry's dad adopted her and took her on. Thank you, Daddy. I will say in many of the different avenues of entertainment that Eartha Kit works.

And she does say the word daddy often, not only in Santa Baby, but also. They made them all do it. I have my heart for daddy. They all had to do it. All sexy baby syndrome was just throughout. Until the 90s. Yes, I watched in a La Cosa this morning. Britney Spears, later than the 90s.

Britney Spears! That was 2000s! I was watching the movie that she did with Sammy Davis Jr. this morning and it's just like, Daddy don't! Daddy plays, don't do it. And that's the dude she's stripping. And I get it. You know, I call Goth Daddy, Goth Daddy. I don't call him Goth Daddy in private. Sure.

Because it was brought back around almost ironically. Yes. Because it's horrifies me. Because it's insane that basically we were like, hey, fellas, raise this thing you're going to put your penis into. It's so hot. And she- I don't know anything, but I know that I love you, dear. I'm just a lady.

But she really did work very hard. That just made my throat just go, never do that pitch again. It really made her. rise above that because she didn't want to just be that. And the fact that now that I'm aware of Eartha Kit is a persona and Eartha May is who she is in real life, it makes so much more sense because she had to create, which we've talked about in other episodes before, she had to create that outside shell to protect herself. I don't know anything about that. I know. I've never done that.

And I'm always. certainly don't not use my last name. I'm always positive and I'm always happy. There is also a story though of like that I thought was pretty brutal, but I mean, it should, you know, it should go along with the rest of it. There was this old actress that was like in her 80s and she was really struggling to get work and she was on this production with Eartha Kit and she was really struggling and having a hard time with her lines and stuff.

And Eartha Kit was just like, my bitch, she just had her get replaced. She's a little bit cold. And also I'm going to reference it many times this weird 1982 documentary I watched about her. There's a lot of clips of her teaching young girls had a dance. And so she taught dancing for free. And she was hard as fuck on those little girls. Well, she was part of a dance true. Yes.

And she was a dancer from a very young age and told constantly that she would never make it in dance because her breasts were too big. Which is that normal? That still happens. Right. And so her, the way that she interacted with these young girls, and I'm saying girls because they were tweens, was very terrifying to watch because I was like, I don't want, I mean, she was making them very good dancers. It is really more indicative of the problems in the dance world than anything. Yes. And even in how she got into it.

But I guess let's start at the beginning because she didn't know until she was 71 years of age that she was born in the, year 1927. How crazy is that? She wasn't actually sure what year she was born because she was born into slavery. I have some shit to say about all of the birth certificate shit when we get to that. Oh yeah, for sure. But we'll

start with just born on a cotton plantation outside a small town in South Carolina. Her mother was of Cherokee and African descent and her father was unknown to her. However, it was said he was the son of the owner of the farm on which she was born and that she was

a product of rape. She still doesn't know if that is actually true. Yes, that is all, there was another story about it being a different guy. It's very unclear, but either way. So even coming into this world, her mother was a light skin to half Cherokee black person, and her mother was already not accepted fully by the black community. And then her being born also of mixed race as well will just lead to the first 16 years of her life, and forever. the rest of her life, not knowing how to fit in and not being accepted by either the white or the black community. Which is, you know, doubly tragic because they're, you know, not presumably, but they believe it was from rape. So she was born out of force into a world where they rejected her for being what she was, which was somebody who forced somebody on somebody else.

else. You know, it's like... Her daughter would actually speak towards it later in life. She's saying, in 1927, to be a light-skinned black person in the South was just as horrible as being a black person in the white South. My mother was not accepted by the black community.

She never found out her father's name, but always assumed he was white. My mother was referred to as a quote, yellow gal, which was not a compliment. It meant someone who thought they were better than everyone else, even though my mother was just a child at the time.

She was horribly abused in the South. She was beaten, mistreated emotionally, and physically. Part of being a yellow gal also meant that you were a motherless bastard and not black enough to be with the blacks and not white enough to be with whites. I don't believe that's a slur to this day, but I'm sorry. I've never, I've never heard of this term before. I imagine being labeled as such so young. And also when we will see when her mother gets.

her away why her new stepfather rejects her. It's because of this term because she was already labeled from birth. Yeah. So her mother, her mother, as you just said, just to clarify, goes to live with this other guy who is also black and refuses her. And that is how she ends up with her aunt Rosa who took her name. But I do want to say that she, so in this documentary, she goes to where she believes her mother and her other siblings were. buried and she was standing by the grave and she just said, well, she gave me away because she had to. It's something I have to live with. If your mother gives you away, then everybody else will

give you away too. That's the feeling you grow up with. Yeah. And she also believes her mother was poisoned because apparently she was, she mysteriously died after eating food, quote, sprinkled with an unusual pepper. Hmm. Interesting. So she is just a child and she is now picking cotton to earn her keep at just seven years old, if you could imagine, working a job at that young. And that, yeah, and that's when she witnesses the death. After this incident, this is when she ends up in Harlem, New York City, to live with another relative named Mamie Kit. Well, yeah, because before that, she was kept with another relative's family and she was

severely abused and, like, yeah, used in every way possible, including slave labor. And she, you know, as it wasn't the time, she didn't. even have, you know, indoor plumbing or anything like that. So she, and she wore a potato sack was her only clothes. Don't worry, guys, it gets a lot better. Yes, you want to fight back. But not quite yet when she gets sent to her Aunt Mamey's house in Harlem, who turns out, so I've read very varying ideas of what this was.

Now, this woman was not good to her. That is definitely, that is definitely a constant. but aunt made me, it seems, either was her biological mother who had abandoned her at birth or she decided that for herself and just felt that I couldn't find a confirmation of either. I don't think they ever knew, but she said that they did look very similar. Yes. Yes. And because of some arcane logic that I'll still not understand, her aunt ends up throwing her out of the house because she failed to. to become a concert pianist?

She wanted her to play piano and Eartha Kit was like, I'm not. So you think about it, it's like, so she's put into this, she gets into a very great high school, right? She's able to start learning more and working on creative arts and being forced to

play the piano, but then also just having the shit beaten out of her every single day by this woman. And so then she would be beaten mostly because it was a lot of piano, no based beatings. Well, can you imagine even on top of that coming from where she did to Harlem, the middle of a city, somebody who's not familiar with electricity. When she first came into the

house, she had to go to the bathroom. And so at first, the, what's her name, Mamie? Yes. She was like, what do you, do you have to go to the bathroom and let me show you where to go? And so she took her into the bathroom and let her sit inside. And Eurtha had never seen indoor plumbing or a toilet before. So she thought she was in trouble. She thought she was in a closet being punished. And she sat there for like 30 minutes before Mamie came in and was like, what are you doing? She's like, I don't know.

I didn't, I don't know how to go to the bathroom. We got bathroom in here. I thought I was in trouble. And so then that is where she's being thrust into and also being forced to like do all this other shit while she's still trying to understand like lights. Like seriously, like she didn't know how lights worked. And she was like obsessed with light switches. And so later in life, Kit would say, when people come backstage and announce themselves as relatives of mine, they get the brush off treatment. I'll never forget how my own people treated me and my mother.

I had reddish hair and I was too light. Everyone called me, that yellow girl and nobody wanted me, Negro or white. And this was, she became known for not just snubbing relatives, celebrities, pretty much anybody who came backstage to be like, hey. I know you from the past. It was because she doesn't like her fast. Which is understandable. In fact, even in the documentary, when she goes, so this is the first time she had gone back to where she had grown up since,

and she was in her 50s, 60s at this point. And so she goes back and she's driving and this guy, because of course, they all know who Earth the kid is. And she goes, she was looking at the church that she used to go to, and she's driving, and this guy gets in the road and stops her. And he's like, I'm your brother. Like, they told me you were in town. I'm your brother.

And then he's like, she's like, oh, that's great. really great really good to see you and then as she's driving off she's like yeah i guess he's my stepbrother but it's from the marriage that she was rejected by that he openly she's like i remember him as kids calling me these names saying those things about me and she's like and now he's my brother and now he wants to be my brother you're not my fucking brother you're nothing to me big mistake huge pretty woman she didn't say the f word either she's classy she came in she goes remember when you rejected me and she's holding all their bags from Rodeo Drive. Just like pretty woman.

But she's not a prostitute. And I feel like Jackie started tapped into a little bit of her own relationship with her brother just then and it was scary. Yes, so he said, Henry, you're not. Get out of here, Henry. Whoa. No, I love my brother and he is my brother. But also that's because he wasn't beating me or rejecting my existence.

And he was okay with the fact that you were born to a paternal dinosaur, man. And then I'm a dinosaur. Your dragon voice. I mean, he does go every time I walk into a room, but I like that. Yeah, it's very grand music. So this next part at least lightens up

and I love this story because it feels like it's right out of a musical from the 1950s. So while at this point she's like working as a seamstress in a factory doing all these different crappy jobs and while out and about in New York City a woman asks her for directions, which sparks up a conversation between the two.

It turns out this woman was a dancer under a choreographer and teacher named Catherine Dunn and convinced her to go to an audition with her. What I like to, essentially, though, is that this woman was just asking her to go to a, like, how to get to the Max Factor makeup store. And she said, I asked her why she was going because no one our age wore makeup back then. And then she said, I, I am a dancer for Catherine Dunham. And she goes, okay, I'll tell you how to get to the makeup. makeup store if you get me in for an audition.

Hell yeah. Which is that's such a bad, I mean, she's 17 years old. So scrappy. Yes. I have 16. That she wins a scholarship to study with and eventually become a member of the Catherine Dunham Company. This is the first African American dance company founded in Chicago in 1930 by, of course,

Catherine Dunham. And this is really what sets the whole rest of her life, the course that she would end up having. And really, man, what a game changer. Also, I will say, too, that I saw it many times of differences in ages of stuff, and it's because they had no idea what year she was born in for so long. Right. Of course, yeah.

So, if it's 17, 16, she could have been 47. It's like she's teens. She's itish. Yes. She's got boobies. She got the boobies, you know. Too big to be a dancer boobies as well. You know what, though?

It's like sort of because they didn't make good bras for people. They still don't really. No, they died. You know, they were just flopping around. What are you going to do? I get it. You got tape them up. I'm floppy.

Right. And maybe you can even use the breasts in the performance. They could be, they're almost like a second pair of feet. Yeah, they're like, other limbs. I'm always saying that about my breasts. So, you know, my second pair of feet. So this troop ends up touring through Mexico, South America, Paris, and London clearly gives her this lifelong love of travel that she would end up instilling in her own daughter. Also, at this time period as well, this is one of the, I think.

I believe it was the only black dance troupe that traveled all around the world as well. So this was a very exclusive. In what year? Troop to be a part of in 1944. And she ends up actually making her big screen debut during this time in a film called Casbah, which was in 1948, as a member of the troop. Of course, she's not like any, I don't even think it's a speaking role or anything like that. But either way, she eventually breaks away from the troop, goes solo, and gains popularity in a Paris as a nightclub singer at a club called Carols.

Ran by a woman, I love this. Ran by a woman named Fred, who was a former lover of Marlene Dietrich, described as, quote, one of the most beautiful women you ever want to see in your life, always dressed as a man. And apparently Fred took care of Eartha Kit. At this time period, Fred was very aware of the situation that Eartha Kit was in was very new to all of this. And at this time period, Fred took her under the...

wing to make sure that she wasn't being taken advantage of. Which is great. I wish that somebody would do that for me. Or and for everybody. I wish there was always somebody there to protect her evil. It's still, it's not like it's a ton better these days. No. I don't kind of need someone like that in the entertainment business.

She ends up performing at the club for 11 months. She was so popular there and learned a lot of the French language this way. And this is where actor-director Orson Wells comes in. He discovers her during this time. famously refers to her as, quote, the most exciting woman alive. It is said that later they potentially had an affair. This is something she denies. She was no story.

Denied, denied. And she did say, she said, that was one reason why he thought I was the most exciting woman in the world. I kept my mouth shut. And so he thought I was very intelligent. That is the best quality of a woman if she stops talking. Keep the mouth shut. Also, her daughter did say she was close to Orson Wells. And she was like a sponge around him because she was so drawn to his intensity

and his incredible knowledge of many different subjects. People often thought they were lovers, but she said they never were. It was more of a mentorship. So yes, he wells castor as Helen of Troy in his production of Dr. Fausis, which he retitled Time Runs back in 1951. And this is what Eartha Kid had to say. It's so romantic. After rehearsing all night, Orson would walk me up the Champsalisee to my hotel with the sun coming up.

We would look at the site's window shop, and he would recite Shakespeare to me. I love this. So there was a review of her performance in Helen of Troy, and I just love this line. It says, Eartha Kitt, whose haunting rendition of Duke Ellington's hungry little trouble blends beautifully with the poetry of Faust, quite literally steals the show. The petite 22-year-old South Carolinian invariably draws applause by her singing of, You Creo, I Tengo One More, which is, I think I have a love, a song. she wrote herself. Her brief recital between the dramatic portions of the production is certainly worth the price of admission. And it is Orson who really brings her into this higher class way. I mean, can you imagine going from picking cotton on a farm in the south in, you know, at seven years old to being in Paris with Orson Wells. She said, Orson really introduced me to a marvelous gourmet type of living. Him and Ruba Rosa, I tell you, I was absolutely spoiled. by the best kind of men, referring to the millionaire playboy,

Porfirio Rubiroosa, with whom she did have an affair. Yeah. And she does talk about that a lot in her later years, that she recognized that about her, and she always kept that in the back of her mind so that she always did eat up life because she knew she would look out and go, I can't believe I'm here. And I think that's such a beautiful way to stay happy in your life.

And she never took it for granted either. And that's what I love about her and how many times she's had to reinvent herself. And things like this where she goes to parents, she's like, okay, well, then I'm going to learn French. And she's teaching herself how to live life as she's going. The fact that she'd never gone to dance school and gotten to this dance true. The fact that she had never sung professionally. And this point in time, she's like, well, I can sing, so I'm going to. And she used her unique voice and sound as ways to help her keep going.

And her unique look to make her stand out. And that is the best thing I can think of doing, you know, with that, with all the hatred you get towards you and makes you different than everybody else. You go, well, I'll fucking turn this into something I can use. Hell yeah. I love this. One of the songs in the nightclub act that she would become most known for is Cess Cibon. And it actually was a bit of an accident how it all came together.

The song was actually sent to her while she was living in. Paris by her agents who told her it was already a hit four times over in the past, so she gave it a shot. However, her first performance of it was in Brussels, but she totally blanked on the words. She said, first of all, there was nothing but women in the audience, and that scared the hell out of me. I like women, and I love them in my audience because they have a good sense of humor, but I love working to men, and there were no men. So when I saw all these women, it kind of threw me. So I ad-lib, which is what you hear today on the record, which is how they're

the song became another hit. Insane. She just... She was like... She clearly had... She clearly knew she had like a power over men in the nightclub. Yes. You know, world.

And she could just... Even at that young, she was like controlling a room full of men, right? So it's so hilarious that a room full of all women was way more intimidating for her. I mean, I get that. I can see all their judgy faces looking up. But wait, so on the record, is she not speaking from... Is it just gibberish? I think she, I, that I'd have to go back and check out because I don't speak French.

But I think she did have a decent handle on the language probably, I believe, by that point. I thought you took this job seriously and you didn't even. I am apologizing to the people of the world. Why don't you speak French, Holden? Speak French. Talk about playing to a room full of women. You ladies are killing me right now. And I also like that we're talking about this right now, this kind of control she had in the nightclub.

because it brings up this dual personality situation between Eartha May and Eartha Kit because she sees herself either at any point in time as Eartha May or Eartha Kit depending the real game changer is if she's on stage or not. Yes. Kit said this about her Eartha May persona. That's the one that's terribly, terribly shy

and never wants to be seen or attract attention to her because she's a reject. Nobody wanted her as an orphan. My mother gave me away. But once I get out there on stage and realize that I'm, still wanted and I'm still needed, I begin to feel, oh, this is my comfort spot. But once I leave the stage, I go back to being a little cotton picker from the south, that little orphan that nobody

wanted. It's not a sad thing. That's a very comfortable feeling for me to be in. But that private side of me is so private. And that's what I love when she was asked, what is the real Eartha Kit like? She says, I'm not a show off. I'm actually a very shy person. There's always a shy little girl inside. People told her that she was an ugly duckling, that she didn't belong to anything or anybody, and Nobody wanted her. I was a sepia Cinderella, treated like a workmule from the time I was able to walk. And she's trying so hard to find somebody that says, Eartha May, it's all right. You're wanted to.

And this also is a through line that would actually happen for Jackie as well. Jackie felt like she was truly a dragon because she was born from a dinosaur, father, and a human mother. She would go on to say, you know, sometimes I feel like a total fucking disgusting dragon. And sometimes I feel like a lady about the town. That's just me. That's just Jackie. A smooth dragon. It's cool you're giving quotes to Jackie.

Yes. And he's looking at the paper as if it's written down, which I also appreciate your commitment to the bit of pretending to read it off the paper. I know it's not written on the paper. You don't have my quotes about the dragon written on the paper. Don't you look at the paper? I see you look at the paper. I do want to at this point, speaking of her way with men,

It's around this time period that I would be remiss if I didn't bring up her relationship with James Dean. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I have definitely seen on the internet many times that she and James Dean and Paul Newman had threesomes. Which, please, I will watch it, but it's not true. It's actually completely not true. And she was a very good friend with James Dean at this point in time. she was actually the one that taught James Dean how to dance. So apparently Eartha Kitt first met James Dean at the Sylvia Forte Dance Studio in the early 1950s.

They would later take classes at the Catherine Dunn's studio. She said, James Dean said to me, I want to move like you. Can you teach me how to move my body like you do on stage? And I told him where to meet me. Man, you have to look at these pictures. There are these pictures of them in these dance sessions. And it's just the fire between them.

So they didn't even kiss? And so he said, and I told him where to meet me here in New York, and that's where we met for dance classes. And that's where Jamie and I always met, she calls him Jamie, downstairs from that studio to have coffee, to have our little tete-a-tete conversations. He was like my brother. He had something in him that he didn't understand. He wanted to learn for me how to move on the stage the way I do. So I taught him how to control his body and how to let the words physically carry you from this point to that point. I was in a play and he'd just done his first film.

So we were both becoming known at that time. It was a good time. But also that in the biography James Dean written by Valholy, they talked about their relationship was very spiritual and clairvoyant and trusting. And even, or the kid's daughters said her relationship with James Dean was another one that press assumed was romantic, but they were just dear friends. And Valholy went on and said they would often be seen roaming around New York together in silence. But each knew what the other was thinking.

Kit was one of the most frequent recipients of Dean's infamous middle of the night telephone calls. And she indulged the habit. Now, this was just sad. There was a, so in 1954 is when James Dean died. And she saw him a couple of days before he dies. And she said, when I was with him in Hollywood and he met me at the door because he had been staying with Arthur Lowe, he opened the door for me and we hugged one another like we always did. but I didn't feel him.

I didn't feel his spirit. And I said, Jamie, what are they doing to you in Hollywood? I don't feel your spirit. And he said, Kit, you're on one of your voodoo trips again. And she said, I went to Las Vegas the next day to open my show. A few days later, one of the girls in the chorus came to my dressing room and said, Jamie's dead. I already knew it.

He was gone the Sunday before when I had hugged him. He wasn't there. And she speaks often about her working with her spirituality and working. in working with voodoo and times like that, that she really believed that she knew that he was about to die. Which that's so, it just gives me tingles thinking about it. And honestly, look up those pictures

if you're listening to this. They really do speak towards exactly what you're describing this beautiful relationship, even just those dance class pictures. I am watching them as, I'm looking at them as you're telling a story. And I'm not trying to sexualize their relationship. But these are very hot.

I watched that too. That's why I did want to speak to it to say it's definitely not, it's apparently not true. But man, again, I will watch her having sex with James Dean and Paul Newell in any day of the week. So Ertha builds up her chops in Paris and in Europe. And this is when she returns to New York City now, ready to go, has the reputation of being a hit act over there. She's a talented actress having performed in the play with Orson Wells. And her first run was at a nightclub on 54th Street called LaVie in Rose, which she would later refer to as a horrible flop.

And it does not start off super good. But the owner of probably my favorite club in New York City called the Village Vanguard, named Max Gordon, felt she had potential for greatness and had her open at this club. The Village Vanguard still exists. It is my favorite place to go see Jazz. I have gone there a bunch. I'd love to go there again sometime. So the Village Vanguard, just a little background.

I have to say it because I do love this place so much. It was opened back in 1934 initially as a forum for poets and artists in a basement on 7th Avenue. And it grew in popularity due to the jazz jam sessions that were held on Sunday afternoons. And eventually that ends up becoming the main attraction at the club throughout the 50s. And it is this amazing little basement club where you can see the best. jazz music in the world. It's like kind of this incredible situation if you're ever in New York. Either way, she also performs at the Blue Angel on 55th Street. That's a haunt often frequented by folks like Truman Capote and Lena Horn back in the day. And that is where she becomes known

for songs such as Ceci Bonn, I Want to Be Evil, which is an amazing song. Oh my God, that song is such a good song. I love I want to be evil so much. It makes me want to be evil. And it makes so much sense in watching her perform that song of, I mean, of course, this is very later on, but her and emperor's new groove and getting that. Yes. Because she is, she just encompasses this sexual provocative evil that you don't want to push away from that you want to get closer to. Yes.

And so she's starting to gain momentum in America. I do want to say that you, that at this point, she's also known for Uxka, Dara, which is one of her songs that she sings in Turkish. So she has sung in over seven languages. She can speak, I believe, four languages fluently. She taught herself all of this. And one of her songs is properly sung in Turkish. And I was like, all right, well, now I need to know how she learned how to speak Turkish.

So when she was touring with the Catherine Dunham dance troupe, they stopped in Istanbul. And when she was there, she met up with the Nicholas brothers, whose names are Fayard and Harold. And they were brothers that were widely regarded as one of the greatest African-American dance acts of their time. So she wanted to hang out with them. So she ended up staying in Istanbul for two months. This was just such a beautiful way of setting up this environment at the time that I read in this article. It said World War II was over by then. The Cold War freshly hatched.

and Turkey was fast becoming an American ally. President Truman had recently cemented this alliance through the Truman Doctrine, announcing generous Cold War support to both Turkey and Greece. So politically, there was an alliance, and culturally, there were the beginnings of one too. The Catherine Dunham Dance Troops tour, for instance, was funded by the U.S. government,

part of an American effort to introduce jazz and blues to Turkey. So Ertha heard, Ukskudara, I'd get in you can it. Yep, that's Turkish. for the first time at an Istanbul bar. And apparently the wife of a Turkish naval officer taught her the words, helped her with pronunciation, and Ertha began performing the song solo at Kervan Saray,

a new club in the city's business district. And by all accounts, when young Ertha entertained, it was a performance of self-possessed female sexuality. And this writer said, I wonder what it must have been like for her to be on a Turkish stage. What did it mean for a teenage black woman to be starting her career in a play? so linked to the U.S. Cold War imperialism,

a place deeply segregated along lines of gender, a place so racially flat. And that's got to be so difficult. And yet, she wanted to learn how to properly sing a song in Turkish. Because she liked the song. But what really puts her on the map would end up being a performance on the Broadway review,

new faces of 1952, which is crazy because we already mentioned this in our young Frankenstein episode, as Mel Brooks was on the writing staff for that show. This is where she stuns audiences with the sulky number monotonous, which is phenomenal, as well as, of course, the boner-inducing,

ceci-bon, for which she wore, and during this performance, she wore a black skirt and leopard-skinned top. It is. And that is literally in my nose. By the way, literally into my notes, boner-inducing. I must have been on one that day.

So for this performance, she wore a black skirt and leopard-skinned top and threw off the skirt near the end to reveal a sexy one-piece bathing suit underneath which I'm sure in 1952 was a quite scandalous. Actually Mary could you play a little bit of that song because I wasn't familiar with it until this and I really like it. It's so bon. De Parti n'n't port who. Brasue, bra-desoo. after I shantan't in the play, Mrs. Patterson, story about a 15-year-old girl in the

fantasizes of being her mother's dignified, rich white employer, Mrs. Patterson. And though she does sing a few songs in it, it was mostly a straight play and her first straight starring role. You can look up pictures of this. It looks really fascinating, very interesting play, to say the least. And this was actually performed live on the BBC as well in 1956. And yeah, this was the performance where, as Stephen Bourne put it, the biographer for Eartha Kit. Earth the Kid was a strange creature. During rehearsals, she didn't socialize with any of the cast, and one day she upset me.

Connie Smith, an 80-year-old veteran actress, was beginning to lose her sight and had trouble remembering her lines. She needed the job. She didn't have many good opportunities to work at her age, but Madam had her thrown off, Mrs. Patterson. I never forgave Earth a kid for that. And Earth has just said, I'm not cold, I'm just a little numb sometimes, courtesy of my childhood. I get it. I get it. I imagine.

And yet, though, at this point in time, she was already starting to try and make change. she was unwilling to contribute to the discrimination rampant in American society in this point in time so Kit decided that she would not perform before segregated audiences and included that requirement in her contracts so that dates back to the mid-50s of when she started putting that into her contracts that she refused to perform for segregated audiences

well before you know the strong civil rights push that would happen I mean that she would be a part of her next performance would literally be as a cat An alley cat in a play called Shinbone Allie about a cockroach who falls in love, hopeless love with an alley cat. And this is actually co-written by Mel Brooks, along with Joe Darien. And it's based on stories by our darn Marquis that were popular at the time. I had never heard of this set of tales. But either way, it's not a big success.

It only lasts 49 performances before closing. I'm intrigued, though. I think it sounds kind of fun. It sounds pretty fun. And I'd love to hear even just a recording of it or something. I think she does some songs in it. Sounds like a fun premise, and especially co-written by Mel Brooks.

I'm so curious. I would love to see that. Around this time, she met and had started dating Arthur Lowe, Jr., who was a Hollywood fixture. His grandfather's founded MGM and Paramount. He had dated Debbie Reynolds and Janet Lee, and his best friend was James Dean.

Lowe wanted to marry Eartha Kitt, but his family was horrified. He said, his mother said, I'll shoot him in the foot. before he marries a brown-skinned woman is what he told Eartha-Kit. Good, good, good, good, good. Very upsetting.

They didn't get married. Spoiler alert. Well, good for her, because they sound like a bunch of fucking turds. At this point in time, was when she started speaking out against integrated couples, but not against integrated couples,

four integrated couples. She said, people would say, why don't you want to marry a black man? And I would reply, because the white girls had them. She said, the men I wanted to be with Sidney Pointier, Harry Belafonte, dated predominantly white women.

I'm talking about the 50s. When Harry Belafonte kicks me out of his bed in Philadelphia and said, I don't want you to take me seriously because no black woman can do anything for me. I could not help him to progress into where he was going to go. A black woman would hold a black man back. That's what he told me.

If I wanted to marry a black man, there wasn't one because the white girls had him. She said it twice. And it's just, and yet, black men didn't want to date her either. So again, it's sad. It sucks. Constant rejection. It's sad as fuck.

Also, she's doing films in the 1950s. Her film debut was acting across Sidney Poitier, who you just mentioned in The Mark of the Hawk. Back in 1957. I'm sorry, that's my dinosaur talk. I thought we were, I thought you were hearkening back to my childhood. Jackie's dinosaur father said, I don't know how I made a child. Stop reading it from the paper. I'm just a dinosaur.

I don't even know how sex works in terms of humans. My arms are too short. Yeah, that sounds like maybe your mom took advantage of this dinosaur. Well, you know, my mom is a powerful woman. So the Mark of the Hawk, 1957, it's about an African man who returns home with his wife, played by Earth and Kit, to find his brother is leading a revolt against the European settlers and tries to seek racial equality. The next film she would appear in is based on the life of blues musician, but you see Handy and wasn't so much of a great film apparently according from what I read.

You actually watched it though, right, Jackie? I watched Anna LaCosta. Oh, Anna LaCosta, that was different. I'm sorry, this one, this one. What was the name of this? I effed up and didn't write the name of the film down. But either way, it starred folks like Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Cap Callaway, and of course Kit, who took what she was given and ran with it,

singing four songs and even got her own album of Handy songs released, including her fantastic takes on careless love and Beale Street Blues. So really took advantage of that there. And then, yes, Anna LaCosta, you watched, 1958 film acting along with... Okay, Daddy. Anything you say, Daddy? Sammy Davis Jr.,'s first dramatic role in a feature film.

What do we think, Jack? They were great in it. Yeah. It was such a wonderful experience to watch the two of them go head to head in this movie that both of them don't play the best characters either and watching them go at it was just, it was real. I don't know, I'd never heard of it before. It's riveting.

You can watch it on YouTube for free as well. It's definitely old school, but it's a remake, and I really enjoyed it. And St. Louis Blues is the name of that WC. Handy film that she did with all those great singers. So at this point in time, she's living in Beverly Hills, right? She's doing this. She's doing all these movies.

And I watched this interview that I thought was hilarious and really, really is a great capture of what Earth a Kit it was that she was a badass about everything, including her chickens being taken away because she was still a farm girl at heart. Her entire life, she's huge into farming and watching that 1982 documentary. She's still like everywhere she goes. She brings bushels of food to people because she has so much of it. So at this point in time, she had 37 chickens in Beverly Hills. And she says, why shouldn't you have chickens Beverly Hills?

If you have a piece of land, why shouldn't you have them? I had 37 chickens. And one day I came home, and my chickens were gone. So I called up the mayor. And I said, sir, where are my chickens? And he said, you can't have chickens in Beverly Hills. I said you should have given me some time to think about it. So I did look up the law.

If a house that was built in Los Angeles before 1954 is still considered to be what it was built for today, then you can have them. So apparently the California home that Eartha Kit had purchased in 1957 had been converted horse stable of an old estate. The names of the horses even remained above their stall doors. So she used that in her argument with the city to allow her to keep chickens in the aviary that still stood as part of the farm. Wait, her house was the horse stables? Yes, that she purchased. What house had a house as horse stables? That is too much money.

It's also Beverly Hills, though, but it was a time in 1957 before it was all completely built up. So she liked it. She wanted her own farm so that she could do all this, because also apparently she was obsessed with collecting bees nests. She said, I don't find them frightening. I think they're fascinating. So intricate. I love all kinds of bees nests.

I was a wild child, and I depended on the farm. to find company when I was a kid. So I became very cognizant of how friendly nature can be. So she also had a bunch of business. I like that she can just call the mayor. She called the mayor on the phone. She called him the mayor. I do have a quote from one of the chickens right here.

Oh, they loved working with Eartha Kid and giving her their eggs. Yes, absolutely. That is the transition of the quote. No, I heard you ate all my babies. bitch. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Different interpretations. You're talking big chicken things now.

Translation, you're reading. It's very biblical. But either way, she would, in 1960, after she had a fling with a cosmetics magnet and a banking air, but it would end up being John William McDonald, whom she would marry June of 1960. And together they had one daughter named Kit McDonald in 1961 and ended up divorcing in 1965. According to Kit, though, Ertha, a fabulous mother.

But I also love, though, too, her name is Kit because her last name is McDonald's, so she wanted to make sure that her mated name was also a part of her name. Well, yes, she wanted, I saw an interview where she said,

her daughter said that she wanted, because she had no real family, she wanted her legacy carried on somehow. Yes. So instead of, you know, having that family legacy, this is her legacy

to people remember who she was. And they were so close. And her daughter had this to say. When I was very little, my mother was the most attentive parent. She was physically there. She always told me she loved me and she showed me love. She always included me in almost everything she did. She made sure I traveled with her because she felt travel was the best education I could ever get.

Much better than any textbook could ever give me. So when we traveled, we made sure I saw what the different countries we visited were really like. It wasn't from a tourist or family. fancy hotel perspective. She would make friends with the waiters, maids, and taxi cab drivers, and made sure I got to stay in people's homes, real people's homes, not celebrity people. She made sure I learned the way of life was different in the country we were in. She showed me how different people lived. She wanted to make sure I knew that growing up in Beverly Hills, California, or London was not the way the rest of the world saw things. Can these celebrity

parents take note? No, please. She was so good at bringing up her daughter. and the way that she always wished she had been brought up. And even Kit Shapiro says of her mother that her mother found the label of a sex kitten and all of the other ways of which her mother was described a little more comical than anything else because she was literally such a down-to-earth person

so connected to the earth. Which she even said about having her daughter, she said, she's brought me something I always lacked, serenity. She'll be brought up with all the love and affection that everyone needs. and which I never had. I'm gonna go ahead and say, not hyperbolicly, literally,

if you grow up in wealth and you have a child that's born into wealth and you don't teach them perspective, that you should go to a work prison for the rest of your life. Whoa, I'm hard lines in the same today. Oh my God, and I have a quote for the chicken about that hot take.

She eventually, she does get a divorce from this husband as well, and she cites mental cruelty for the reasons. But apparently, McDonald also didn't show up in court in the divorce proceedings, and he was ordered to pay

monthly child support. And apparently, it turns out that her former husband was brutally addicted to painkillers. But she did say, because she's very classy, she never spoke out about this stuff. What she had said about him

was, my husband is a successful man, but just not worldly enough for me. That's really classy. Love it. It's class. Everything, the way she said, even her sharp tongue and the way that she speaks is so eloquent. I was trying to find so, like, a lot of ways where people like,

where is her accent from and things like that? Because she's born, raised in South Carolina. But from learning all of these languages and living a life of being everywhere and trying to be unique but also assimilate, I think that she did take, in a way that Lindsay Lohan wishes her accent could be like that. I think that Earth the kid's actual. The last time that Lindsay Lohan and Earth the Kid are ever brought into the same sentence.

That she just had this affectation that was so lelting and romantic. My husband is a successful man, but just not worldly enough for me. It's a hard thing to emulate because it's a little tiny bit European. Yes. Like this line, watching her say this just made me, I almost wanted to cry. She said, a man has always wanted to lay me down. but he never wanted to pick me back up. And the men that did have real love

and affection for me were the ones that never touched me. I love it. I think she's talking about Orson in that quote. And James Dean, I really think so. Those were the men that she loved that didn't use her or used her sexuality against her. But what if you want them to use your sexuality?

You mean that when she becomes Catwoman? Yeah, 1966. She takes the place of Julie Numar as Catwoman on the Batman TV series. Julie couldn't do the show anymore because she was doing a film at the time. Charles Fitzsimmons, the producer on the show, said she was a catwoman before we ever cast her as a catwoman. She had a cat-like style. Her eyes were cat-like and her singing was like a meow. But it is crazy because even before all of this, she was, I know her last name is Kit,

but she was always described in feline terms. Her voice, quote-unquote, purred or was like catnip. She was a sex kitten who slinked or was on the press. A gitty cat. And flashing her claws. And even many times her career was oft said to have had nine lives. Almost like they're dehumanizing her and making her into a sex object. No, she's cat woman. She said, I'm very glad I got that part.

It was one of the funniest things I've ever done without thinking how funny it was. People say to me, you're a cat. You move like a cat. You're talking like a cat. You growl like a cat. And you look like a cat. You look like a Burmese cat. But what I love to is a claw like a cat.

And you lick milk. out of a bowl. Little tiny licks. That is the other weird thing she did. She carried around that little bowl of milk, and she'd always be laughing at it. I think that really sold it. It did.

Yeah. It predated the movie cats, where you get to watch Ian McKellen lick out of milk out of the bowl. Her daughter does speak to the importance of being a black sex symbol, especially as Catwoman was. So her daughter says, I was about nine years old when she played Catwoman on Batman, and that was a really big deal.

This was 1967. And there were no women of color at that time wearing skin-tight body suits playing opposite a white male with sexual tension between them. She says she knew the importance of the role and she was proud of it. She really is a part of history. She was one of the first beautiful black women. Her, Lena Horn, Dorothy Dandridge, who were allowed to be sexy without being stereotyped. It does take a village, but I do think she helped blaze a trail. And it's funny because you go back and you look at the Batman clips.

or you watch the episodes. And it's very silly, obviously. It's very corny, and they're all wearing, like, Halloween-level costumes. But it is so powerful having her on that show. And she just is so fierce in that role and just so confident in it. Yeah. And it does make you feel, like, empowered.

Yes. And she was the first widely accepted black sex symbol. And she calls herself the original material girl because she was. Sure. And I feel like she was way more accepted at a time that most people weren't accepting this. Until she goes to the White House, of course. Man, this story is so interesting. This is nuts.

Back in January of 1968, when Lyndon B. Johnson was president, Kit attended a White House luncheon, at which she was asked by First Lady Bird, First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson about the Vietnam War. So I do want to say, yes. So she thought that she was being asked. So at this point in time, she was really started, I mean, not even starting to, she was in the midst of using, she wanted to use her celebritydom as a vehicle for social change, whether it was the opposition to the Vietnam War or racial injustice. And she thought that this luncheon was going to be a lot of nonsense.

Flowers, champagne, a chance to show off. And she said, but she reconsidered after being implored by the first lady's social secretary to attend. The subject of the luncheon was bold. Why is there so much juvenile delinquency in the streets of America? That was the open phrase of what this luncheon was supposed to be about. You know, people who are really connected to society and reality say sentences like that. Yeah, right? Of course.

So she's sitting at this table with these women that were asked to be there. And they're all, she said, the women around her were buzzing about the possibility of LBJ popping into the luncheon and admired the place settings for a menu of crab meatbisk and chicken breasts and other kids started getting pissed wondering whether the women would really talk about what was happening in the streets she said the atmosphere began to hit me but i still hoped it might become a constructive opportunity to air the problems we had supposedly come to talk about so by the time she says starts talking to lady bird johnson about all this she's been sitting there for two hours steaming about like aren't we going to start talking about what we came here to talk about well yeah because

because looking back she would say, this was actually just like a propagandist lunch in to make Lady Bird Johnson look good. Interesting of why they needed to have a black celebrity there. They wanted it for the clout. They didn't actually want her to say anything. And the things she said they were talking about before her were really funny,

or they were coming up with these ideas like, put flower planters in the ghettos. It will make them less angry. Or when you see, a boy, this is literally what she's a, if you see a boy with a stone in his hand that he's about to throw, you must go up to him and say, no, no, no, you mustn't do that. That was their, that was their solutions. And so this is what Eartha Kid has to say that ends up getting her blacklisted from Hollywood for several years. I am a mother and I know the feeling of having a baby come out of my

gut. I have a baby and then you send him off to war. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot. Also, The children of America are not rebelling for no reason. They are not hippies for no reason at all. We don't have what we have on Sunset Boulevard for no reason. They are rebelling against something. There are so many things burning the people of this country, particularly mothers. They feel they are going to raise sons, and I know what it's like. And you have children of your own, Mrs. Johnson.

We raise children and we send them to war. And then Lady Bird was like, boo. Boo. She's so, and just, and man, what they ripped her apart for and how they, she made the first lady cry. Why? Because she was speaking the truth. They tried to ruin her for it. They tried to ruin for it. They were actually protesting right outside of the White House while this luncheon is going on. And she, yeah, and she talks about, too, about how you're asking these kids to grow up in respect. And she was talking about in Ten Commandments style, so like a biblical way. But either way, you're telling them to, adhere to these rules and to be raised up into these gentlemen, but then immediately as they become 18, you're throwing them into this war and telling them, you should kill. You should steal. You should do all these things that we just told you not to do. And then you ask why they're smoking pot. It's because they don't want to deal. They want to go to sleep. Yeah. They want to wait till it's over. Because at this point in time, Eartha Kid is already working with rebels with the cause. She's working with Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. This is a point in time that she was so. She was a social justice activist.

And you asked her there to have a conversation and then she's not allowed to speak to it. The most fucked up thing is, you know, you hear me talking about it. I get very angry. I start screaming about it. She just like politely waited to speak and was like, but perhaps if we looked at it from a realistic point of view and they were like, end her life, end her career. Make sure she's never seen again. Yeah. Even Erthik had said such graphic remarks.

apparently didn't sit too well with the peppermint ice cream dessert. Exactly. Yeah. So what happens? Blacklisted. Yeah, blacklisted from working in the U.S. She and some happened to go back to Europe and Asia to perform

and make money that way. But not only that, they were, all of the clubs that she worked with were specifically told that all of her contracts were canceled. She was dropped from all of her television appearances. And so she even realized that the CIA had started making a dossier about her, right afterwards, desperately going around the world trying to come up with stuff against her.

Yeah. And it would actually be later in the mid-70s that a reporter named Seymour Hirsch would publish a report in the New York Times centered around the dossier that he dug up, put together by the CIA that was chock full of nasty, shitty, shitty gossip about Eartha kit, stating stuff like her escapades overseas and her loose morals were said to be the talk of Paris and that she was, quote, a spoiled child, very crude, and having a vile tongue. And I think the most frustrating part is the thing that she was mercilessly bullied for, the thing that forced her out of her home from her mother and the man her mother stayed with,

her being like mixed race, lighter skin. They said that she was bragging about how she had less black in her than other people. And that is so insulted. And that she had no ties to the black community, even though she was more. Marching with Dr. King, she was having like big conversations with Malcolm X. Beyond any of this, just the sheer fact that the dossier is talking about her being a nymphomaniac involved. A sadistic nymphomaniac.

What does that have to do with social justice? Secondly, that is just showing it's indicative of the time what women were supposed to be. And like saying those things about her was like basically saying she's a monster. Yes. And she even responded to those. accusations and part of this response it was a long response but she said because I'm black I had to be taught a lesson and put back into my place as a singing dancing mindless automaton who saw no evil did no evil and most importantly publicly

spoke no evil I don't regret anything that I've said or done I have suffered a lot financially but I have survived I only have pity and sympathy for those who tucked their moral tails in between their legs and cuddled up to the Johnson and Nixon administration's immoral and unjust policies. So she still wouldn't back down from anything that she said. Good, because she didn't do anything wrong. They're calling her immoral for saying, please stop killing all of our nation's children in this endless, non-successful war

that will not bring anything to anyone. Yes. We're just killing our kids. But also how smart it was is that so what does she do after all of this? Since she can't perform in America, she goes back to Europe and just, like, fine, you cannot stop me. I'm going to go tour in Europe and Asia. And works, works, works. She does eventually return to New York City. Her return was on Broadway and a heavy spectacle production of a show called Tim Buck 2 in 1978. Kitt said, and when the audience gave

me a standing ovation, I mean, really, the whole audience stood up and applauded before I could even open my mouth. I thought, okay, I guess everything's going to be okay. It was especially, how terrifying that was, though. It was especially noteworthy because because she had brought the chickens on stage with us. Yes. And those chickens would end up being, starring in a little known show called The Muppie show. And that is how you got those chickens.

They actually came from Eartha Kids. She opened the door for chicken performers. For chicken performers and chicken sexuality so that they could have sex with Gonzo freely. But also during this time period is when, so she is still blacklisted. So this is almost 10 years later. She gets her first Tony nomination for her work in Timbuktu.

And she's welcomed back to the White House for the first time since 1969. So this was Jimmy Carter saying, can we stop publicly blacklisting this woman? Is Jimmy Carter the only good president we've ever had? I don't know. I guess I don't know nothing about it, but maybe. I love that he said to her, welcome home, Eartha. Yes. So sweet.

Invited her and said a welcome home, Eartha. and everyone was shocked by this and she even said, I took that as a personal message to her that she was welcome back. So this is, now she starts reinventing herself. She ends up writing three autobiographies. She also earns another Tony nomination for the Wild Party.

This is her exploring her new world. And also, again, nine lives. Pivots a little bit from what she was doing before all of this. She ends up also, a lot of her stuff was actually back in London throughout the 80s. She appears on a BBC variety show The Good Old Days several times,

as well as the production of Steven Sondheim's Follies in the West End. And this was followed by a one woman show that she did. There was a huge success. And in both Follies and the One Woman show, she just would destroy the room with her performance of the song.

I'm still here. Yes. A perfect song for her. And you can look up a performance of that on YouTube. Oh, amazing. It's pretty great. And yeah, just absolutely wonderful. Follies is such a great show as well.

And it actually ends up getting a disco hit in 1984. There was a big nightclub hit called Where Is My Man? And this is actually what sparks her having a nice, close relationship with the LGBTQ community as it was a big hit, especially with the gays. And this leads her to giving benefit performances in support of HIV and AIDS. So this is also the same year that she goes to South Africa. She goes to South Africa. I like that you spelled that out phonetically.

I wrote A-Africa with four E's at the beginning. That she pissed people off again because she went on tour in South Africa. So the white government in South Africa was hell-bent on enforcing apartheid who she wanted to perform for an integrated audience. Many blacks and white liberals felt that by going to South Africa, she gave aid and comfort to racist. And thusly, performing in South Africa was banned from most tours and performances. But as the New York time notes, Kit was typically. unapologetic. The tour, she said, played to integrated audiences and helped build schools for black children. So that year she started the organization called Speed, which is stage performers

endowment for educational development. And they would give speed to the various performers. So let them stay up all night and they would do these 24-hour performances. Did they get the work done or didn't they? No, Speed will ask every entertainer who comes to South Africa to give 2% of his or her earnings toward African education. That's one of the really, tough parts about trying to uphold principles. I'm demonstrating against this government or this country because of their bad actions, but then

you're actually dealing with all these citizens who are not the problem, and they have to deal with the consequences of those actions. And it's like, I get why you could be mad, but she was going to see the people, you know? It wasn't their fault. The government did that. No. I wish I could see,

could have seen this show. In the 90s, she toured as the Wicked Witch of the West in a production of the Wizard of Oz, all over America. That would have probably been amazing. I'm sure she would have killed it as the way of her went to the West. And then in the year 2000,

she would become popular all over again with the younger audience as she does the voice of Isma in the Emperor's New Groove. A delightful film, John. Goodman, David Spade. It's so funny. She won multiple Annie Awards for her performance in the Emperor's New Groove.

and she was also asked at this point in time how she survived through so many battles and kept reinventing herself and still climbing back on top for decades and she says, I think it's probably because I stuck to my guns and didn't follow the herd to get into a category. I had the attitude that if the blacks didn't know what to do with me

and the whites were confused too, well, I wouldn't be anybody. I would just be me. So I stood my ground and didn't follow the herd. Though if I had, I probably could be making billions and I wish the hell I were making more money. like Madonna, who imitates Earth a Kit, or so I'm told. It's very flattering, because obviously something of me rubbed off on her,

and that's why she sang my song, Santa Baby. She's taken quite a bit from the Black Beauty, but anyway. Yes, and she still believed herself, even though she's done so much good and has worked so hard to change things. She says, I'm a dirt person, she told Ebony Magazine in 1983. I trust the dirt. I don't trust diamonds. I love that. I feel like I'm a dirt person. Me too.

Give me like chills when I read this. Fuck yeah. Her daughter would always say, you know, that's one of the things. She just loved working on her garden, especially later in life, working on her home. She liked to work in the ground and that sort of thing. More activism stuff, too. She established the Kittsville Youth Foundation in 1966 that helps underprivileged youth in Los Angeles. You already mentioned rebels with a cause.

These were kids on their own volition going around, cleaning up their neighborhood, creating recreational spaces, making their neighborhood better. to stay out of trouble. She was a big supporter of them. She also was marching. She marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, and she took her show uptown to the Apollo theater in the 50s and 60s and donated every penny she made from the Apollo audiences to Dr. King's peaceful movement because she believed in his dream equality for everyone. And that's why she fought so hard for the gay community.

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 heterosexual. She was very open. She's so cool.

So eloquish. Way to state that. Like, just what a, boom. This is it. This is how I feel. Doesn't dance around. Like, this is the way. This is the truth.

Yes. She was very openly supportive and always had been of gay marriage. She viewed it as a civil rights. rights issue. She said, we were not allowed to go through certain doors because of race, our color. It was so stupid that we were not able to sit at the counter of a restaurant because it was only for Anglo-Saxons. It's stupid when this country says it was born on freedom for all, but it's freedom for some. That's right. I support gay marriage because we're asking for the same thing. If I have a partner and something happens to me, I want that partner to enjoy the benefits of what we have reaped together.

She's so cool. During this time, too, I don't know if we're Are you going to talk about the documentary that they did about her in the later years? Because I really want to play that clip of her talking about whether she needed to compromise in a relationship or not. Yeah, let's hear it. Do you want to set this clip up? Yeah, so she's being interviewed, and the interviewer is asking her about if she wants to be in a relationship, and this is in our older years. And her response makes me scared, but also very empowered and excited. and like I want to fly through the air, like super ladies.

If a man came into your life, wouldn't you want to compromise? A man comes into my life and I have to compromise? You must think about that one again. I also said she even said, No man will come near me because they are afraid I am exactly as I am in my shows. And the interviewer asks and are you, she says no comment. To tell you the truth, I love men in their company. But if a man comes into my world and he's stupid,

and doesn't really have anything to talk about. Well, after the sex act, then what? So, yeah, in her later years, she is, besides being at home, working on her home in her garden, she's also regularly making Manhattan cabaret appearances and famous haunts like the ballroom and Cafe Carlisle. But sadly, on Christmas Day in 2008, or the kid passed away from colon cancer at the age of 81

with her daughter at her side. Who wants to handle this big old chunker of an amazing quote here? Do you have it in front of you, Jackie? through it all she still had the ability to move forward i saw that in her when she died the hospice nurse said to me a few weeks before she died what's going to end up happening is that she's just going to stop drinking water and eating and just slowly fade away my mother did anything but that my mother left this world literally screaming at the top of her lungs of course i wasn't prepared for that two days before she died she lost her ability to speak but at her death she started screaming. And as a typical daughter, I was screaming back at her. You can go. You can go. My husband is standing in the corner having no idea what to do. She's screaming. And I know she could hear me because the tears were streaming down her face. I'm crying. I'm telling her she can go. But what I saw at that moment was how she survived her entire life. It was her survival instinct that took over

at every point in her life. Even then, at that moment, when there was no survival happening. She was not going to go easily without a fight. That is an amazing instinct that she never lost. It just shows what a truly amazing woman she was and that there was a reason for her to be on this planet. Don't go quietly into that good night. Man, just it is, I love this quote that she'd said,

I have never yearned to stay young, but rather to stay me. The me committed to embracing her uniqueness. the me who feels no shame in championing and cherishing herself, the me who accepts aging as a natural process, not a disease, and who says thank you, thank you, when I take care of myself. Yes, bitch. I love her. I love her.

And of course, I'll finish out with a quote from Jackie's father. Thank you. I never really heard of Earth a kit. I'm just a dinosaur, a simple dinosaur that lives in a bizarre cave. I don't even know how I'm allowed to exist. me wait a second is that a chicken coming into my cave oh no but my god what brug brug oh my that's gonna hurt that the dinosaur and the chicken had some of the filthiest sex like I can't even describe it's gonna rip that chicken

in half I'd like to watch it I would see as long as the chicken was consenting okay I wanted to just throw in there too at the end which is this thing blew my mind it's not that surprising but I guess I wish it was surprising is whenever she, during the, after the time she came sort of back after the Carter thing and she wasn't as blacklisted, she was being interviewed. And she was talking about how she didn't have any idea of who her family was. She didn't know what her birth certificate was. And she kind of just put it out there that she wanted to find her birth certificate. And this group of college students like found it for her.

And so she went to the place where it was being stored in some like birth certificate depot or whatever it was. And they had the person who was there to give it to her had their hand over part of it and was like, I can't let you know all of this because your father's name is on it. And legally at the time, if they weren't married, if the husband and wife weren't married, the husband's name or the father's name was not legally allowed to be shown. So they had her father's name on the birth certificate. They would not show it to her. If she wanted to know it, she would have to go to court to fight out, to fight to get to know who her father was. Because they protected his name and his family because it was so shameful for the man that she would have had to have legally fought to know what his name was. And that is bullshit to the highest degree.

And one of the reasons that, you know, we have to deal with women's rights and black rights because of this kind of shit that just, it wasn't that long ago, guys, when she was born. And also that was in the late 90s when she was looking at the birth certificate. So that also wasn't that long ago. No, yeah. It was still a thing she would have had to have fought for because it was, he was allowed to protect himself from the shame of that. So go fuck yourself. And that is our episode on EarthA Kit. Thank you so much for joining us.

This was such an amazing week of research for me. I know I can probably say the same for Jackie and Natalie. For sure. If you'd like to check us out further, patreon.com forward slash page seven podcast. There's weekly bonus content, a ton of it. So check it out for just $5 a month. Check me out.

Twitch.tv. Ford.com. So with Jackie Friday night, 6 p.m. ET. It's always a party for Jackanese. Uh, ladies. Yeah, we smile and we having fun, and thank you so much for Earth the Kid. My name is Jackie Spruski. You follow me on Instagram at Jack That War.

Natalie. You can follow me at The Natty Jean and Page 7 LPN on all that stuff. We love you, guys. We'll talk to you next week. We love you. Bye. Bye. This show is made possible by listeners like you.

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