Singer Eartha Kitt Dies At 81
The sultry singer and actress Eartha Kitt, famed for her catlike purr, has passed away at the age of 81.
Orson Welles described her as 'the most exciting woman in the world'
The self-proclaimed "sex kitten", who had been performing up until two months ago, died of colon cancer.
Born in the South Carolina cotton fields in 1927, Ms Kitt became an international symbol of elegance and sensuality and one of America's most versatile performers.
She was celebrated for her role as Catwoman opposite Adam West in the original TV series of Batman.
She also earned fame for the sultry Christmas hit "Santa Baby". The song went gold this year and she received the gold record before she died.
Her other hit songs included "C'est Si Bon," "Let's Do It" and "Just an Old Fashioned Girl".
Eartha performing in 2006
The star won two Emmys and was nominated for a third in a career that spanned across six decades.
She was also nominated for two Tony Awards and a Grammy.
Sidelined in America for speaking out against the Vietnam War in the 1960s, Kitt began performing in Europe and rose to fame before returning to America to great acclaim.
"My greatest challenge was to be able to survive in the business and to be able to survive according to what I was doing. Not what other people were doing," Kitt once said.
"I just stuck to my own guns and I think that was one of the way's I have survived. I didn't follow the herd. I stuck to my own path," she said.
"The audience is not supposed to know that I'm scared, the shyest person in the world."
Family friend Andrew Freedman said Ms Kitt died of colon cancer and was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York.
The cancer was detected about two years
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Sho..._Batman_Passes
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