Interview with Eartha Kitt's daughter Kitt Shapiro
Feast of Fun: Gay Talk Show
Fausto Fernós
4.4 • 834 Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2020
⏱️ 78 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Please enjoy this encore presentation of FOF #1805 – The Purrrfect Legacy of Eartha Kitt, an interview with Eartha Kitt's daughter Kitt Shapiro.
FEATURED WEBSITE:
http://www.earthakitt.com/
The late great Eartha Kitt is probably best remembered for her role as the iconic Catwoman in the 1960s TV show Batman as well as for her provocative songs “Santa Baby” and “I Want to Be Evil.”
Everybody wanted to be evil when Eartha Kitt played Catwoman.
Coming from humble origins in South Carolina, Eartha Kitt grew up to tour the world as a young dancer but it was the Broadway show “New Faces of 1952” that catapulted her career into the mainstream.
As a champion of civil rights, Eartha Kitt didn’t hold back when she spoke out against the Vietnam War and that tenacity got her blacklisted in the U.S. for years. Eartha took her show all over the world, and along for the ride, was her daughter Kitt, who Eartha took everywhere.
Joining us today is Kitt Shapiro, who is now dedicating her life to preserving her mother’s legacy by starting Simply Eartha, a lifestyle brand that uses the images, writings and wisdom of Eartha Kitt to inspire both old and new fans.
Eartha once said “The only thing I can sell and still own is my talent.” That and albums, CDs, posters, coasters, canvas wall art, and crystal paperweights.
Listen as we talk with Kitt about her mom’s peculiar way of speaking, Eartha’s outrageously fun music and what it was like to work for her mom for over 25 years.
➤ The linguistics behind Eartha Kitt’s purr.
➤ Nobody else worked a one armed sofa like Eartha Kitt.
➤ Being of mixed heritage and a celebrity during segregation.
➤ Eartha’s last days before dying on Christmas Day.
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Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | If you think that the grave could hold me back, you'd be wrong. |
| 0:09.5 | Dead wrong. |
| 0:13.2 | Ertha Kit. |
| 0:16.9 | I love Eartha Kit. |
| 0:18.4 | Your favorite star of all time, I would say. |
| 0:21.2 | Eartha Kit influenced me on so many ways because I am a child of two different cultures. |
| 0:27.6 | I'm a child from born and raised in Puerto Rico, who's my father's family did not accept us as children because they saw us as some freak hybrid. |
| 0:39.1 | And my mother's racist family did not accept us because we were also seen as this hybrid |
| 0:45.0 | that this apparition of the purity of race and culture. |
| 0:49.7 | And, you know, when you look back on what race and culture is, it's an artificial construct to separate |
| 0:55.9 | people from each other. And so for me, as a young queer person at the age of 18, I stumbled |
| 1:02.4 | upon Ertha Kitt's interview in the book, Incredibly Strange Music by Research Publications. |
| 1:09.1 | And I fell in love with Eartha Kitt. My friend Chris |
| 1:11.9 | Rinkong. Is that the first time you knew her? Or did you know her from Batman? Well, I was aware of her, |
| 1:14.9 | aware of her through Batman. And my friend Chris Rinkon, who's my drag sister. And we used to put on |
| 1:19.7 | drag shows in nightclubs and clothing stores. Very different from what drag is today. A lot of drag |
| 1:26.9 | acts back in the early 90s were happenings and experiences. |
| 1:31.8 | And so we would bring in several suitcases of all kinds of costumes and gowns. |
| 1:37.8 | And we did a show called The Soft Men Show. |
| 1:40.6 | And so it was me and Chris and about two or three other men and women or non-binary people. |
| 1:46.5 | And we would just make up a soap opera, just like we do this podcast. |
| 1:50.8 | But imagine it was a dramatized soap opera with all improvisation. |
... |
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