Speaking Freely: Eartha Kitt

you that's what this is all about is your right to freedom of speech what made America great is an independent vigorous pressure jerk burns a flag America is not threatened political speech is the heart of the First Minister expressing their religious belief how is the pie the big bucks was the reality put all the cross children welcome to speaking freely a weekly conversation about free expression and America I'm Ken Paulson orson welles once called Eartha Kitt the most exciting woman on earth and you know what she spent her entire life proving that it's our pleasure to introduce our guest Eartha Kitt what an incredible compliment and yet what a burden to be labeled is the most exciting woman on earth by Orson Welles at the very beginning of your career how did you react to that I believed everything he said [Laughter] what was it like to work with Orson Welles he gave you a big break in your career early on yes he did as an actress it was very frightening working with Orson Welles because being as physically huge as he was and having to one at that time I was very very small and like in my teens still and to work with him was not always the most exciting thing in the world in the manner in which you would think this is oh my goodness this is so exciting but it was very scary and at the same at the same time it was very exciting because I was learning so much all the time particularly when he was with Michael McCrea Moore and Hilton Head was from the Gate Theatre in Dublin and we would all go to lunch well the forum the three of them and me it would take me to lunch at the collaborative restaurant in Paris and which each sip of food and which each sip of a drink they would get up and they would start talking and reciting Shakespeare Oh Marlowe or even has those crystals you know and it was so exciting that I never wanted to move I was like a fly on the wall that's why I think I think he said I was most exciting woman in the world because I knew when to talk and we're not well you your career actually took off quickly and early and you started as a dancer but quickly fell in with people like Orson Welles the Broadway revue new faces established you as a star very quickly as a singer yes as a singer and yet that's interesting you should say that because we've been on the air here for about three minutes we've already talked about singing dancing and acting I mean did you set out to have this multifaceted career that in which you basically did anything and everything I know I was scared to death to do anything like getting into show business because I was brought up rather strictly the cotton field in South Carolina and as a result you do what you are told to do not what you want to do and I think that I was afraid always to exercise my feelings about anything because I thought I would be my face slapped or something either Oh a little slap on my derriere because I wasn't obedient but when the time came for me to really say I think I'm in your way to my aunt when she brought me to New York I think I'm in your way because she was a very beautiful woman and she didn't know anything about taking care of children my mother had died or whomever was that was saying that she was my mother who had given me away to so many people at the time down south so she brought me up north my aunt and she told me she was my mother I'm very confused about the whole thing but at any rate I thought that I was in the way and when the time came that I was offered this opportunity to go down and meet Katherine Dunham because I had seen her in the movies with his beautiful legs in the you know what I thought this is something I'd like to do [Laughter] in stormy weather so when this girl came to me and asked me to take her to the make up shop I had been in the New York School of Performing Arts so I had known about makeup and all of that sort of thing and I thought she was a very attractive girl and I reprimanded her why do you want to put on so much makeup you know you're so pretty she said no it's not for me I'm a katherine dunham dancer and miss Dunham has sent me out to get this makeup ah Creek then I thought okay I'll take you to the makeup shop if you introduce me to miss Dunham so we made the deal so we get to the school on 57th Street where her school was and she was having these dances or auditions and the drums were going on Kong Kong Kong Kong Kong Kong Kong Kong Kiko so I joined the class and read King Kong Kong Kong Kaka and I want a full scholarship but I that's how I got here I have to point out you're actually the first guest who's ever done anything like that and now a word from our sponsors and I want you to know excuse me Kim but I want to know that I'm going to be 75 years old on Johnny water 17 so so what did this confidence come from a confidence it I think hunger I was I wanted to survive on my own without having anyone be so responsible for me that I have to go to them and ask them for a piece of bread so I learned in instinctively using that animal instincts that I had when I was a child in the South because being given away you know you have to rely on whatever is thrown to you in order to survive so I was following the cats and the dogs and the birds and whatever was thrown from the table it was a toss-up between me and the animals as to who was going to get it so I had to learn how to survive and I think that's where the that desire comes from I never want to be a burden on anyone not even to my children the the early career in your early career he had a song called monotonous that captured the imagination of Broadway audiences and national audiences and in fact became a film as well is that right new faces became a film and in new faces I did that song monotonous which to me it was not monotonous at all except in the beginning when they took me to lunch and they said what do you do I said I cannot tell you what I do I can only show you what I do and they wrote this song for me from the experiences that I had had with all of these handsome rich people including King Farouk and Rubirosa and people like that and in Paris you know so when I came back to America they wrote the song for me and was called monotonous so for liners and at the end of the four line it was a monotonous and I walked across the stage as the the director told me do walk across a stage thing monotonous and not an editor that I read that ever minaton I said by the time I could do the other side of the stage the audience is gonna say monotonous [Laughter] so I begged them to give me six shades and lounges which I don't think I got I think I got something like three or four and as I was singing whatever the words oh I don't remember them right now but I would come on to the stage on the chaise lounge and I would do whatever there are never deleted other monotonous for what is worth throughout the earth I'm not gonna bring back now you know why I'm called the most exciting woman in the world I just love showbiz let's good happy better I'll be sick I was sitting over here after crawling across these J's lounges the by the time I got to the other end of the stage they had to write three or four more verses and because the audience loved it so much so thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much many many people when they hear your name immediately think of Catwoman and your book you say I loved playing Catwoman this was a situation comedy you were on for how many episodes made I don't think I was on more than three and it's among the most memorable television ever do you why is it that that has such a resonance for so many years for so many people well I cannot speak for other people but for me it was really making fun of ourselves we were taking the mickey out of us as Earth's the Kitab I'm always taking the mickey out of myself anyway because I don't think anybody in the world is much more fortunate than I then I have been and life has been so much fun for me but to be able to do that to make fun of oneself I don't believe in look in front of other people because I laugh at myself and with myself more than I think anyone else would because I think it's a lot of fun being Eartha Kitt oh I loved every moment of it because I can tease myself I can play with my mind I can play with other people's mind and hope that they come along with the joke rather than taking me as a something that is insulting them but Catwoman to me was really one of the best things I've ever done because I didn't have to think about it I didn't have to think about oh how do you play a cat I am there for you play the character as a cat and I don't think that when people are I cannot talk for other actors but when I am called on to do a character I don't have to go back into my childhood and remember when I was happy when I was sorrowful when I was this and that and the other thing it's there so when I read the script I already know that who that character is because I felt it and that's why I accepted the character we hear from a lot of black performers in the 50s is that they had to make choices they had to choose whether to join the movement or stay apolitical where were you in that universe did you did you gravitate towards the political and activists or did you say I'm I'm an actress and that's my primary mission in life you don't think about it whether it's going to ruin my career or because I'm a human being I'm an American citizen I happen to love this country and I know that we have our struggles but we fight them from the inside of the country and I think that when we start fighting each other then we are self-destructive what do you think I know you admired Martin Luther King what was your sense of Malcolm X oh I was always fighting with Malcolm okay and I had tremendous discussions as a matter of fact the Sunday before he was killed I had come out of Africa I think and we had my daughter and I had stopped in London and we were on the BBC and I was trying to get Matt get him to think and join Martin Luther King's movement and I think he was then thinking about doing that and he came back and that's when we had this tremendous discussion all the time as a matter of fact the Black Panthers threatened me many times they caught me in an Oliver here at the Palmer House in Chicago and said we know that you're with Martin Luther King but we want you to be on our side and if you're not going to be on our side when you come to Harlem we will get you and of course it scared to death with these four beautiful strapping men you know pinning me up against the wall for the wrong reason you don't say anything absolutely quiet and when I came to Harlem to do the Apollo Theater they were there when I was doing speeches on behalf of Martin Luther King and trying to they were ridiculing me of course and they threatened that they would get me again but I stood my ground and walked from the 7th Avenue Teresa hotel to all by myself back to the Apollo Theater as slowly as I could doing the window shopping and no matter how many words they threw at me I stood my ground and no harm was done this is a show largely about free expression in the First Amendment and you had a singular experience one day having lunch at the White House and I'd like to explore that with you because that story's been told from a number of different perspectives and I just like to walk through it very carefully we're gonna get the definitive story of Eartha Kitt and Lady Bird that day at the White House you were invited to lunch with 50 other women what did you believe you were going to do what was the expectation of that luncheon first of all the invitation said why is there so much juvenile delinquency in the streets of America and I took the subject seriously because I work with different verb different areas of the United States among the young people I still have an organization in what's called Kids Ville where we bring the young people in to teach them physical therapies of the dance form etc as well as other things but this luncheon was with us fifty women who were to discuss the problems among young people at that time and when the time came I rose raised my hand and told mrs. Johnson what the young boys of this country had told me who had fled the United States met me in my dressing rooms no matter which part of the world I was in such as Canada and England etc and we would sit on my my floor my dressing room or in my hotel suite and we would discuss what it was that they was problem dwith and the biggest problem among them was our involvement in Vietnam and they said if you're a good guy you don't get sent you get sent to Vietnam if you're a bad guy you have a little stigma against you and you don't go to Vietnam not that they did not love the country but they didn't want us to be involved there it was a dishonorable one was an unwinnable war so when I raised my hand and told mrs. Johnson what those boys had told me and also how I felt about our involvement in Vietnam it seems that within two hours I was out of work in the United States according to my dossier that was given to me not just that what not the whole thing was just a smidgeon it said that I was on the CIA list in the United States of America you spoke up during a discussion that was largely devoted to the beautification of America well her idea according to the ladies there too was to plant wild seeds along route 66 and I thought that's all very well and good but what we need is education for everyone equal education for all and why is it that our schools are so dilapidated and our educational system so much at fault because I believe that if you get an education you can cross anybody's line because it's your intelligence that helps not do you have any sense as you walk from the White House that day what was about to hit you did you have any idea that you had jumped into boiling water no because I have a feeling of freedom in my country and we are on ground that says you have that freedom of freedom of speech freedom from oppression freedom from more all sorts of oppressions I still feel that way and as I said do we in our country and solve our own problems on our own home grounds and therefore what we feel in our own country should be exercised the freedoms that we have here did you have contracts canceled on you immediately when you went there was it a matter of weeks was a matter of minutes that you knew that something terribly bad was gonna happen to your career it was a matter of I think weeks because after the luncheon three weeks later I was supposed to open at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles and I called the agency to go over the contract to see that everything was so into and so and they said what contract and I said but blah blah blah said that you had don't have a contract there and when I called the Ambassador Hotel there's acted as though they never even heard of me and I think I still have that contract somewhere in my scrapbooks and that's when I began to realize what is happening as my popularity weaned am i what happened I do wrong have I done something wrong and that's when I began to realize that I wasn't able to get work in the United States not because they didn't want me as an artist but they didn't want the CIA or the FBI on their doorsteps that's why you're out of work but not even realizing it and what we have found out since then thanks to some investigative reporting is there were in fact both CIA and FBI agents looking into you yeah the dossier I think the most ugly thing they could find to say about you let's see it was you were a sadistic nymphomaniac that was I think I lost the major transfer trip which some would regard as a compliment try that that was that was the ugly thing they asserted about you and that's all they could come back back with because they're doing the doing investigation behind your back and you don't even know it at all you know is that you can't work and you don't know why nothing has ever explained to you by all accounts he spent about eleven years without stateside work when did you know that the curtain was lifting that you were you were in effect able to come back and work in the United States when Geoffrey holder called me and he flew to Los Angeles and he came to my house in Beverly Hills and asked me if I would do something alone in his production of Timbuktu which is kismet as everyone knows and it's the number five character she's not number one two three or four but I never worried about whether you are the lead character or not the audience knows that the audience always knows who is the star and therefore I don't have any arguments with that so when he asked nanana naturally I said it was wonderful so I came back to do Timbuktu and I was brought in on the stage in the hands of Tony Carol who is the the opposite or I suppose the same kind of person as Watson again they were in competition with one another at one time and he brought me in onto the stage and I had one foot on his body like that the other foot was in his hand and my derriere was in his hand I've always wanted a man like that having common yet but when I walked up when I came on the stage before I could take my body and my feet down the audience the audience stood up and gave me a standing ovation even before I hope a member that's what I realized and there was another special moment at the White House shortly thereafter with a new a new president yeah when I was doing Timbuktu it was President Carter who asked me to come to the White House I went was my daughter and he said welcome home Martha and that made headlines across all the papers in the United States and that opened the doors for me to come back to American stage so thank you again given your experiences at being outspoken and being punished for it did you temper what you had to say for the next 20 years no as I said we live in a free democratic world and unless we are exercising those freedoms with discretion of course I mean with good manners and do unto others as you would have them to do unto you you never know if you have them or not so speak out this is what this country is all about speak out and do unto others as you would have them do unto you you've written books you've been nominated for almost every possible professional award what have you not done that you're saying I've got to get to that I'm died yet oh [Laughter] boy well I'm like I say you know what happened I've done I would just like to keep on working and keep on living because as I said before my life has been extremely interesting and I wouldn't want to have missed it for the world and that's one of the reasons why I wrote this book now that's out core rejuvenate it's never too late because those of us who have come through the years we begin to realize I think all of us do at a certain stage of our lives what life has really meant to us and the value of that life and if we didn't do that we're absolutely out of our minds and particularly when we get to an age like 70 something darling life is just begun I'm having more fun now I don't have a man in my life it's not that kind of fun but it's not that kind of thinking that I'm thinking about it's the real value of life that you could greatly appreciate and the fact that I could have lived in any country in the world but this one is the one that I chose to live in and live out the rest of my years in what we want everyone to go out and buy the rejuvenate book but if you can distill one piece of wisdom for people to take from that book what would it be life is not problematical we make it problematical because we're all listening to something to someone else to some thing without listening to ourselves we buy a lot of junk for instance that we know damn well we don't need it we clutter up our lives with insignificant things that have no value at all but when we start to think about how simple life is and how simple it should be lived then we begin to realize I have no problem I don't have a real problem problem is something you make life is something you live but if you're talking to a young girl who's ten years old and it's interested in in making the world a better place do you recommend would you recommend what are your thoughts if you if you're going to give that valedictorian speech at the grade school what advice do you have to pass on to the next generation yet education is the most important thing because like I said you can find a way of communicating and you can break through all barriers once you've had that education but go for what you really love not because the money is more important than anything else in the world because if you go for what you really love and what you really want to do you do a better job at it and money will always come and make you comfortable if you love what you do I have one more question for you you imagine you're about 75 years old and you've had a rich and full life are you did you step back and go I'm simply amazed at the last 75 years I'm simply amazed that my whole life are you kidding hahahaha because I have I've had more fun being earth the kid I think than anybody's had been them seldom ever they have become because I think I'm the not only am I the funniest person in the world but when you think about me being an orphan given away nobody wants you you're a reject and a downtrodden you've built and you're living in the most wonderful house not it's the biggest house in the world I never wanted the biggest house I just wanted to be comfortable and because nobody came to adopt you but the people did Wow how wonderful can that be the people adopted me my greatest family is in other people the people the people that's why I say when anybody asks me what do I think of myself I think mr. markey Rosen thank you very much you adopted me when nobody else did thank you very much our guest today has been the shy the retiring Eartha Kitt yes I'm Ken Paulson back next week with another conversation about free expression the Arts in America hope you join us then for speaking freely [Music] you

Channel: Freedom Forum

Views: 510,708

Keywords: Newseum Institute, Newseum, First Amendment, Journalism, Speaking Freely, Eartha Kitt

Id: 8jEAjG6SegY

Length: 27min 32sec (1652 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 20 2015