Celebrity deaths

[Guest lvdkeyes]

American Singer/Actress Eartha Kitt, 81 and British Playwright Harold Pinter, 78 have both dies from cancer.

[Guest fountainhall]

I only saw Eartha Kitt one time, and she was the sexiest, slinkiest creature alive with a "purring" voice and a dictionary of one-liners that would have made any of the old troopers proud. R.I.P.

[Guest Astrrro]

Here's her performance of Santa baby from a couple of years ago. As a "bonus" you get to see Dubya in the background.

 

Santa Baby

[Guest fountainhall]

Thanks Astrrro - quite wonderful! They don't make them like Eartha Kitt any more, alas.

[Guest lvdkeyes]

I had the pleasure of seeing her in London at The Talk of the Town way back in 1964. Her entrance was being carried to the stage by 4 HUNKY bare chested guys. She was rolled up inside a carpet and they rolled her out onto the floor. She landed on her side facing the audience with her head propped on her hand and started to sing. I don't remember the song, but I will never forget her entrance. It was a very memorable performance.

[Gaybutton]

I can't remember quite what it was, but wasn't there some sort of incident between her and then-President Lyndon Johnson? Is it my imagination or does anyone else recall something like that?

 

[Guest fountainhall]

I can't remember quite what it was, but wasn't there some sort of incident between her and then-President Lyndon Johnson?

 

You are perfectly correct. I think it was whilst attending a White House luncheon that Eartha Kitt stood up and sharply denounced LBJ for sending children off to die in Vietnam. This reportedly earned her a CIA file with the description: "a sadistic nymphomaniac with a vile tongue".

[Guest lvdkeyes]

"a sadistic nymphomaniac with a vile tongue".

What a wonderful woman!!!

[Guest MonkeySee]

Three Deaths from a yahoo clip:

The playwright Harold Pinter, singer Eartha Kitt, and actor John Costelloe have little in common except the closeness in time of their passing. Pinter won the Nobel Prize in literature and famously wrote pauses into his dialogue. Kitt's career as a singer and actor spanned six decades, highlighted by her sultry rendition of the hit song "Santa Baby" and a star turn as Catwoman on the "Batman" TV show. Costelloe registered in the public consciousness over a mere four episodes of "The Sopranos" as the character Johnny Cakes, the lover of on-the-lam gangster Vito Spatafore. The death of this former firefighter is being reported as a suicide.

[Guest Astrrro]

excerpt from the Huffington Post:

 

But even that side of Kitt obscured the Kitt who was passionately devoted to and supported peace and civil rights causes. The clash with Johnson, really the Johnsons, Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson, at the celebrity women's luncheon in January 1968 gave the first public hint of that.

 

Lady Bird Johnson had invited Kitt to the luncheon and in an innocent moment asked Kitt what she thought about the problems of inner city youth. Kitt didn't mince words and lambasted the Johnson administration for not doing more about poverty, joblessness, and drugs in black communities. Kitt didn't stop there, she tied her outburst directly into an attack on the Vietnam War, a war she said was without reason or explanation. Kitt's verbal assault on the war and racial problems made headline news. A badly shaken first lady and an enraged LBJ denounced her. The next few years she was hounded and harassed by the FBI, the IRS and Secret Service agents. The CIA even compiled a gossipy, intrusive dossier on her that attempted to paint her as a sex starved malcontent. The public storm and the negative press proved too much.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-h...r_b_153679.html

 

 

[Guest Steve1903]

I guess Pinter's plays went over my head, just couldn't see anything good about them.