Kitt Shapiro - Eartha & Kitt: A Daughters Love Story in Black and White

Earth & Kitt

A Daughter's Love Story in Black & White

Kitt Shapiro

and Patricia Weiss Levy

Mom, you were right, you can never love a child too much. Thank you.

K.S.

To Aidan and Allegra, the subjects of my own mother-child love story.

P.W.L.

Im not black and Im not white and Im not pink and Im not green.

M y mother may have been known as a consummate talent, coy sex kitten, and courageous trailblazer who helped break down racial barriers, but she began her long, illustrious life in a distinctly different way. As she would be the first to tell you, she was just a poor cotton picker from the South. And no matter how far she got in lifeand considering that she was world-famous by the time she was 23, and was still headlining when she was 81, Id say that she went pretty faron some level she still always felt like just a poor cotton picker from the South.

She starred in many Broadway shows, from New Faces of 1952 and Timbuktu! to The Wild Party and Nine, and performed her consistently sold-out one-woman show in Las Vegas, London, New York, Paris, and other major cities throughout the world. She made dozens of movies, from Anna Lucasta and St. Louis Blues to Boomerang and The Emperors New Groove; recorded 40 albums, both studio and live; was nominated for three Tony Awards, three Emmys, and two Grammys, several of which she won; and wrote three autobiographies, including one called Im Still Here, for no matter what befell her in lifeand an awful lot of tough stuff invariably didshe would always pick herself up again and still be there.

She spoke four languages, sang in seven, and had a unique, unforgettable sounda voice for the ages that was mysteriously unidentifiable in geographic origin, yet unmistakably hers. And who hasnt heard her many classic hit songs, including Cest Si Bon and Santa Baby, the best-selling Christmas song of 1953 and still an evergreen staple of the holiday season?

Her music remains as popular and relevant as ever, as evidenced by the soundtracks of the widely acclaimed HBO superhero series Watchmen, starring Regina King, and the hit Netflix series Emily in Paris, starring Lily Collins. Never mind that she may be best known by many today for playing her iconic role as Catwoman, the Caped Crusaders feline adversary, on the 1960s TV series Batman.

Yet she was far more than just a celebrity who commanded both stage and screen. Along with being an outspoken civil rights activist who avidly supported Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she served as a tireless social advocate on behalf of historically-underserved youth, gay rights, womens rights, and countless other causes. Then there was that infamous incident at the White House. The one when she stood up to the First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, at a luncheon in 1968, daring to voice her opposition to the Vietnam War, a defiant move, unheard of by celebrities in those times, which caused the CIA to compile a defamatory dossier on her, characterizing her as a sadistic sex nymphomaniac. That controversial episode nearly derailed her career.

Orson Welles once pronounced her the most exciting woman in the world. Yet the one achievement she was the proudest of was not any of those things.

What she prided herself on most by far was having brought a mutt into this world.

And when I say mutt, I mean me.

Despite the many famous men to whom my mother was linked romantically, all before I was born, there could be no question who the one true love of her life was.

Revlon founder Charles Revson? Entertainer Sammy Davis Jr.? Actor James Dean? New York banking heir John Barry Ryan III? MGM Studios scion Arthur Loew? No, no, no, no, no.

It was her one and only child. Her daughter, Kitt.

That would also be me.

She named me Kitt because she wanted to make sure that her name would be carried on. Regardless of whether I turned out to be a boy or a girland until I popped out on that Sunday afternoon in November of 1961, she didnt know whichthats who I was going to be.

Im Eartha, and this is Kitt, she would declare to almost everyone we ever met. She would make that comment as though I completed her. And in many ways, I did.

Complete her, I mean. And vice versa. We were a really good fit for each other.

I got it. Got her, that iswho she was, and who and what she needed me to be. Those were things that, instinctively, I always understood. She needed me to care for her. Needed me to be there for her. Needed me to give her the roots that she never had.

Having been given away by her young single mother and never having known who her father was, who could really blame her?

When I was a little girl, she would put me to bed herself almost every single night, and we would read books together. One of my favorites was Are You My Mother? But for me that question was never in doubt. Never mind the notable differences in our appearance. She was mine, and I was hers. As if we were meant to be. I would often say to her, I picked you! God had me pick you for my mommy. How funny that I remember thinking that I had intentionally chosen her. Yet now, looking back, I sometimes describe it as believing that God, or some sort of higher power, had decided, You would be a really good fit with her.

I look back now on our life together, and it really is a love story. There are people who believe that there is only one person put on this earth for them, and that all they need to do is find that person. Well, I never needed to go find my person. I had already found her the moment that I was born. At least in terms of being a mother and daughter, we came about as close as any two people conceivably could to being a perfect match.

No, Im not saying that she was a perfect mother. That would be a stretch for anyone. And honestly, how could she have been? Never really having been mothered herself, she didnt have any real role models when it came to parenting. She followed her gut and her instincts and sometimes had to make it up as she went along.

But I have no doubt that I was a really good fit for her as a daughter. For one thingand I think that this really helpedI never aspired to become an entertainer myself. I didnt have any real desire to have my own spotlight. I already had a spotlight. My mother, as famous as she was herself, always put the spotlight on me.

Or maybe its that my mother was the spotlight on me. As a little girl, isnt that all that you really wantfor your parent to pay attention to you and think that youre the greatest thing ever? Well, my mother thought I was the greatest thing ever. She didnt do it to the point at which she indulged me, though. I was never, ever spoiled. On the contrary, she was strict as a mom, and always insisted that I have good manners and be well-behaved. She had a sense of command about her that made you fall in line. Everyone around her always did. Anything else wasnt going to be tolerated, so you really had no choice. Whats interesting is that she wasnt a person who ever yelled or screamed. She never threw fits in any form or fashion. It was more that she had this regal presence. She had an aura, an innate energy about her, that people, animals, and virtually all living things picked up on. It made you