演员，歌手和"猫女"—艾萨·凯特

I'm Steve Ember. And I'm Barbara Klein with People in America in VOA Special English. Today we tell about the unforgettable entertainer Eartha Kitt. The life of this singer and actress was as rich and interesting as her career.

C'est Si Bon, or It's So Good in French, was one of Eartha Kitt's first hit songs. She recorded it in the early nineteen fifties after performing it in a Broadway show.

But Eartha Kitt's life was not always so good. She had a very difficult childhood although information about her early history is limited. Eartha Mae Keith was born into a poor, rural family in South Carolina in nineteen twenty-seven.

Some reports say she was the child of rape. Her mother was of African and Cherokee Indian ancestry. Her father was a white farmer. When Eartha was eight, her mother married. The husband did not want Eartha to live with them because of her mixed race. Eartha Kitt said he called her yellow gal.

Eartha was sent to New York City to live with an aunt in the African-American neighborhood of Harlem. The relationship was difficult. The aunt helped pay for piano and dance lessons for Eartha.

But she also beat the girl. Eartha would run away after beatings. (Music: God Bless The Child) Eartha Kitt lived on the streets and worked in a factory as a young teenager.

But she kept up her dance lessons. One day she decided to try out for a famous African-American dance company. Soon, Eartha was performing in shows around the world with the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe.

In Paris, Eartha left the dance company to sing in a nightclub. Her voice was unusual – but very appealing. She learned French quickly and gained French fans. (Music: Je Cherche Un Homme) The film director Orson Welles discovered Eartha Kitt singing in Paris.

He called her the most exciting woman in the world. Welles asked her to play a lead part in a play he was directing and starring in. Eartha Kitt returned to New York and appeared in the Broadway show New Faces of Nineteen Fifty-Two.

A humorous song she sang about a bored, spoiled woman became famous. Here is Monotonous. She soon signed a recording agreement with a record company. Eartha Kitt's songs were all daring, especially for the nineteen fifties.