Today is not only the birthday of our favorite First Lady, she shares the day with legend Eartha Kitt. I’ve always admired Eartha Kitt. And normally I would have nodded in appreciation about the fact and gone on about my day. But after watching her episode of “Unsung Hollywood,” I’m even more fascinated by the life she lived. So her birthday seemed like the perfect day to share all the interesting things I learned.
She never knew her father
Eartha Kitt was the daughter of a Black and Cherokee woman and a White father. There were rumors that she was conceived during a rape. All Kitt knew was that her father’s surname was Keith. According to The Guardian, Kitt went to her grave not being sure of her father’s true identity. When she requested his birth certificate, at 71, his name was blacked out to conceal his identity.
“My mother was 71 at the time and it was approaching the 21st century, and yet they were still protecting the name of the father even though he was clearly dead. They were protecting the white man because they would not have gone to that trouble to protect a black man. The courts still held it as legal to withhold the documentation. We were amazed. My mother assumed it was their dirty little secret.”
The same day she found her birth certificate was the same day she also learned her true birth date. All of her life she believed she was born January 1926. But the document listed January 17, 1927, as the actual date.
