Kitt Cat : Feline-Esque Entertainer Eartha Kitt Will Slink Into Costa Mesa for Cabaret Series

There’s nothing quite like Eartha Kitt in action. Imagine a lithe, feral cat, roving the stage, luminous eyes peering out at the audience, ready to spring into action at any moment--and that only partly describes the impact the veteran entertainer can have upon her audiences.

“In the ‘50s,” Kitt recalls, “critics used to say I had a ‘dangerous’ act. And I think I know why. One woman came to me the day after she saw the show with her husband, hugged me and said, ‘You’ve made my husband hotter than he’s been in a long time!’ ”

Southland audiences will get to measure Kitt’s impact for themselves this week when she opens the all-new Cabaret Series in Founders Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. The three-night engagement, beginning Thursday, will feature Kitt in a cabaret-style performance, with the hall set up as an intimate nightclub, with drink service throughout the show.

Listeners are advised to pay close attention. Kitt’s cabaret performances are extremely interactive experiences, with the veteran singer-dancer often concentrating her attention--and her steely eyes--upon individuals.

In a recent performance at the Hollywood Roosevelt Cinegrill, for example, she sang her trademark number, “I Want to Be Evil,” with characteristic flare, impaling a stage-side listener with her gaze. The young man smiled nervously as Kitt continued to focus upon him, and the musical accompaniment faded to a pianissimo. After several long beats, Kitt threw her feline head back, uttering her familiar, growling laugh.

The emotion of the moment seemingly broken, the young man leaned back to relax--not a wise move. Kitt frowned, fixed upon him again, and sang the line, “I want to crush flies. . . .”

“Eartha,” said the man, “I adore you!” Stopping the music, the 69-year-old Kitt stood directly over him, hands on hips, for several long beats before a small, sly grin crossed her face.

“Well, young man,” she said. “Next time, bring your father with you!”

Kitt prides herself on the effectiveness of these little encounters, which she calls her “vignettes.” And they work as well as they do because of her extraordinary sense of timing, her capacity to hold her gaze just long enough to produce an impact, without losing her audience.

It’s a skill that has been developed over years of experience as a performing artist. Born on a South Carolina cotton farm in 1928, she had a hard scrabble life before moving to Harlem at age 8 to live with an aunt. After dropping out of school and struggling in factory jobs, she was discovered and given a scholarship by choreographer-dancer Katharine Dunham.

Touring internationally, she finally settled in Paris, where she was cast as Helen of Troy in Orson Welles’ 1950 production of “Time Runs.”

‘Eartha Kitt,” said Welles at the time, “is the greatest performer in the world.”

A starring role in the Broadway musical (and subsequent film) “New Faces of 1952” followed, along with some unusual hit recordings--”Santa, Baby,” “C’est Si Bon” and “Uska Dara” among them.

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Kitt’s career was interrupted in the late ‘60s, however, when--at a White House luncheon given by “Lady Bird” Johnson--Kitt spoke out vigorously against the war in Vietnam. Her bookings dropped dramatically, and contracts were reportedly lost or canceled.

“I said what I felt I had to say. And that’s it. I was only being honest,” is the only comment Kitt will make about the experience.

Was she blackballed in the entertainment world as a result? It’s hard to say, although it was another decade before Kitt returned to Broadway for a starring role in 1978’s “Timbuktu.” After winning a Tony Award, she was invited to the White House by President Jimmy Carter with the greeting, “Welcome home, Eartha.”

Kitt, who has written three autobiographies, now moves confidently across every genre of entertainment. She was in the 1992 Eddie Murphy film “Boomerang” and last year’s “Harriet the Spy.” In 1996, she also performed the role of Billie Holiday in the musical “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill” in Chicago. And her busy cabaret schedule takes her to venues in the major cities of the world.

“I’m just happy to be working,” says Kitt, whose offstage persona is as philosophical as her onstage is electrifying. “The problem is that we are not taught to have self value. We are not taught that any kind of work is respectable work to be doing. In my opinion, there’s no such thing as a meager job.”

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* Eartha Kitt performs Thursday at 8:15 p.m.; Friday and Saturday at 7:30 and 9:45 p.m. in Founders Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive. Costa Mesa. $40. (714) 556-2787.