Every gay man is supposed to have his diva, and the woman whom I would have claimed as mine, I've just learnt, passed away this last Christmas Eve. The girl who once told us that, "If I can't take it with me when I go, I just ain't gonna go" has, well, gone, with timing that can only be applauded for its irony in light of what was, perhaps, her most famous production:
Though favourite tracks of mine include "Monotonous" ("For thirty days, salt air I sniffed, while I was being cast adrift with a man who looked like Montgomery Clift - monotonous"), "Usku Dara", "Old-Fashioned Girl" ("I like the old-fashioned flowers - violets are for me. Have them made in diamonds by the man from Tiffany's), "Sous les Ponts de Paris" and this:
Goodbye, Eartha, and thank you.
Hi Christopher
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting that tribute to Eartha Kitt. I especially loved the 1962 video which I had not seen bere. She really knew about body language - her "attention to the eyes" poses were just great.
Cheers
Denis
Well she was, as Rowan Atkinson once put it, "as subtle as a rhinoceros horn up the bottom", but that was one of the things I've always loved about here. To steal another quote (from Mike Carey, this time) "If subtlety isn't going to work, you might as well go for glorious excess".
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