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C’est si bon
THE COMPLETE EARTHA KITT 1952-1962

By Olivier Julien

Eartha Kitt is a unique figure in American culture. A woman of mixed heritage, she was one of the first to symbolize a pluralistic America. Gifted with multiple talents, she sang in eleven different languages, performed in more than a hundred countries, and has her star on Hollywood Boulevard. Her appearances in musicals were widely acclaimed and, although she never reached number one in the charts, she managed to build a serious recording career. She also developed her acting talent both on stage and on the big and small screen.

Eartha Mae Keith-Fields was born on a cotton plantation in South Carolina on January 17, 1927; the illegitimate child of a white farmer and a mother of Black Cherokee descent, she was conceived through rape when her mother, Mae Keith, was only fourteen years old. Her mother and stepfather were poor sharecroppers and named the child Eartha (from earth) to thank the planet for an exceptional harvest that year. Her stepfather soon left the family, and her mother’s new partner insisted that the little girl be placed elsewhere at the age of six because of her different skin color. Unwilling to separate her daughters, her mother entrusted Eartha and her half-sister Anna Pearl to a family where they worked in the kitchen and garden and took part in the cotton harvest to pay for their keep.

At the age of eight, Eartha was taken in by her aunt Mamie Lue Riley in Harlem’s Italian-Puerto Rican neighborhood in Manhattan, New York. While attending secondary school, she became interested in the performing arts and studied dance at the Vocational High School, which later became the High School of Performing Arts. She joined the Katherine Dunham Company as a principal dancer in 1943, and thus Eartha Kitt made her Broadway debut in 1945 in Blue Holiday at the Belasco Theatre and Carib Song at the Adelphi Theatre. In 1946, for Bal Nègre, the troupe also performed in Paris before flying to Mexico for a two-month engagement at the Teatro Americano. They later distinguished themselves in Caribbean Rhapsody at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London’s West End; the show then moved to Paris at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. It was when she had to replace a singer during a performance that Eartha Kitt realized she preferred singing to dancing. She first appeared on screen in a small role in John Berry’s film Casbah.

She then left the troupe and moved to Paris in early 1949, where she made a name for herself as a cabaret singer, notably at Le Bœuf sur le Toit. This led to her appearance in the film Paris est toujours Paris, in which she sang and played herself. She then performed her first solo cabaret act at the famous club Le Carroll’s in Paris’s eighth arrondissement. There she was noticed by Orson Welles, who gave her her first major role in 1950 in the stage adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, in which she portrayed Helen of Troy. Welles famously called her “the most exciting woman in the world.” Critical reception was excellent, and Eartha toured in Germany and Turkey. Back in the United States, she was booked for twenty weeks at the Blue Angel, then performed at the Village Vanguard, where producer Leonard Stillman discovered her and cast her in the revue New Faces of 1952. Her performance of Monotonous became legendary, and she performed the role on Broadway for a year. A seventy-eight rpm record was released, and audiences heard Eartha on the radio for the first time. For the LP (33 rpm RCA Victor LOC 1008), she also performed Love Is a Simple Thing with Rosemary O’Reilly, Robert Clary, and June Carroll, as well as Francis Lemarque’s Bal Petit Bal. A national tour and a film adaptation produced by Twentieth Century Fox followed.

On March 13, 1953, she recorded in New York one of her most iconic songs, C’est si bon by André Hornez and Henri Betti, followed on October 5 by Santa Baby, which reached respectively number eight and number four on the U.S. charts. Her first album was then released: RCA Victor Presents Eartha Kitt (25 cm LP RCA Victor LPM 3062), featuring eight songs in English, Turkish, French, and Spanish. In 1954–1955, Eartha Kitt starred on Broadway in the musical Mrs. Patterson, in which she performed songs by James Shelton: Mrs. Patterson, If I Was a Boy, Be Good, Be Good, Be Good, Tea in Chicago, and My Daddy Is a Dandy; a record was released (30 cm LP RCA Victor LOC-1017). RCA then issued a new album, That Bad Eartha (25 cm LP RCA Victor LPM 3187), which notably included an adaptation of the French classic Sous les ponts de Paris under the title Under the Bridges of Paris, reaching number seven on the UK singles chart. The album also featured Cole Porter’s Let’s Do It, which reached number twelve in Australia. In 1955, on the album Down to Eartha (30 cm LP RCA Victor LPM-1109), she again drew from the French repertoire by adapting Léo Ferré’s L’Homme under the title The Heel. In 1956, she even recorded a Swedish-language single, Rosenkyssar (Pink Kisses) / Vid Kajen (78 rpm 25 cm RCA R 511), which became successful in Sweden. She then published her first autobiography, Thursday’s Child, along with an album of the same name (30 cm LP RCA Victor LPM-1300), which would later inspire David Bowie for a song recorded in 1999. Thursday’s Child is a bouquet of languages, featuring songs not only in English but also in Italian, Spanish, French, and German. In 1957, she appeared in the films The Mark of the Hawk with Sidney Poitier and later Anna Lucasta in 1958. Eartha Kitt also returned to Broadway in Shinbone Alley in 1957 and Jolly’s Progress in 1959.

The film St. Louis Blues, released in 1958, recounted the life of W.C. Handy, blues composer and musician. Eartha subsequently released an album of the same name (30 cm LP RCA Victor LPM-1661), in which she performed the composer’s songs. Her next album, The Fabulous Eartha Kitt (30 cm Kapp Records KL-1162), marked her arrival at Kapp Records, the label founded by Dave Kapp, brother of Decca founder Jack Kapp. The album was unsuccessful, and it was then decided that Eartha would rerecord twelve of her songs under the title Revisited (30 cm Kapp Records KL-1192) in 1960. She married businessman John William McDonald in 1962 and left him two years later, taking with her their only daughter, Kitt Shapiro, born the previous year. Eartha Kitt then recorded an album of movie songs for the MGM label, Bad but Beautiful (30 cm MGM Records E4009), and later that same year, The Romantic Eartha (30 cm His Master’s Voice CLP 1595) was released on the His Master’s Voice label. The album notably included three Cole Porter songs — I’ve Got You Under My Skin, Easy to Love, and In the Still of the Night — alongside an adaptation of Kurt Weill’s September Song and a song by Paul Misraki, Chez Moi. In 1968, during a luncheon organized at the White House by First Lady Lady Bird Johnson, she spoke out against the Vietnam War; in retaliation, she was blacklisted by the artistic community and forced to work abroad for several years. In 1975, a journalist published excerpts in The New York Times from a CIA report describing her as a sadistic nymphomaniac. She replied that she could not understand such accusations and preferred to devote herself to her career in Europe and Asia. Nevertheless, she returned to the United States in 1978 to appear on Broadway in Timbuktu!, which earned her a nomination for Best Actress in a Musical at the Tony Awards.

Eartha Kitt made regular television appearances and appeared as a guest star in the series I Spy (for which she received an Emmy Award nomination in 1965), Mission: Impossible in 1967, and especially Batman in three episodes between 1967 and 1968, where she portrayed the famous Catwoman. She notably appeared in an episode of Miami Vice in 1985 and, during the 1990s, made appearances in The Nanny, Living Single, New York Undercover, and Matrix.

After difficult years in the 1970s, with albums that were not major successes, the 1980s saw her return to prominence, and her hits spread around the world: Where Is My Man (1983), I Love Men (1984), This Is My Life (1986), and I Don’t Care (1986). In 1989, she replaced drag performer Divine alongside the group Bronski Beat to record Cha-Cha Heels. This pop-disco comeback, in the guise of a fatal cougar figure, did not do justice to thirty years of a rich career largely devoted to jazz and musical theater. The public had forgotten that Eartha Kitt had an extensive musical background and had begun recording as early as 1952. She became an icon for the LGBT community and campaigned for AIDS awareness and equal rights:

“We are all rejected people, we know what it is to be refused, we know what it is to be oppressed, depressed and then accused, and I am very aware of that feeling. Nothing in the world is more painful than rejection. I am a rejected, oppressed person, and so I understand it as best I can, even though I am heterosexual.”

Eartha Kitt remained omnipresent in cinema, with roles including Erik the Viking opposite Tim Robbins (1989), Ernest Scared Stupid (1991) as co-star, and Boomerang (1992), Fatal Instinct (1994), and Harriet the Spy (1996). She also lent her exceptional voice to advertising campaigns for products such as Milky Way Light bars, Skippy peanut butter, and Floor Buster cleaner. In 2000, she voiced the villain Yzma in Disney’s The Emperor’s New Groove, two years after voicing Bagheera in The Jungle Book. She also guest-starred in an episode of The Simpsons, portraying the former wife of the character Krusty. In April 2008, Eartha Kitt gave her final concert at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. She died on Christmas Day 2008, three weeks before her eighty-second birthday, from colon cancer.

An international star, multilingual and gifted in every field, her tours took her repeatedly across the United States, Australia, and Europe. She notably performed several times for Queen Elizabeth II. Eartha Kitt wrote and published three autobiographies.

Olivier Julien

© Frémeaux & Associés 2026

C’est si bon

The Complete Eartha Kitt 1952-1962

CD1

1 - Tierra Va Temblar (Chano Pozo)

2 - Callente (Mariano Merceron)

Avec ses rythmes afro-cubains

78 tours 25 cm Seeco 4141 - 1952

3 - Love is a simple thing avec Rosemary O’Reilly,
Robert Clary et June Carroll (Arthur Siegel / June Carroll)

4 - Bal petit bal (Avec Robert Clary) (Francis Lemarque)

5 - Monotonous (Arthur Siegel / June Carroll)

De la comédie musicale Leonard Stillman’s new faces of 1952

Direction d’orchestre par Anton Coppola

33 tours 30 RCA Victor LOC 1008 - 1953

RCA Victor Presents Eartha Kitt

6 - I Want to Be Evil (Lester Judson / Raymond Taylor)

7 - C’est si bon (It’s So Good) (André Hornez / Henri Betti / Jerry Seelen)

8 - Angelitos Negros (Andrée Eloy Blanco / Manuel Alvarez Maciste)

9 - Avril au Portugal (The Whisp’ring Serenade) (Jacques Larue / Paul Ferrao)

10 - USKA Dara - A Turkish Tale

11 - African Lullaby (Willian Greaves)

12 - Mountain High, Valley Low (Bernie Hanighen / Raymond Scott)

13 - Lilac Wine (Dance Me a Song) (James Shelton)

Avec Henri René et son orchestre

33 tours 25 cm RCA Victor LPM 3062 - 1953

14 - Two Lovers (John Rox)

Direction d’orchestre Hugo Winterhalter et chœurs

78 tours 25 cm RCA Victor 20-5284 - 1953

15 - Annie Dœsn’t Live Here anymore (Harold Spina /
Jœ Young / Johnny Burke)

Avec quartet masculin, direction d’orchestre Hugo Winterhalter

78 tours 25 cm RCA Victor 20-5442 - 1953

16 - Santa baby (Tony Springer / Phil Springer / Joan Javitz)

Avec Henri René et son orchestre

78 tours 25 cm RCA Victor 20-5502 - 1953

17 - Somebody Bad Stole the Wedding Bell (Bob Hilliard / Dave Mann)

18 - Lovin’ Spree (Phil Springer / Joan Javitz)

Avec Henri René et son orchestre et chœurs

78 tours 25 cm RCA Victor 20-5610 - 1954

19 - Easy Dœs it (Howard Diamond / Rita Loman /
Sidney Siegel)

20 - Mink Shmink (Leo Shuken / Sid Cutner)

Avec Henri René et son orchestre et chœurs

78 tours 25 cm RCA Victor 20-5756 - 1954

21 - Mrs. Patterson (James Shelton)

22 - If I Was a Boy (James Shelton)

23 - Be Good, Be Good, Be Good (James Shelton)

24 - Tea in Chicago (James Shelton)

25 - My Daddy Is a Dandy (James Shelton)

Direction d’orchestre Abba Bogin

33 tours 30 cm RCA Victor LOC-1017 - 1954

CD2

That Bad Eartha

1 - Under the Bridges of Paris (Bob Cochran / Jean Rodor / Vincent Scotto)

2 - Let’s Do it (Cole Porter)

3 - The Blues (Duke Ellington)

4 - My Heart Belongs to Daddy (Cole Porter)

5 - Sandy’s Tune (Jimmy Kennedy / Nat Simon)

6 - Señor (Harold Adamson / Hubert Texeira)

7 - Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (Jerome Kern / Otto Harbach)

8 - Salanga Dou (Tom Scott)

Avec Henri René et son orchestre

33 tours 25 cm RCA Victor LPM 3187 - 1954

9 - (This year’s) Santa Baby (Tony Springer / Phil Springer / Joan Javitz)

Avec Henri René et son orchestre

78 tours 25 cm RCA Victor 20-5914 - 1954

10 - Fredy (Sheldon Harnick / Peter Pan / Steve Kirk)

11 - Sweet and Gentle (Me lo dijo Adela) (George Thorn - Otitio Portal)

Avec Perez Prado et son orchestre cubain

78 tours 25 cm RCA Victor 20-6138 - 1955

12 - Sho-jo-ji (The Hungry Racoon) (Bill Walsh)

13 - Nobody Taught Me (Leonard Feather)

Avec l’orchestre de Jœ Reisman et chœurs

45 tours SP 17 cm RCA Victor 47- 6245 - 1955

14 - Nothin’ for CHRISTMAS (Sid Tepper / Roy C. Bennett)

15 - Je cherche un homme (I want a man) (Georges Pazman / Michel Emer / Ramon Pina / Yves Bruyere)

Avec Henri René et son orchestre et chœurs

45 tours SP 17 cm RCA Victor 47- 6319 - 1955

Down To Eartha

16 - I Wantcha Around (Bob Merrill)

17 - Do you Remember (Nacio Herbb Brown)

18 - Looking for a Boy (George Gershwin / Ira Gershwin)

19 - I’ve Got that Lovin’ Bug Itch (John Mazlish /

Robert Mellin)

20 - Oh, John! (Fred Ebb / Phillip Springer)

21 - Strangers in the Starlight (Fred Wise / Kay Twomey / Sid Tepper / Roy C. Bennett)

22 - The Day that the Circus Left Town (Carolyn Leigh / E.D. Thomas)

23 - Après moi (Bernard Bennett)

24 - The Heel (Lee Wilson / Léo Ferré / Willard Robison)

25 - Mambo de Paree (Alex Alstone/ Jimmy Kennedy)

26 - My heart’s Delight (Charles Singleton / Rose Marie McCoy)

27 - Hey, Jacque (Eden Ahbez / Wayne Shanklin)

Avec Henri René et son orchestre et chœurs

33 tours 30 cm RCA Victor LPM-1109 - 1955

28 - There Is no Cure for L’amour (Al Hoffman /
Dick Manning)

Avec Henri René et son orchestre

78 tours 25 cm RCA Victor 20-6521 - 1956

CD3

1 - Honolulu Rock and Roll (Al Hoffman / Dick Manning)

Avec Henri René et son orchestre

78 tours 25 cm RCA Victor 20-6521 - 1956

2 - Put More wood on the Fire (Lee Pockriss / Paul Vance)

3 - I’m a Funny Dame (Harold Karr / Matt Dubey)

Avec l’orchestre de Jœ Reisman et chœurs

78 tours 25 cm RCA Victor 20-6727 - 1956

Thursday’s Child

4 - Fascinating Man (John Tore)

5 - Mademoiselle Kitt (Mesie Julian)

6 - Oggere (Gilberto Valdez)

7 - No importa si menti (Baz Tabares)

8 - Lisbon Antigua (Harry Depree / Raúl Portela /
José Galhardo / Amadou do Vale)

9 - Just a Old Fashioned Girl (Marve Fischer)

10 - Le danseur de Charleston (Jean-Pierre Moulin)

11 - Lazy Afternoon (Latouche Moross)

12 - Johnny, Wenn du Geburtstag Hast (Edward Heyman /Frederick K. Hollander)

13 - If I Can’t Take it with Me (When I go) (Mack David / Harold Grand)

14 - Thursday’s Child (Boyd Grand)

15 - Lullaby of Birdland (George Shearing)

Avec Henri René et son orchestre

33 tours 30 cm RCA Victor LPM-1300 - 1956

16 - Rosenkyssar (Ake Gerhard)

17 - Vid Kajen (Henrik Blichmann / S.S Wilson)

Avec l’orchestre de Sandford Gold

78 tours 25 cm RCA - R 511 - 1956 - Suède

18 - A Woman Wouldn’t be a Woman (Jœ Darion /
George Kleinsinger)

19 - Toujours gai (Jœ Darion / George Kleinsinger)

Direction d’orchestre Maurice Levine

45 tours SP 17 cm RCA Victor 47- 6928 - 1957

20 - Yomme, Yomme (Kim Drake / Ricardo Suerte)

21 - Take my Love, Take my Love (Herb Perry)

Direction d’orchestre Hugo Winterhalter et chœurs

45 tours SP 17 cm RCA Victor 47- 7013 - 1957

St. Louis Blues

22 - St. Louis Blues (W.C Handy)

23 - Beale Street Blues (W.C Handy)

24 - Chantez-les bas (Sing ’Em Low) (W.C Handy)

25 - Hesitating Blues (W.C Handy)

26 - Steal Away (Traditionnel arrangements Jester Hairston)

27 - Careless Love (W.C Handy)

28 - Atlanta Blues (Make me One Pallet on your Floor) (W.C Handy / D Elfman)

29 - Hist the Window Noah (Traditionnel arrangements Jester Hairston)

CD4

1 - Long Gone (W.C Handy / G Smith)

2 - Yellow Dog Blues (W.C Handy)

3 - Friendless Blues (W.C Handy / Mercedes Gilbert)

4 - The Memphis Blues (W.C Handy / George A. Norton)

Avec Shorty Rogers and his giants

33 tours 30 cm RCA Victor LPM-1661 - 1958

5 - Proceed with Caution (Wilston Stone)

Direction d’orchestre Hugo Winterhalter et chœurs

78 tours 25 cm RCA 1037 - 1958

The Fabulous Eartha Kitt

6 - Sholem (Traditionnel)

7 - Love is a Gamble (Jane Douglass White / Sydney Shaw)

8 - Lamplight (James H. Shelton)

9 - Yellow Bird (Alan Bergman / Marilyn Keith /
Norman Luboff)

10 - Mack the Knife (Kurt Weill / Marc Blitzstein)

11 - Shango (Traditionnel)

12 - I’d Rather be Burned as a Witch (Dolin / Garrett)

13 - Tierra va tembla (Mariano Merceron)

14 - In the Evening (When the sun gœs down)
(Leroy Carr)

15 - Jambo Hippopotamii (Ferdy Lorenzi / Lecorde)

16 - Independent (And On my Own) (Adolph Green /
Betty Comden)

17 - Torah Dance (Ki mi-tziyon)
(Emanuel Pugashov Amiran)

Direction d’orchestre Maurice Levine

33 tours 30 cm Kapp Records KL-1162 - 1959

Revisited

18 - I Wantcha Round (Bob Merrill)

19 - Uska Dara (Traditionnel arrangements Stella Lee)

20 - Let’s Do It (Cole Porter)

21 - Angelitos Negros (Andres Eloy Blanco /
Manuel Alvarez Maciste)

22 - Après moi (After Me) (Bernard Bennett)

23 - C’est si bon (André Hornez/ René Betti)

24 - Just an Old Fashioned Girl (Marve Fisher)

25 - April in Portugal (Jacques Larue / José Galhardo / Raúl Ferrão)

26 - I Want to be Evil (Lester Judson / Raymond Taylor)

27 - My Heart Belongs to Daddy (Cole Porter)

28 - Lilac Wine (James H. Shelton)

CD5

1 - Johnny with the Gentle Hands (George Siravo /
Kermit Gœll)

Direction d’orchestre Maurice Levine

45 tours SP 17 cm Kapp Records K-333X - 1960

Bad but beautiful

2 - All I Want is All There Is and Then some
(Ross Bagdasarian)

3 - Please Do it Again (George Gershwin / Buddy DeSylva)

4 - It’s So Nice to Have a Man Around the House
(Harold Spina / Jack Elliot)

5 - La dolce vita (the sweet life) (Dino Verde / Nino Rota)

6 - Lola-Lola (Jay Livingston / Ray Evans)

7 - A lady Loves (Josef Myrow / Mack Gordon)

8 - Love for Sale (Cole Porter)

9 - Always True to You in My Fashion (Cole Porter)

10 - Whatever Lola Wants Lola Gets (Richard Adler /Jerry Ross)

11 - Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend (Jule Styne /
Leo Robin)

12 - Never on Sunday (Manos Hadjidakis)

13 - Good Little Girls (Danny Cahn / Vernon Duke)

Direction d’orchestre Bill Loose

33 tours 30 cm MGM Records E4009 - 1962

The romantic Eartha

14 - I’ve Got You Under my Skin (Cole Porter)

15 - (Ah the Apple Trees) When the World Was Young (Johnny Mercer / Philippe-Gérard)

16 - Wonderful Illusion (Enrique Santos Discépolo / Mariano Mores / Tommie Connor)

17 - Solitude (Duke Ellington / Eddie DeLange /
Irving Mills)

18 - Easy to Love (Cole Porter)

19 - September Song (Kurt Weill / Maxwell Anderson)

20 - You’ll Never Know (Harry Warren / Mack Gordon)

21 - Speak Low (Kurt Weill / Ogden Nash)

22 - Happiness Is a Thing Called Jœ (E.Y. Harburg /
Harold Arlen)

23 - Mirage (Clarke)

24 - Chez moi (Paul Misraki / Jean Féline)

25 - In the Still of the Night (Cole Porter)

Direction d’orchestre Tony Osborne

33 tours 30 cm His Master Voice CLP 1595 - 1962

Bonus track :

26 - I’m Going lo Live the Life I Sing About in my Song (Thomas A. Dorsey) (unreleased) (Previously unreleased)

Avec accompagnement de guitare

Acétate- 1950