Eartha Kitt’s TV One ‘Unsung Hollywood’ Full Episode — 7,500 Facebook Shares [Videos]


Eartha Kitt was featured on a recent episode of Unsung Hollywood on TV One. The popularity of Kitt’s Unsung Hollywood: Eartha Kitt episode can be witnessed in the following videos from the network, which have been shared on Facebook a combined 7,500 times in the 48 hours or so since they were published. The full episode details the highs and lows of Kitt’s life, with TV One describing Kitt’s as a rollercoaster life of tragic ups and downs.

“One of Black America’s first divas — Eartha Kitt’s life story is a surprising mix of tragedy and triumph.”

The full episode of Kitt’s Unsung Hollywood takes viewers from Eartha’s childhood on a plantation to the day of her death, as described by Eartha’s daughter, whose first name is Eartha’s Kitt surname.

Eartha described never meeting her biological father, with Kitt explaining how she’d only heard that he was a white man who was the son of the plantation owner. Kitt was rejected by the Caucasian side of her family as well as the African-American side of her family. Eartha recalled how her light skin earned her the nickname “yellow gal,” which was given to many women of mixed heritage in those days.

As such, the theory that “yellow gals” were bad luck and brought storms meant that Eartha was rejected by her own mother. Kitt described being tied to a tree and beaten until she bled. She also recalled sadly how she was so poor that her one outfit was made of potato sacks.

Orson Welles and EarthaKitt [Photo by Jean Aubry/AP Images]
The full Unsung Hollywood episode has gotten nearly 2,000 Facebook shares, and the snippet video as seen below — titled “Eartha Kitt Said Black Lives Matter in 1968” — has received nearly 6,000 Facebook shares.

“Why did President Lyndon Johnson sick the FBI on Eartha Kitt? You guessed it — Black Lives Matter.”

Lyndon and First “Lady Bird” Johnson had invited Eartha to the ladies luncheon because Eartha was active in her own community and others. She knew the kinds of complaints that people in the street had, and Eartha took those concerns to the White House when she was given the opportunity to sit at the table with the higher-ups.

[Photo by AP Images]
However, Eartha wasn’t interested in speaking about flower gardens and trivial matters. Eartha’s mind was on getting kids home safely from battle overseas. Kitt asked the First Lady what they were going to do about sending black kids overseas to get shot in the war in 1968. The first lady had been busy speaking about cleaning up the streets and getting “hoodlums” off of them by turning to everyday citizens for help.

“The success of freeing our neighborhoods from hoodlums and fear depends on the cooperation of all our citizens.”

Eartha was triggered by the fact that she was the only black face in the room. The White House reminded her of her days with southerners on the plantation. Kitt asked the first lady what would be done about getting black teens from overseas to prevent them from being shot and killed.

According to the episode, the room grew so quiet and was filled with tension. After that day, Eartha’s daughter described how their lives became one of survival, meaning that Kitt was blackballed from working in the U.S. and had to travel to locations like Paris in order to find work for the following 10 years.

Younger generations might not know about Eartha’s activism, but they definitely remember Kitt as the breakout star of the movie Boomerang. Kitt played a much older woman to Eddie Murphy’s character in the movie at the time. It was a movie that also starred singer Grace Jones, who got quite the lesson from Eartha on how to purr correctly, the way Kitt’s famous Catwoman purred.

[Photo by Stephen Chernin/AP Images]

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