‘We had to eat whatever we could dig out of the ground’: How Eartha Kitt rose from ‘extreme poverty’ to superstardom

With her sultry drawl and feline charisma, the singer and actor oozed sophistication. But Eartha Kitt, who was born on 17 January 1927, had the toughest of childhoods. In History looks at how she transcended her troubled beginnings to become a star of stage and screen – and the first black Catwoman.

Source: ‘We had to eat whatever we could dig out of the ground’: How Eartha Kitt rose from ‘extreme poverty’ to superstardom