The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Washington

Eartha Kitt, the versatile American singer and actress who died at 81, mesmerised audiences worldwide for over six decades with her sultry voice and sensuality on stage and screen.

Kitt, whose outspokenness was a mainstay of her career but also led to a self-imposed exile to Europe in the 1960s and 70s after her stinging critique of the war in Vietnam, won two Emmy television awards and was nominated for two Tony awards and a pair of Grammys. She was being treated for colon cancer at a New York hospital, her friend and publicist Andrew Freedman told AFP. A self-described 'sex kitten,' Kitt famously played the role of Catwoman in the US hit TV series 'Batman' in the 1960s. Her feline purr and uncanny persona won her millions of fans, among them Hollywood's Orson Welles, who called her "the most exciting woman in the world."