It’s 3 p.m. on a scorching June afternoon in New York’s Upper East Side, and 81-year-old singer Eartha Kitt hasn’t had lunch yet. Unlike most women her age, she’s spent the day in back-to-back business meetings, sorting out concert contracts and signing legal agreements for her recently released DVD, Eartha Kitt: Live at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival. With the help of her 47-year-old daughter/manager/driver, Kitt Shapiro, the pair manages to make it on time for a sound check for one of the 80-plus gigs she has booked for 2008. Tonight’s performance marks her return to the Café Carlyle—where Kitt has been seasonally showcasing her acclaimed one-woman show for nearly 10 years.
After finishing up with her band, squeezing in a wardrobe fitting, an hour of yoga and some phone time with her L.A.-based publicist, Kitt sits down for a light snack during her interview with Maclean’s—slotted a mere two hours before the night’s 6 p.m. showtime. Her to-do list—which still includes a makeup and hair sitting before curtain call—sounds manic for anyone, let alone a person in her ninth decade. Yet Kitt insists she is “taking it easier than ever.”
“I usually do double of what I am doing now. Last year I did two shows a night for 12 weeks. This year, it’s just one show a night for five weeks. In January, I’m doing two shows a night on Fridays and Saturdays until February. You see, if it were up to them, darrling,” she purrs while forking at a plate of fresh berries, “I’d be punching the clock as soon as I got up. That’s how much . . .” she pauses for drama, “the public still desiiiires me!”
It was one of the last in-person interviews Kitt ever gave. The tireless cabaret queen equally known as Catwoman (she played the famous feline villain on the Batman TV series in the ’60s) died of cancer on Dec. 25. But Kitt remains an inspiration for a league of female singers who are over 60 and taking to the stage as much as they did during their ingenue years, among them Dolly Parton (63), Gladys Knight (64), Buffy Sainte-Marie (67) and Roberta Flack (71). All of them have recently been packing venues without a No. 1 hit or a single tabloid headline—or a news-inducing farewell tour.
“People make fools of themselves when they go on a farewell tour,” says country veteran Dolly Parton via phone from her lake house in Tennessee. Wrapping up the last leg of the tour for her latest album, Backwoods Barbie, this past November, Parton is bemused by the fact that Tina Turner, 69, and Cher, 62, both announced their return to the stage in 2008, since each has already headlined farewell tours earlier this decade.
“I want to tell them: ‘Don’t be stupid!’ ” laughs Parton. “Don’t ever get off the road, ’cause you’re gonna get bored or you’re gonna need the money. Just tell people, ‘I’m gonna take off for a while,’ if you want. They’ve retired so many times it has become a joke!”
Turner’s current string of concert dates, which have her booked throughout Europe until April, have reportedly already made more than US$47 million in ticket sales alone in 2008. Also in no need of a bailout any time soon is Cher, who has signed a lucrative contract for 200 shows in Las Vegas, which requires her to perform for three years at Caesar’s Palace. Bette Midler, 63, has agreed to a similar arrangement, taking on a two-year run at Caesar’s until early 2010.
“Making records just isn’t enough anymore,” Parton says, referring to the illegal downloading endemic in the music industry. “People want to see singers sing—in the flesh—more than ever. There aren’t as many real singers as there used to be so we usually have a full house. My fans understand that what I give them is genuine and labour-intensive. Especially for someone who isn’t a spring chicken anymore.”
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