I don’t know what’s going on this Christmas day, but the incredibly smart and witty performer who proved that sex kittens can have brains, courage, and sharp claws when needed, has passed on at age 81.  Though a lot of us young geeks first knew Eartha Kitt as the Catwoman on the third season of the Adam West Batman television show  — where  the sudden dropping of the Bat on Cat flirtation that had flourished both with Julie Newmar on TV and Lee Meriweather in the sixties Bat-movie gave a lot of us an early education in media racial/sexual politics — she was first and foremost a live performer and an icon of the lounge era, and involved with a lot more than her once semi-obscure, now-iconic Xmas hit, “Santa Baby.”

The highlights and dramas of her career are probably well known to a lot of you — and can be read about via both Greencine and at the Huffington Post….Her comments on Vietnam in front of Lady Bird Johnson in which she experienced a harsher version of what later happened to the Dixie Chicks, and a big compliment from Orson Welles, who called her “the most exciting woman in the world,” was followed by being bitten by the ever voracious actor-director, who apparently mistook her for a blintz one night while she was playing Helen of Troy to his Faust. Whatever happened to her, she was an indomitable force who was never around enough for my taste, but who also kept working and never went away, until now.

There’s no doubt about it — she was one gutsy talent. Still, what I love about Ms. Kitt is the humor and ability to reach out to an audience as both an actress, and especially as a singer and cabaret performer. Lounges were made for the likes of her.

And we end on a slightly seasonal, slightly appropriate note. Everything really does change, but few of us hold the line better than Ms. Kitt did.