When Eartha Kitt slithered onto the set of the 1960s Batman TV series, the show was already a Technicolor fever dream of "Pows" and "Bams." But something shifted when she stepped into the role of Catwoman for the third season.
Julie Newmar had been the standard. She was tall, statuesque, and played the character with a sort of lovestruck, playful yearning for Adam West’s Batman. Then came Eartha.
She didn't just play the part; she basically took it apart and rebuilt it with a purr that could shatter glass. Honestly, if you grew up watching those reruns, you probably remember the "R-r-r-r-r" more than the actual plots.
The Casting That Broke the Rules
Casting a Black woman as a major villain in 1967 wasn't just a creative choice. It was a statement. The Batman TV series producers, led by William Dozier, found themselves in a bind when Newmar was unavailable due to filming the movie Mackenna's Gold.
They could have played it safe. They didn't.
Instead, they hired Eartha Kitt, a woman Orson Welles once called "the most exciting woman in the world." She was a polyglot who sang in ten languages and had survived a childhood of extreme poverty in the cotton fields of South Carolina.
By the time she reached Gotham, she wasn't just an actress. She was a force.
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Her Catwoman was different. While Newmar's version was often motivated by a crush on Batman, Kitt’s Selina Kyle (though the name Selina was rarely used on the show) was purely about the crime. She wanted the gold. She wanted the power.
She was "E-vil" in the best way possible.
A Subversive Performance in a Campy World
The dynamic changed immediately. Because Kitt was Black and West was white, the writers had to drop the "romantic" subplot.
Back then, the network wouldn't touch an interracial romance. It was 1967, and while the Supreme Court had just struck down bans on interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia, television was still terrified of its own shadow.
Kitt didn't care.
She replaced the romance with a razor-sharp, predatory intelligence. She moved like an actual feline—low to the ground, coiled, ready to strike. You've probably noticed that while the other Catwomen used whips, Kitt never did. She didn't need one. Her voice was the weapon.
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- The Voice: That famous vibrato wasn't just for show. It gave her an "otherness" that felt more dangerous than the Joker or the Riddler.
- The Stature: Standing only about 5'2", she was much shorter than Julie Newmar. To compensate, she projected a massive presence.
- The Tech: Kitt’s Catwoman was an inventor. She used "cat whiskers" rope and complex schemes that showed she was Batman's intellectual equal.
The White House Incident and the Blacklist
It’s impossible to talk about Eartha Kitt in the Batman TV series without mentioning why her time there was so short. She only appeared in five episodes.
- "The Joke’s on Catwoman"
- "The Funny Feline Felonies"
- "The Ogg Couple"
- "Catwoman’s Dressed to Kill"
- "The Bloody Tower"
In early 1968, Kitt was invited to a "Women Doers" luncheon at the White House hosted by Lady Bird Johnson. When asked about juvenile delinquency, Kitt didn't give the canned, polite answer everyone expected.
She looked the First Lady in the eye and spoke out against the Vietnam War.
"You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed," she said. It reportedly made Lady Bird cry. The backlash was instant.
Within days, the CIA had a dossier on her. She was labeled a "nymphomaniac" and a troublemaker. The industry shut its doors. For years, the woman who had just redefined a comic book icon couldn't find work in America. She had to move to Europe to survive.
Why Her Legacy Matters Now
Kitt eventually returned to the U.S. and found a whole new generation of fans. You might know her as the voice of Yzma in The Emperor's New Groove or as Madame Zeroni in Holes.
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But her Catwoman remains the blueprint for every "serious" take on the character. When you look at Michelle Pfeiffer’s intensity or Zoë Kravitz’s grit, you’re seeing the DNA of Eartha Kitt. She took a campy, 1960s caricature and gave it a soul that was both elegant and terrifying.
She proved that you didn't need to be a "love interest" to be the most memorable person in the room.
How to Appreciate Kitt's Work Today
If you want to really understand her impact, don't just watch the clips on YouTube. Look at the context.
- Watch the episodes back-to-back: Notice how her energy differs from Julie Newmar and Lee Meriwether. She’s less "damsel" and more "boss."
- Listen to her music: Tracks like "I'm a Bad, Bad Girl" or "Santa Baby" show the same persona she brought to Gotham.
- Read her autobiography: Confessions of a Sex Kitten gives a raw look at what she was going through while wearing those cat ears.
Eartha Kitt didn't just play a villain. She used a "starving cat" mentality to carve out a space for Black women in a genre that usually ignored them. She was, quite literally, the cat’s meow.
To get the full experience of her era, check out the remastered Blu-ray sets of the 1966 series, specifically Season 3, where the color grading finally does justice to those iconic costumes.
Next Steps: You can start by watching the Season 3 episode "Catwoman's Dressed to Kill," which is widely considered her best performance. From there, compare her delivery to the modern interpretations in The Batman (2022) to see just how much of her DNA is still in the character today.