[bychance]

JANET JACKSON FTW!

The Kitt-en’s still purring






KATHERINE VOLIN, Washington Blade
Friday, November 09, 2007

When Extra! asked Janet Jackson last month whom she’d like to portray in a movie musical, she hesitated as though she was reluctant to reveal a secret.


“I don’t know — I have this thing for Eartha Kitt,” she said. “I would love to.”


An Eartha Kitt musical biopic starring Jackson is the stuff of gay diva-worshipping fantasy, but this particular dream could come true. The Extra! interview was at least the second time in October that Jackson dropped a hint that she was interested in playing Kitt.


Kitt, who is scheduled to perform at the Warner Theatre in D.C. on Nov. 10, says the screenplay of her life’s story was written years ago. She’s only waiting for “somebody who is suitable for the character.” And if Jackson really wants the part, Kitt says she would support her playing the role.
“I think it would be wonderful. I’m very glad that she’s interested,” Kitt told the Blade. “Everything depends on the studio. If she’s interested, she should call them.”


Kitt’s is the kind of story that’s begging to be told. Born to racially diverse parents in a 1927 South Carolina world that rejected her for being neither white nor black, Kitt was eventually abandoned by both parents by age 8, when her mother sent her to Harlem to live with her aunt.


When she was still a teenager, Kitt auditioned for and won a spot dancing and singing in the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe. One night while performing in Paris with the group, a nightclub owner noticed her and booked her to be his featured singer. It was in the audience’s adoration that she finally found acceptance.


“The audience has always been my real family, outside of my daughter and her children, of course,” Kitt says.


ALTHOUGH SHE’S NOW 80, Kitt is still performing and thrilling live audiences.

Janet looks much more like Eartha than Beyaki. Angela Basett as well.





Very Angela Basett here.