I get really sick and tired of people saying things like:

“Well….she’s always the same person.”

I hear that a lot about Crawford, Davis, Hepburn. Even some of my favorite men: Cary Grant, Bogart, James Stewart. First off. None of that is true. Actors play pieces of themselves, never their whole selves. So anyone who believes they actually know an actor up on screen has got the whole process backwards.

However, even if it were true, playing a part of yourself and exposing your heart and your inner life so freely isn’t exactly the easiest job on the planet. So, pretending that a lot of working actors are merely saying words and nodding their heads is like saying Napoleon ran a small goat farm and had a little war.

There’s something about Eartha Kitt that’s unmistakable. The voice, the Gestures, the brilliant use of her own Shape, all that…yes. But Kitt knows how to dig into something. She doesn’t fall into a role, she bulldozes her way in and then scratches her way out. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s not just that we believe what she’s doing and who she is, it’s that we HAVE to believe what she’s doing and who she is. She makes us. She demands it.

I think one of the best parts of this clip is the very end when Rosie comes back on camera, and you see the real Kitt sparkle through her character’s thin veneer. That smile, that return to her normal Shape is perfectly clear. There is a difference. Whether it’s a matter of degree or taste, Eartha Kitt is a living powerhouse.