Eartha Kitt

Eartha Kitt’s place in Andy Warhol’s diary is shaped by a small number of encounters that move from social curiosity to conflict and then to a blunt personal verdict. She enters the record as a sought-after guest and a possible subject for Interview, but the diary’s account of her is filtered through Warhol’s changing, often ungenerous judgments.

A Guest Warhol Hoped to Meet

At Liza Minnelli’s birthday party at Halston’s Olympic Tower apartment on March 12, 1978, Carol Channing arrived with Eartha Kitt, who, Channing said, was eager to meet Warhol. The introduction did not develop into a conversation: Warhol records that the two had nothing to say to each other. The party itself was pleasant but felt incomplete to him, with some anticipated guests absent; Kitt was one of the notable arrivals in a gathering that also included Melba Moore and a live band.

The episode establishes Kitt’s social visibility in Warhol’s circle, but not a personal connection. Their initial meeting is brief and awkward, a contrast with the attention she would receive a few months later when Interview considered making her the subject of a story. The magazine was becoming a glamorous outlet for celebrity coverage, and Warhol’s diary shows him weighing not only whether Kitt merited an article but also what kind of story he was willing to publish.

The Interview Lunch and Its Dispute

On July 20, Kitt came to Interview for lunch, brought there by Barry Landau. Before she arrived, Brigid Berlin had already performed an imitation of her. The lunch soon became tense: Kitt and Ronnie argued about James Dean’s personality and whether he was difficult. Warhol understood Kitt as defending Dean as a rebel, but rejected the comparison he perceived between Dean’s behavior and Kitt’s activism, distinguishing Dean’s failure to show up for work from Kitt’s involvement in civil rights.

Polly Bergen took Ronnie’s side, intensifying the quarrel. The diary describes the mutual disparagement that followed when Kitt and Bergen were no longer in the room together, leaving the lunch marked by shifting alliances as much as by the original argument. Ronnie had already been upset about his job after Fred Hughes criticized the condition of the office, and had announced that it was his last day; despite the confrontation, he later decided to stay.

Warhol nevertheless thought Kitt interesting enough for a story. He rejected a proposed angle about the White House as too familiar, arranged to have lunch with Kitt and her daughter Kitt at Quo Vadis the following day, and assigned Bob Colacello to keep Landau away. The entry records the plan, not whether that lunch or the article ultimately took place.

An Unexpected Return at the Birthday Celebration

Kitt reappeared at Warhol’s birthday celebration at Halston’s house. After a small dinner, the gathering expanded into a larger party, where Warhol was surprised to find both Kitt and Landau. The diary does not explain how they came to be there or connect their appearance to the lunch planned in July; it simply registers his disbelief at seeing them.

Warhol’s response was sharply dismissive. He called Kitt stupid while also acknowledging that she worked hard, then judged that she would not have to work so hard to get what she wanted if she were less foolish. The remark turns effort into the measure of his criticism: he recognizes her persistence but treats it as evidence of a problem in her judgment. This is a harsher assessment than his earlier decision that she could sustain an Interview story.

A Portrait Filtered Through Warhol’s Diary

Across these entries, Kitt is seen in public settings rather than through a sustained account of her own perspective. The diary records her as a guest, a disputant, a potential profile subject, and a partygoer; it provides no account of her private response to Warhol or of what followed their proposed lunch. Its portrait therefore remains fragmentary, shaped by the occasions on which she crossed Warhol’s path.

That fragmentary quality also makes the changes in Warhol’s view conspicuous. He first registers Kitt as someone others wanted him to meet, then considers her worthy of magazine attention, and later reduces her to a cutting judgment at a party. The entries do not reconcile these impressions. Instead, they show how the diary’s record of a celebrity can shift with the immediate social scene, while leaving the person beyond that scene largely out of view.