To see her is to behold her, for she leaves you with no other choice! Intoxicatingly witty, focused and intriguing, Eartha Kitt is even more beguiling in person than her onstage image would indicate-and that's a lot of image to beat! Sitting across from her, watching her poised body, charged with brilliant blasts of theatrical gestures, one arrives at a clear epiphany: she's a particular breed of star which is so severely lacking today--the uber glamorous icon--a studied craftsperson who truly comprehends the intersection of art and artifice, above simply trying to cultivate a vaporous image. She's more than an image--she's both a national and international icon, and, ironically, has achieved this status as a renowned iconoclast, taking on roles counter-to-type, assuming transcendental identities, and rebelling in the face of tradition when need be. Her superlative career spans from the stage (New Faces of 1952, Shinbone Alley, Timbuktu!, Follies, The Wild Party, Cinderella, Nine) and television (as the definitive Catwoman on Batman) to cinema and publishing (she's got four books under her belt), Kitt has left an indelible impression on audiences around the globe and has garnered three Tony nominations, one Emmy and two Grammys--the list goes on and on. Although her run as Liliane La Fleur in Nine--a role that benefited from her riveting sensuality and international flare--is coming to a close, she's already got her next gig lined up: Kitt will return to Joe's Pub on New Year's Eve to ring in another year with her fans. What better way to toast 2004 than a night with Eartha? Who says America doesn't have its royalty?

What does it mean to you to be back on Broadway and up on the stage again?
It's very important to me because to me--the theater is the most important way of learning a craft. It's a live performance, the audience is not lying to you when they show you how much they appreciate what you're doing on the stage. I don't mean that they're there to tell you how cute you are but when you have lived as long as I have, the audience keeps you there and as long as you're honest with them, they will be honest with you. So you are always creating. Every time I walk out there, I find something new, something different. No performance is ever the same, because we are never the same. Everyday someone comes into our lives and he or she has changed your way of thinking a little bit--your attitude changes a little bit. So every time you walk out there you should not be playing the same damn boring performance, because you are different every moment of your life.

I remember when I saw you as Dolores in The Wild Party, and again in Nine, that so many people in the audience audibly react to your entrances. What I love is that you're able to stay in character and yet interact with your audience. You don't build this wall of separation. It's a credit to your stage generosity…
You have to be sensitive to the audience, as well as, to the character you are playing at the moment, you can never get out of that character, you can have the audience become a part of what you're doing. So you never go down to what you may think in terms of going out of the character. You never do that. You let the audience come to you, so you share in each other. I don't think that the audience knows how important they are as a part of the play or a part of what you're doing. That's one of the things that I think is missing in the entertainment world today--that communication between you and the audience. It's a lot of noise and I don't care who it is that's on the stage these days it seems--lot of noise, a lot of flash, a lot of mechanical-isms that are going on, rather than that sole concentration between you and that audience. That you can stand there with that microphone or walk up and down the stage without losing that contact.

Do you feel that performing in cabaret has helped with that craft?
I think that anytime you're in front of an audience it helps you with the ability to be creative. That's where the truth of entertainment is, as far as I'm concerned. Not in the movies, because you can edit, cut it, do it a hundred times with a camera going again, again, again, again. And by the time they get through you don't know what kind of performance you've done because your whole heart and soul and creative ability as that actors portrayal is concerned is in the hands of somebody else. Your timing is different. Cause somebody else is giving you that timing. Somebody else is editing it for you. And that timing that you have between yourself and that audience may never be as you would have liked it to be because somebody has put their hands on it. This is like somebody writing a book, then somebody comes along and changes it around. And I have had that--where I've had somebody come in and help me put these thoughts together. I said, "No, that's not the way I said it." So I have to cut the whole thing out and start all over again. And I said, "Never mind, I'll do it." Because they took it and wanted to make it Hollywood-ized. You know, Eartha Kitt the sex symbol and thus. This is what I'm putting on paper is the truth of the matter. Now there was a friend who came to me, he's a writer too, and he said Eartha if you were to write about all the men you've had in your life and what happened to you, you would have a best seller. I said, "I'm not interested in having a best seller per se because now you're gonna be thinking how much money am I going to make on this book."

Speaking of your books, I loved Rejuvenate. I particularly remember one portion in which you spoke about your meeting with Albert Einstein, where he spoke about his wishing we had more discipline like birds do in nature… What do you think we can learn from nature?
Everything! [She laughs heartily and kicks up a leg.] EVERYTHING! Because that's what the source of life is, in the dirt. I've always said I love men to give me jewels and furs but if they give me real estate then I know they really care. Because I can't eat a diamond and it loses its value, somebody's out to steal it or anything that you have material wise, somebody is going to want it, you may lose it, you have to worry about it all the time. You don't see me with any jewels on. I went through that stage. Then I thought what an unnecessary bother. So I don't wear jewels. Because when I go out I think in terms of just me being free to think and go where I want to go without having to worry about somebody snatching my earrings off or whatever it is around my neck, or coming into my house and stealing it. It's all gone anyway. All those jewels I had, the men were giving me. It was wonderful. And I thought this is the way it's supposed to be. But after a while I thought, no I'm not happy with all this material stuff. If a man really cares for me, he will give me real estate. Because there I know how to take care of myself. I know how to plant a seed. But I really don't know what to do with a diamond. I don't even know if it's real or not. [laughs ] Give me land! So yes, nature can take care of you no matter what. As long as you have that land. That house, you can always add on to it and as long as you've got land you've got collateral. Don't sell it. So, nature to me is the most important thing in the world, outside of my daughter Kitt and her two children, and my public, of course.

Your support network--your daughter and your grandkids--do they have a lot of say in your career, in the choices you make?
Well, Kitt is now one of the managers. She and Mr. Bob Duva take care of the business, because now she's old enough to understand behind-the-scenes business and be able to sign the checks so that nobody else can sign them. Because when a stranger is signing the checks, you never know how much you have and how much you have lost. And I've gone through that, believe me. So now that she's taking care of business, I feel much more comfortable about it. But as far as making decisions as far as my work is concerned, we do discuss it. And then we put it into the hands of Mr. Duva, who is the manager in general, and he tries to get done what I said I would like to have--like getting back on Broadway. Because I think nightclubs are wonderful, I enjoy them very much, and the audiences in the nightclubs have been absolutely wonderful to me. But now I want to be back in a theater and do my thing in a play. I want to do more and more legitimate theater.

Are there other roles that you're looking into currently? I've heard about a one-woman show…
Dare Me is a play that I have written about my life story, along with Charles Randolph-Wright. We were doing that, rehearsing and showcasing it, when they asked me to do Nine. We'll see what happens with that. So yes, I would like to do live theater as much as I possibly can. But my fans have always written to me when they see me on the stage, the question is, how do you do what you do, I want to know how to do that. I can't tell you how to do that. I can only show you how to do that. And what you're talking about, seeing me on the stage, then you feel something from that and that translates into you wanting to do your own thing. And that's very important to me. Because you have to think in terms of loving it, working hard and not complaining all the time about how many hours you have to spend in the theater. When we did The Wild Party, the girl who did the main character, she was in movies…

Yes, that's right…
She said, "I didn't know that theater was so hard--this is hard!" [She laughs.] What did you think it was?! [She said,] "I can go to a movie I can be there as long as I want to be and then I go home." I said, "Well honey, you can work in the theater 18 hours a day and you should never get tired because that's where your learning process is--hard work and consistency."

You have a palpable chemistry with John Stamos in Nine that's exciting to watch. At this point in your life, you still have that thing that draws people in. How do you describe it?
It is what it is. In the olden days they called it IT. Today, they say you're sexy, but it's really about sensuality. People like Sophia Loren for instance…Marlene Dietrich… It's something you're born with, nothing you can do about it. And if you take care of yourself, people get excited because they know you have taken care of yourself. But they still feel that sensuality. Don't cover it up. You can't cover it up. However, you can cover up being sexy. Marilyn Monroe was another very sensual person. No matter what you put on her she was still sensual. I play with my sensuality because of who I am. I love teasing men. I love the teasing factor, which we don't have much of anymore either because of the feminism. God, it drives me nuts. Men don't flirt with us anymore. They don't tease us. What do they call that? A sexual…

Innuendo?
No, no, no. What do you call it when a man is flirting with you? What do they call it? Harassment! [Laughs.] I used to love it when I'd walk down the street and the boys on the building, the construction workers, would go [Whistles.]. I loved it! But we don't do that anymore. We don't even take chances anymore like that. Because men are afraid to flirt with a woman. But it's that sensuality that I love to tease the men with. And the woman [with the man] should be very happy that I'm doing this because she goes home with him! And lots of times I say to her, "I'm helping you!"

I'm sure it's true.
One time in Texas, in the Five Hundred Club, when I was down there doing my show, this woman leapt up out of her seat at the dinner table and said "Oh Eartha! My my, what you're doing for me tonight!" [Laughs.] We all got a big kick out of that. But the fun is taken out of it a bit by the feminist movement, I suppose.

You certainly keep it alive!
And I hope I do it to them until they put me in my coffin. Even when they're putting me in my coffin I hope they say, "Boy, is she sexy. How sensuous!" Oh God, that's fun to me! That's fun!

Before we go, I wanted to ask you about your fun cameo in the recent indie film Anything But Love. What was the experience like filming it?
It was good fun. I was only there for one day. [Star/co-writer Isabelle Rose] said she came to see my show at the Carlyle Hotel and then she fell in love with wanting to perform cabaret. So she went and wrote the story, and therefore she asked me to be in it. I did it for her as a favor. There's a Tiffany lamp in the movie. Because they couldn't pay me, I said, "Just give me that Tiffany lamp." Well, I never got it! [Laughs.] I don't think that the people who loaned it to them would sell it. But I'm still wanting that lamp!