After Leaving Paris as a Star, Eartha Kitt Recorded "Santa Baby"

 

South Carolina native Eartha Kitt grew up in Harlem during the latter years of its renaissance. While a teenager she won a scholarship to study at the Katherine Dunham School of Dance.  By 1946, Kitt was performing in Dunham's dance troupe, the most prestigious dance troupe of that time. In the late 1940s she toured with them across the United States and to Mexico. 

In 1948, Eartha Kitt traveled to Europe with the Katherine Dunham dance troupe.  While they were in Paris, Eartha was offered a singing job in a nightclub, where she would earn much more money than she'd been making as a member of the dance troupe.  With that offer and other opportunities she was enticed to stay in Paris.  She made a life and early career for herself and eventually left Paris as a star.

In 1953, Eartha Kitt recorded the song "Santa Baby" for the first time with Henri René and his orchestra, in New York City.