Eartha Kitt Is Still One Cool Cat -- Singing Star Brings Her Sexy Purr To Jazz Alley

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Eartha Kitt

8 and 9:30 p.m. tonight and Sunday, 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday, Dimitriou's Jazz Alley; 206-441-9729. -----------------------------------------------------------------

How has Eartha Kitt stayed so cool for so long?

By growing her own - food, that is.

Reached at her rural home on the East Coast - she'd rather not reveal exactly where - the singing star with the sexy purr had just come from walking her two toy miniature poodles.

"I love living in the country," she said in that familiar clipped tone of hers. "There's a hundred acres of protected forest right next to me, and the dogs and I go walking there every day we possibly can."

On several acres surrounding her home, she grows herbs and tomatoes, assorted greens and all sorts of vegetables.

"I have since I was born," she said with a laugh. "Good food gives you the strength to endure. And exercise, of course. I do believe in keeping mobile."

Still youthful and vibrant at 70, she said the secret to her vitality is "the wonderful feeling of having something living around me all the time."

Even when she lived at the luxurious Carlyle Hotel on New York's Upper East Side, when she was a Broadway star in the 1950s, she grew tomatoes and herbs in a windowbox.

In the 1960s, when she did lots of films and TV (most famously as Cat Woman on "Batman"), she had a home in Beverly Hills with three acres devoted to flowers and vegetables.

"You should have seen my orchids! Such a joy! And three full-blooming avocado trees!"

She still grows flowers, but hates cutting them. In her home, she prefers potted plants and cacti. But her main interest is planting seeds in the good earth and growing food.

"Food to me is very much a spiritual thing," she explained. "Gathering food from the garden and preparing it yourself makes you so thankful for your blessings.

"I've just picked some beautiful string beans and some ripe tomatoes, and with some greens and a light dressing they'll make a wonderful salad."

Kitt is famous for singing songs dripping with sensuality, but there's only one thing she wants from a suitor.

"The man who really cares for me is the man who offers territory," she said. "Give me land, lots of land!"

Reached a week before she started her Jazz Alley stint on Tuesday - she plays there through Sunday - she said she'll be doing songs by the Gershwins, Cole Porter, perhaps Stephen Sondheim. Among contemporary songwriters, she likes Sting, Elton John and Bernie Taupin, and Seal.

"I've rediscovered Charles Aznavour," she said enthusiastically. "His lyrics are so damned intelligent! I don't know if I can sing them.

"I'd like to put out an album that has to do with Eartha Kitt then and Eartha Kitt now. I'd like to do some songwriting myself. I'm looking at a couple of movie scripts, and it's almost certain I'll play the Wicked Witch in the touring company of `The Wizard of Oz.'

"I consider myself the luckiest person in the world. I haven't had a dull moment since I don't know when.

"I love coming to Seattle - it's one of the most beautiful areas in the country and the people are warm and friendly. It's a beautiful room (Jazz Alley) and the audiences are wonderful, with lots of young people. We always have a lot of fun there."