Eartha Kitt, one of the reasons Vintage Black Glamour exists, was born 86 years ago today in North, South Carolina. In this photograph, she is shown at a cast party for “Leonard Sillman’s New Faces of 1952,” the show where she made her Broadway debut and sang, for the first time, her classic song, “Monotonous.” Photo: Museum of the City of New York
Happy 80th Birthday Nichelle Nichols! Ms. Nichols was born on December 28, 1932 in Robbins, IL and in this 1961 photo, Ms. Nichols rehearses a dance number with some of the cast from “Kicks and Co.,” a 1961 musical satire about segregation that was directed at one point by Lorraine Hansberry and produced by her husband). Although the show had major financial backing, an “all-star interracial cast” (Burgess Meredith, Lonnie Sattin, Vi Velasco) and success in Chicago, it never made it to Broadway as planned. Photo via The New York Public Library.
