Kitt was given by her mother to another woman to raise on a South Carolina plantation. When she was eight she was sent to Harlem to another woman. She has never discovered who her parents were and there is no record of her birth.
She entered show business in her late teens as a dancer and has performed in over 100 countries and in films with Nat King Cole, Sidney Poitier and Sammy Davis, Jr.
She is quoted as having said: "When your own mother throws you away, you fight a little harder for recognition."