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大学英语四级考试听力的备考没有别的诀窍，就是要每天听音频练习，只有多听，才能掌握语感，攻克英语四级考试听力题型。下面，我们一起来练习一下吧!看你听懂了多少!
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听力音频点击下载.rar
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听力材料：
VOICE ONE:
I'm Steve Ember.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Barbara Klein with People in America in VOASpecial English. Today we tell about theunforgettable entertainer Eartha Kitt. The life of thissinger and actress was as rich and interesting as hercareer.
VOICE ONE:
"C'est Si Bon," or "It's So Good" in French, was one of Eartha Kitt's first hit songs. Sherecorded it in the early nineteen fifties after performing it in a Broadway show. But Eartha Kitt'slife was not always so good. She had a very difficult childhood although information about herearly history is limited.
Eartha Mae Keith was born into a poor, rural family in South Carolina in nineteen twenty-seven.Some reports say she was the child of rape. Her mother was of African and Cherokee Indianancestry. Her father was a white farmer.
When Eartha was eight, her mother married. The husband did not want Eartha to live with thembecause of her mixed race. Eartha Kitt said he called her "yellow gal."
Eartha was sent to New York City to live with an aunt in the African- American neighborhood ofHarlem. The relationship was difficult. The aunt helped pay for piano and dance lessons forEartha. But she also beat the girl. Eartha would run away after beatings.
(Music: "God Bless The Child")
VOICE TWO:
Eartha Kitt lived on the streets and worked in a factory as a young teenager. But she kept upher dance lessons. One day she decided to try out for a famous African-American dancecompany. Soon, Eartha was performing in shows around the world with the Katherine DunhamDance Troupe.
In Paris, Eartha left the dance company to sing in a nightclub. Her voice was unusual – but veryappealing. She learned French quickly and gained French fans.
(Music: "Je Cherche Un Homme")
VOICE ONE:
The film director Orson Welles discovered Eartha Kitt singing in Paris. He called her "the mostexciting woman in the world." Welles asked her to play a lead part in a play he was directing andstarring in.
Eartha Kitt returned to New York and appeared in the Broadway show "New Faces of NineteenFifty-Two." A humorous song she sang about a bored, spoiled woman became famous. Here is"Monotonous."
(MUSIC)
VOICE TWO:
She soon signed a recording agreement with a record company. Eartha Kitt's songs were alldaring, especially for the nineteen fifties. She even made a sexy Christmas song. "Santa Baby,"became Kitt's biggest hit.
(MUSIC)
Eartha Kitt's first role in a film was in the nineteen fifty-seven movie "Mark of the Hawk" with NatKing Cole. Kitt was very careful about choosing her roles in films. She rejected parts that werenot respectful to people of color. She said if her choices were bad it would not help the blackactors who came after her.
CATWOMAN: "Hello Pierre.This is Catwoman. C-A-T-W-O-M-A-N."
PIERRE: "Quelle est la problem, Femme Chat?"
CATWOMAN: "Batman just caught Joker and me in the middle of a robbery."
VOICE ONE:
In nineteen sixty-seven, Eartha Kitt got the part of Catwoman on the popular television series"Batman." Fans loved the special way she rolled her "r"s to create a sound like a cat. Sheappeared on just three shows but was an unforgettable Catwoman.
CATWOMAN: "What now?"
BATMAN: "You're on your way to prison, Catwoman. Will you never learn that you cannotoutwit the law?"
CATWOMAN: "Maybe one day I will, Batman. Purr-haps."
VOICE TWO:
In nineteen sixty-eight Eartha Kitt was invited to the White House. President Lyndon Johnsonwas in office and the Vietnam War was an issue of national dispute.
The president's wife, Lady Bird Johnson, invited several women to a luncheon to discuss theproblem of crimes committed by young people. Eartha Kitt said the First Lady asked her whyshe thought there was so much youth crime in America.
Eartha Kitt said: "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. They rebel inthe streets. They will take pot and they will get high. They don't want to go to school becausethey will be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam."
VOICE ONE:
Those comments destroyed Kitt's career in America for a long time. Later, it was discoveredthat President Johnson had immediately ordered government agents to investigate theperformer. Kitt said she was "blacklisted." No one in the American entertainment industrywould employ her. For about ten years, she could only find work in other countries.
In the mid nineteen seventies Eartha Kitt slowly began to rebuild her career in America. She woncritical praise for a concert in nineteen seventy-four at Carnegie Hall in New York. In nineteenseventy-eight, President Jimmy Carter asked Eartha Kitt back to the White House. That sameyear, she was nominated for a Tony award as best actress in the musical "Timbuktu!"
In nineteen ninety-four, Eartha Kitt released the album "Back In Business". It was nominated fora Grammy. She was sixty-six years old. She received another Tony nomination, three Emmysand other honors in the years that followed. And she continued singing in small clubs until thelast year of her life.
(Music: "Let's Do It")
VOICE TWO:
Eartha Kitt was also a mother and grandmother. She married businessman William O'Donald innineteen sixty and gave birth to their daughter, Kitt, the same year. Eartha Kitt said herdaughter was her greatest joy in life. She said she took her everywhere her career went.
Eartha Kitt said her own experiences as a child left her a divided person. Her real self was notEartha Kitt but Eartha Mae, a child given away by her mother.
EARTHA KITT: "Rejection has always made me into a person that does not want to be seenanywhere, except when I'm all made up and go out as Eartha Kitt. Then I feel okay."
And where was Eartha Mae most herself?
EARTHA KITT: "I'm at home, digging in the dirt, or doing something that is very close to theEarth, because that's where I know how to survive."
(MUSIC: "Here's To Life")
VOICE ONE:
Eartha Mae Kitt was at home when she died on December twenty fifth, two thousand eight. Thecause was colon cancer. She was eighty-one. |
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发表于 2016-7-28 21:08:53