Hispanic Heritage Month: Kitten Natividad

Kitten Natividad is a bombshell, no doubt. She is a burlesque dancer, stripper, adult film star, and legend. She was born Francesca Isabel Natividad in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico in 1948 the day before Valentine's Day. She moved to Texas with her mother and her eight siblings when she was 10 years old. Francesa is smart as a whip, too. She was the class president of her high school even after having only learned English 8 years earlier. 

Work for women was still limited in the '60s, even though the women's liberation movement was on the horizon, many women were still relegated to housework, secretarial work, nursing, or teaching. Kitten Natividad moved to California where she worked as a maid and a cook for actress Stella Stevens, as well as working at IBM, and eventually becoming a burlesque dancer. 

Kitten met her former partner, director Russ Meyer, who hired her for his film Up! She starred in several "sexploitation" films. By the way, I've always hated that term. I think "exploitation" denotes some lower form of class or standard because of the content. It feels like yet another way the creativity and efforts of traditionally marginalized people and those on the fringe of society are censored. It's just another way of dismissing the work of those who are "other than." Anyway! She did lots of films with Russ Meyer until their separation. Kitten also did lots of nude modeling around this time, too.

Kitten's career evolved yet again to doing p0rn films. (I literally had to censor that word because I was informed that typing the letters p o r n was against community guidelines.🙄) Unfortunately, she received criticism and backlash from those in the burlesque community for making the transition from striptease and nude performance into more hardcore work. How and why this distinction is made between "art" and "smut" has never made any sense. In fact, Jo Weldon and I talked about that in our interview. Check it out if you haven't already. However, the Burlesque Hall of Fame did honor her in 2018 with a Legend of Burlesque Award.

Kitten, unfortunately, had an adverse reaction to the silicone implants that had made her 44-inch bust famous and had to have them removed. Apparently, the silicone that was used in her implants was of an industrial grade and not medical grade. While I support whatever one likes to do with their own body including but not limited to surgical procedures, There are more and more stories of people with breast implants having their bodies reject them and making them very sick. Kitten is better now and living life in California.

Check out her work and give her a follow on Instagram! Her handle is @kittennatividadofficial