Actress. Singer. Dancer. Model. Activist. Sharecropper’s daughter. Muse.

Eartha Kitt was many things.

But not evil.

Well, some folks might beg to differ. After Eartha’s 1968 “White House Incident,” the CIA issued a dossier on “her escapades overseas and her loose morals.” Eartha’s crime? Making Lady Bird Johnson cry.

Eartha had been invited to a luncheon during the Vietnam War, and sat listening quietly like a proper Southern lady… until called upon for her opinion. Which she did not hold back. “You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot,” she retorted. The First Lady got in her feelings, and Eartha’s US bookings were no more.

But no matter. By then, Eartha had appeared in at least nine films; starred in TV shows I Spy, Batman, and Mission: Impossible; and performed in 12 Broadway productions. Though the CIA had successfully burned many an activist/entertainer’s career, they hadn’t come up against Eartha’s level of star power. Or her hidden talent: Eartha spoke four languages, and sang in at least eleven.

So when the States tried to snuff out her career, Eartha simply shone abroad. “I Want to Be Evil” is one of only three tracks (out of eight) from her 1953 LP titled “That Bad Eartha” that’s sung entirely in English. (Ed. Note: “Uska Dara, A Turkish Tale” also appears on this album and I highly recommend it.) Now, not to diminish Eartha’s singing in any way, but it’s her stagecraft that truly makes her songs come alive. And you’ll see it in action in her absolutely captivating 1962 performance of “I Want to Be Evil” for Swedish variety show Kaskad.

Open scene. A demurely styled Eartha lies atop a tiger skin rug. Her hands cradle her face as she laments her innermost longings… for EVIL. But that’s the joke, isn’t it? None of poor Eartha’s secret machinations are ACTUALLY evil. But ALL of the ways she’s NOT evil are totally authentic and absolutely oppressive. “I Want to Be Evil” is steeped in satire and social commentary that a lesser entertainer simply could not convey.

The very first proof of virtue Eartha offers is that she’s “posed for pictures with Ivory Soap,” before also noting that she’s “been made Miss Rheingold.” Everyone knows that Ivory Soap has built their brand on being “99.9% pure.” A lot of people DON’T know that soap companies globally exploited Black and indigenous peoples, using them as examples of how their product could make one civilized, or “get the black off.” Rheingold Beer recruited spokesgirls through an annual “Miss Rheingold” competition—one in which Black women were not permitted. I can almost guarantee that the brilliant, well-informed, and former cotton picker Eartha knew both of those things and how subversive those lines would be coming from her mouth, even if her audience saw them as the height of femininity.

Oh, but she is not just the picture perfect woman in appearance & presentation, she is CHASTE. When she mentions that the “only etching I’ve seen have been behind glass,” that’s the vintage Netflix & chill. You know, “would you like to come over and see my art?” Wink wink. She doesn’t even “sing songs like the guy who cries”!! That’s Johnnie Ray, known as “The Cry Guy,” the original teenage heartthrob who influenced Elvis’s sexually charged moves and vocal stylings. Sis is telling you she’s so celibate, she won’t even tempt a man. Again… rich coming from a woman who built an entire career on sex appeal.

And remember how Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray basically disintegrated when his portrait was destroyed because he was living too hard? YAAAAAAAS GIVE IT TO EARTHA because it’s not enough to simply be judged as a dirty, loose woman, she’s trying to look the part and “see some dissipation in [her] face,” y’all.

“I Want to Be Evil” is hilariously funny, and Eartha’s animated expressions along the way turn a very simple song with clever staging and camerawork into a full-scale production, and protest song too. She once told the Austin Chronicle that “discontent very often makes geniuses.” If being GOOD in a patriarchal, inequitable society was to be her fate, the undeniably genius Eartha Kitt chose EVIL.

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