Josephine Baker
original name Freda Josephine McDonald
born June 3, 1906, St. Louis,
Mo., U.S.
died April 12, 1975, Paris, France
American-born French dancer and singer who symbolized the beauty
and vitality of black American culture, which took Paris by
storm in the 1920s.
Baker grew up fatherless and in poverty. Between the ages of 8
and 10 she was out of school, helping to support her family. As
a child Baker developed a taste for the flamboyant that was
later to make her famous. As an adolescent she became a dancer,
touring at 16 with a dance troupe from Philadelphia. In 1923 she
joined the chorus in a road company performing the musical
comedy Shuffle Along and then moved to New York City, where she
advanced steadily through the show Chocolate Dandies on Broadway
and the floor show of the Plantation Club.
In 1925 she went to Paris to
dance at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in La Revue Nègre and
introduced her danse sauvage to France. She went on to become
one of the most popular music-hall entertainers in France and
achieved star billing at the Folies-Bergère, where she created a
sensation by dancing seminude in a G-string ornamented with
bananas. She became a French citizen in 1937. She sang
professionally for the first time in 1930, made her screen debut
as a singer four years later, and made several more films before
World War II curtailed her career.
During the German occupation of
France, Baker worked with the Red Cross and the Résistance, and
as a member of the Free French forces she entertained troops in
Africa and the Middle East. She was later awarded the Croix de
Guerre and the Legion of Honour with the rosette of the
Résistance. After the war much of her energy was devoted to Les
Milandes, her estate in southwestern France, from which she
began in 1950 to adopt babies of all nationalities in the cause
of what she defined as “an experiment in brotherhood” and her
“rainbow tribe.” She retired from the stage in 1956, but to
maintain Les Milandes she was later obliged to return, starring
in Paris in 1959. She traveled several times to the United
States to participate in civil rights demonstrations. In 1968
her estate was sold to satisfy accumulated debt. She continued
to perform occasionally until her death in 1975, during the
celebration of the 50th anniversary of her Paris debut.
