JOSÉPHINE BAKER: BIOGRAPHY AND FILMOGRAPHY - BIOGRAPHIES - 2025

Joséphine Baker (1906-1975) was an American singer, actress and dancer. She is recognized for being the first African-American woman to star in a major film such as Zouzou (1934). She also stood out as a bilingual vedette, reaching fame in French dance halls in the 1920s.

Also known as "Bronze Venus" or "Black Pearl", she was a recognized activist in the civil rights movement in North America and a fighter against racial discrimination. She was also a collaborator with French military intelligence during World War II, obtaining information or transmitting it covertly.

Joséphine Baker, the first African-American vedette. Source: Carl Van Vechten

Biography

Early years

On June 3, 1906, Freda Josephine McDonald was born in the city of St. Louis, Missouri in the United States. Her parents were Carrie McDonald, a frustrated dancer, and Eddie Carson, a vaudeville (stage comedy) drummer who abandoned them a year later. She had three siblings from her mother's second marriage: Richard, Margaret, and Willie Mae.

From a very young age, just 8 years old, she began working as a domestic worker for white families. In her spare time, Baker played with other children in her neighborhood to pretend they were artists. In 1919 she ran away from home and began working as a waitress to support herself until she married Willie Wells.

Start on stage

He resigned from his job for a few weeks, just the amount that the short marriage lasted. Her attraction to music never left her, so she went on to group with other street artists under the name Jones Family Band. The Booker T. Washington theater would be the stage where they would premiere.

His next performance at the Dixie Steppers Theater gave him the opportunity to join the company. She stayed behind the scenes for several months as the star's wardrobe manager, Clara Smith. In those years she met Willi Baker, who would be her husband in 1920. Upon getting married, Joséphine decides to change her surname.

The following year, while they were on tour in Philadelphia, another opportunity knocked on Joséphine's door, when she took the place of one of the chorus girls, who could not perform because she was injured. There she captured the attention of producers who made her part of the first African-American musical, Shuffle Along, in 1922.

After his second separation he moved to New York and was making a career on Broadway until in 1925 he went to France to achieve fame.

Success in France

Paris was the city that would witness the sensual movements that gave life to his Danse Sauvage on the stage of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Dressed in a feather skirt, to the rhythm of the Charleston and with her co-star, Joe Alex, she caused a sensation from the public that were mostly white men. Below you can see Baker dancing the Charleston:

From then on he became one of the most sought-after stars of the music hall, appearing at the Folies-Bergère, the main auditorium in Paris. Her exotic half-naked dance in a daring costume adorned with artificial bananas in the La Folie du Jour production would be one of her most iconic performances.

In 1926 his fame was such that he opened his own club Chez Joséphine, which closed the following year. All that came after was to reap only successes from the hand of his manager and lover, Pepito Abatino. Baker became the most successful American artist in France and the highest paid in all of Europe.

It also aroused the admiration of the artistic and intellectual elite of Paris, in personalities such as Georges Simenon, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso. She became a pin-up model and was part of the Parisian attraction for jazz and black music.

His career as a professional singer began in 1930 and four years later he made his big screen debut. He got to star in three films, although they were only successful in Europe.

Bitter return to North America

In 1936 he returned to Broadway to perform in Ziegfeld Follies, alongside Bob Hope and Fanny Brice. However, he could not reap the success he expected in his native country, since part of the public opinion rejected the show, considering it promiscuous. Additionally, critics treated her harshly in their reviews.

Upon his return to Paris, after the cold receptivity of the United States, he had a bitter drink renouncing his American citizenship. In 1937 he adopted France as his new homeland and contracted his third marriage to the French industrialist Jean Lion, from whom he would separate three years later.

Resistance in war

Baker in her iconic suit. Source: Creator: Walery, Polish-British, 1863-1929

The arrival of the Second World War appeased Joséphine's artistic career like so many others. During those years in which they suffered the German occupation, she worked in the Red Cross. She also provided support to French military intelligence, even smuggling messages on her score and even on her underwear for the Deuxième Office.

Faced with the danger of war, Baker spent some time living in Morocco and presented several health problems. Upon recovering, he joined other colleagues in the artistic milieu and formed an entertainment network for French, British, and American soldiers, eventually performing in North Africa and the Middle East.

Before the fall of the Nazi regime and the end of the war, Baker was decorated in 1946 with the Croix de guerre and the Rosette de la Résistance, as well as being named a Knight of the Legion of Honor. The following year she married for the fourth time, this time with the conductor and composer Jo Bouillon, with whom she would remain for 14 years.

Activism for equality

Baker was unable to have children due to a hysterectomy she had to undergo after a miscarriage. But the postwar years were dedicated to adopting 12 children of different ethnicities and religions. On the farm that she acquired in the south of France, Les Milandes, she settled with her family who called her the “rainbow tribe” and described as her “brotherhood experiment”.

Since the 1950s he has been performing in his home country on an occasional basis, with a much warmer reception than in previous years. However, she was a victim of racial discrimination, and her stay in more than 30 hotels was rejected.

He then began to make his position against racism public and notorious, despite the threats he received from the Ku Klux Klan. She actively participated in demonstrations, boycotted segregated clubs, refused to make presentations to segregated audiences, and demanded that her audience be mixed. She also gave a talk at a university in Nashville on equality and civil rights.

In recognition of her activism, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) declared May 20 as Joséphine Baker Day. In 1963 she was one of the few women who spoke at the march for work and freedom led by Martin Luther King Jr., in Washington and that would mark the history of North America.

In 1966 she performed at the Musical Theater of Havana, invited by the dictator Fidel Castro. Two years later she visited Yugoslavia, specifically in Belgrade and Skopje.

Last years

In the latter stage of her career, Baker ran into serious financial trouble and was evicted from her 300 acre property in the Dordogne. His great friend, the Princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly, reached out her hand and gave him accommodation in one of her houses in Roquebrune. She was on the verge of abandoning her career altogether, but was encouraged by her family to continue.

He did so until his last days despite physical exhaustion and some difficulty remembering the lyrics to his songs. In 1973 at Carnegie Hall she received a standing ovation, followed by another pair of successful performances at the London Palladium.

In 1975 he celebrated his 50 years of artistic career at the Monaco Red Cross Gala. It was a great show, in which renowned figures such as Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger, Shirley Bassey, Diana Ross and Liza Minnelli were invited. That night she shone getting the best reviews a few days after her death.

On April 12, 1975, at the age of 68, one of the first African-American vedettes died in Paris due to a stroke. She was found in her bed surrounded by the newspapers that had reviewed her latest and successful performance.

His funeral was held at L'Église de la Madeleine, where he received the honors of the French military corps. Accompanied by some 20 thousand people stationed in the streets, her remains were transferred to the Cimetière in Monaco.

Today, a Montparnasse district in Paris and a swimming pool on the banks of the River Seine bear his name. She was also inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame, the Legacy Walk in Chicago, and the Rainbow Honor Walk. It has also been the inspiration for songs, musicals and television series.

Filmography

-La Revue des Revues (1927)

-La Sirène des Tropiques (1927)

-Short film Le Pompier des Folies Bergère (1928)

-La Folie du jour (1929)

-Die Frauen von Folies Bergères (1929)

-Zouzou (1934)

-Princesse Tam Tam (1935)

-Moulin Rouge (1940)

-Fausse Alerte (1940)

-An Jedem Finger Zehn (1954)

-Carosello del varietà (1955)

References

1. Joséphine Baker. (2020, January 15). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Recovered from es.wikipedia.org
2. MCN Biografias.com. (sf) Baker, Josephine (1906-1975). Recovered from mcnbiografias.com.
3. Josephine Baker. (2018, June 08). New World Encyclopedia. Recovered from newworldencyclopedia.com
4. Wikipedia contributors. (2019, January 9). Joséphine Baker. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Recovered from en.wikipedia.org
5. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2019, July 23). Josephine Baker. Encyclopædia Britannica. Recovered from britannica.com
6. Baker, Josephine. (2019, December 11). World Encyclopedia. Recovered from Encyclopedia.com