Usually, when someone is deemed a celebrity, it pertains to one particular era — even if their work goes far beyond that defining period. Hemingway may have written right up to his death in 1960, but he is forever stuck in 1920s Paris with his Lost Generation. Audrey Hepburn may have decades of work to her name, but her most indelible work in Roman Holiday (1953) and Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961) keeps her forever young in the collective consciousness.
But some rarefied personalities break free of their defining moment, becoming relevant over a much broader span. Such is the case for Josephine Baker — yes, a singer/dancer in Paris’ Jazz Age with her infamous banana skirt, but also a chorus girl during the Harlem Renaissance, and a leading figure in the civil rights movement. And I haven’t even gotten to her work as a freaking WWII spy. Oh, and did I mention she was bi? See what I mean? Let’s get to know Josephine.
Since Josephine was first known as a performer, it’s worth dropping a playlist of some of her greatest hits here. Feel free to listen as we dive deeper into Baker’s fascinating life.
Born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri in 1906 to performer parents, Baker experienced a lean childhood, often living on the streets and dumpster diving for food. Freda started working odd jobs at the ripe old age of eight as a domestic worker and babysitter — dropping out of school by the fifth grade.
By the time she was 13, Freda was working as a waitress, where she met and married her first husband, Willie Wells, a Pullman porter. The unhappy coupling lasted less than a year — Freda had no problem dumping men if the relationship went sour, especially since she was never financially dependent on them.
Freda ran away from home to tour with her first street performance troupe, perfecting her dance moves and comedic timing. It was during this tour that Josephine also snatched up her second husband, Willie Baker (yup, another Willie!). This time she was a 15-year-old bride. While she divorced Baker a few years later, she dropped her first name and kept his — and Josephine Baker was born, heading to New York City with her vaudeville gang.
Baker moved to New York City as a teenager, just as the Harlem Renaissance was coming into full swing. To make extra cash, she worked as a dresser/costume assistant for vaudeville shows, which allowed her to study the choreography — the perfect way to be ready to come in as a substitute at a moment’s notice. When Baker finally got into the chorus girls, she took up the role of “the pony” — the last girl in a chorus line who comically gets the routine wrong, then returns for the encore doing the dance flawlessly, and with added complexity. It was a role perfectly tailored to her sensibilities and training.
It was during her time performing at such venues as the Plantation Club that Baker ignited some of her same-sex relationships. These romances (some rumored) included, but were not limited to:
- Blues singer Clara Smith
- Dancer and saloon-keeper Ada “Bricktop” Smith
- And fellow #bicon Frida Kahlo
Baker was a massive hit in the pony role. At 19, she was spotted and asked to join a Parisian show called La Revue Négre (“the black review”), at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. Baker had grown resentful of her treatment in the States by this time — understandable since both she and her parents were only allowed to perform to segregated audiences. So she seized the cosmopolitan opportunity with both hands. Baker said of the move:
It [America] was only a country for white people. Not black. So I left. I had been suffocating in the United States... A lot of us left, not because we wanted to leave, but because we couldn’t stand it anymore... I felt liberated in Paris.
In 1925, Baker moved to the City of Love and never lived long-term in America again.
Her arrival in Paris held the kind of perfect timing usually reserved for movie plots. In the mid-1920s, France was at the peak of its fascination not only with America’s jazz culture but with African art. Enter Baker — first with a dance wearing only pink feathers, then her “Danse Sauvage” (savage dance), an erotic number (which included the Charleston). Most sensational about the performance was that Baker wore a girdle of rubber bananas — and little else. Ooh la la!
“I wasn't really naked, I simply didn't have any clothes on.” - Josephine Baker
Baker instantly became a mega-star of the Jazz Age, dubbed a handful of nicknames after her debut — La Baker, “the Black Venus”, and “the Bronze Pearl” among them. Luminaries of the Lost Generation flocked to her. Hemingway was often seen chatting with Baker in bars for hours, calling her “the most sensational woman anyone ever saw”. Poet E.E. Cummings described her as “A creature neither infrahuman nor superhuman, but somehow both.” Even Picasso made drawings of her!
Soon Baker became the highest-paid entertainer in Europe. Within a few years, she — along with Gloria Swanson and Mary Pickford — were among the most photographed women in the world. And though she married two more times, she received more than a thousand marriage proposals over the course of her lifetime. And all before she hit the age of 21. If Gatsby were a real person, he would have called her his favorite “old sport”.
Being the toast of Paris comes with its own perks and quirks. The year after her debut of the banana skirt, Baker bought and operated her own club, which even had its own literary publication. Soon, she was discovered as a singer and recorded multiple hits that spanned the next decade.
Baker was also quite the animal fancier; she owned a cheetah named Chiquita — yes, you read that right — that she kept as a pet, a gift from a club owner. She would often be seen walking Chiquita down the Champs d'Elysees.
Chiquita wasn’t just for show — the cheetah was part of the show! The jungle cat was in her stage act, and sometimes he would escape down into the orchestra pit. I’d pay good francs to see that. But the pretty kitty was also part of the family. Chiquita traveled with Baker until his death, even sleeping in her bed. (Imagine the purr decibel!)
As if that wasn’t enough, Baker also kept a goat, Touttoute, in her club’s dressing room. The pet fed off of dinner scraps, and when he got too fat to fit through the kitchen door, Baker had the frame remade. Look, I love my chunky tuxedo cat too, but I’m not about to remodel load-bearing walls to make her more comfortable.
Baker extended her success into the movies, taking showy roles in movies such as Siren of the Tropics (1927), Zou-Zou (1934), and Princess Tam-Tam (1935). When her critics began claiming her act was getting stale, she added new dances to her routine — moves far ahead of their time in the forms of the twist, hip-hop, twerking, and breakdance.
Oh, and Baker also had men duel over her. In a graveyard. With swords. During the 1920s.
So with all of this badassery in mind, Baker wanted to parlay her success into the American demographic. Unfortunately, when she returned home in the 1930s to perform shows, she was shut out because of her race — not only from venues but from even visiting clubs and restaurants as a regular patron. After receiving scathing reviews from a public that was not ready for a liberated woman of color, Baker vowed to never play to segregated clubs, and sometimes forced the venue’s hands and had them integrate their audiences.
Baker was crestfallen to be stonewalled by her home country. She soon returned to France and married her third husband, Jean Lion. With her marriage to the Frenchman, Baker renounced her American citizenship, pledging herself instead to her adopted country.
When World War II broke out and Paris was occupied by the Nazis, Baker refused to play while the Germans were there. Instead, she worked for the Red Cross and was enlisted in the French Resistance as a spy. Her celebrity and touring across countries allowed for certain cover, information, and privileges. Since she toured to entertain the troops in North Africa, she was able to transmit the information she gathered from parties with dignitaries with invisible ink on her band’s sheet music. Beating the new Lady Bond by, oh, a few decades. There were even a few instances where Baker carried photographs or reconnaissance in her underwear, counting on her clout to save her from pat-downs. For these works, Baker was awarded the high military honors of the Legion of Honor medal and the Croix de Guerre after the war, as thanks for her clandestine services to the resistance.
Once the Second World War died down, Baker wanted to start a family — but in an unusual way for the time. Now on her fourth husband, Jo Bouillon, Baker began to put together what she deemed her “rainbow tribe” — a family of orphans of different races and nationalities from all around the world. Finishing out with an even 12 children — a baker’s dozen, you might say — Baker referred to her family as an “experiment in brotherhood.” It was vital to her that she lived as an example of racial equality in her personal life, and she wanted her children to represent that — often to mixed results. Baker paraded the children at her estate, having them perform on the grounds to paying visitors to demonstrate how the diverse world could live together in harmony. Some of the children felt exploited like they were living dolls. But this setup is now a boilerplate example for diverse families like Mia Farrow and Angelina Jolie.
But Baker wasn’t done being a mover and shaker. Not by a long shot. During the 1950s, she became involved in the civil rights movement in the US as she continued to experience racism when she came home. At one point, Baker came to the Stork Club to dine but was barred from entering the joint. Rising star Grace Kelly noticed the mistreatment, and left the restaurant with her in solidarity. Baker and Kelly became lifelong friends after the incident. (Later in life, when Baker lost her chateau, Kelly — now Princess Grace — offered a villa in Monaco to stay in.)
Baker worked closely with the NAACP to combat these types of injustices. She also participated in demonstrations alongside activists like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In fact, she was one of the official speakers at the March on Washington. During her speech, she remarked:
You know, friends, that I do not lie to you when I tell you I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad.
After King’s assassination, his widow Coretta Scott King personally asked Baker to become the new face of the movement. Baker declined, citing that she did not want to make her adopted children orphans for a second time.
The provocative singer/dancer continued to tour and perform for decades, up to and including a sold-out performance in Carnegie Hall that ended with a standing ovation. Overcome by how far-removed this treatment was from her decades of rejection by racist American audiences, Baker wept openly before her audience.
Finally, in 1975, days after her 50th-anniversary performance, Baker was found in a coma in her bed, surrounded by copies of glowing reviews.
If that ain’t the most diva way to go.
French citizens mourned Baker’s passing from a cerebral hemorrhage. Twenty thousand Parisians lined the streets for her funeral procession. For her service during the war, she received a 21-gun salute and was the only American-born woman to receive full French military honors.
Baker’s legacy and influence reaches far past death. Modern admirers include Dame Shirley Bassey, Angelina Jolie, and Beyonce. Her life has gone through multiple cinematic and artistic depictions, including Diana Ross in a Broadway show and an HBO film adaptation, just to name a few.
Josephine Baker — dancer, spy, and civil rights trailblazer. A celebrity every step of the way, and a totally badass bi.
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