Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald ; June 3, 1906 - April 12, 1975) was an American-born entertainer, activist, and agent of the French Resistance. His career was centered mainly in Europe, mostly in France adopted. During his early years he was famous as a dancer, and is one of the most famous players for the title revues of Folies BergÃÆ'¨re in Paris. His appearance on the revue of Un Vent de Folie in 1927 caused a sensation in Paris. The costume, consisting of just a banana corset, became the most iconic picture and symbol of the Jazz Era and 1920s.
Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who in various ways dubbed him the "Black Pearl", "Venus Bronze" and "Creole Goddess". Born in St. Louis Louis, Missouri, he left U.S. citizenship and became a French citizen after his marriage to French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937. He raised his children in France. "I have two loves," the artist once said, "my country and Paris."
Baker was the first colorful person to be entertainers around the world and starred in a great movie, the movie Marc AllÃÆ'Â © gret 1934 Zouzou .
Baker refused to appear for a separate audience in the United States and was noted for his contribution to the Civil Rights Movement. In 1968 he was offered an unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by Coretta Scott King, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.. After thinking about it, Baker refused the offer for fear of the welfare of his children.
He is also known for helping the French Resistance during World War II. After the war, he was awarded the Croix de guerre by the French military, and was named Chevalier of the LÃÆ'Â © gion d'honneur by General Charles de Gaulle.
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Baker was born as Freda Josephine McDonald at St. Louis, Missouri. His mother, Carrie, was adopted in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1886 by Richard and Elvira McDonald, both former African and Indigenous African slaves. Josephine Baker's plantation identified the vaudeville drummer Eddie Carson as her real father despite evidence to the contrary. Baker's adopted son, Jean-Claude Baker, wrote a biography published in 1993, titled Josephine: The Hungry Heart . Jean-Claude Baker did extensive research on Josephine Baker's life, including the identity of her real father. In this book, he discussed extensively the circumstances surrounding Josephine Baker's birth:
The records of St. Louis told an almost unbelievable story. They showed that (mother Josephine Baker) Carrie McDonald... was admitted to a Women's Hospital (specifically white) on May 3, 1906, diagnosed as pregnant. She was released on June 17, her baby, Freda J. McDonald who was born two weeks earlier. Why six weeks in the hospital? Especially for a black woman (then) who usually has her baby at home with the help of a midwife? Obviously, there are complications with pregnancy, but the Carrie chart does not reveal the details. The father is identified (at birth certificate) only as "Edw"... I think Josephine's father is white - so is Josephine, so is his family... the people at St. Louis said that (Baker's mother) had worked for a German family (around the time of her pregnancy). It was he who had to take him to the hospital and pay to keep him there for weeks. Also, the birth of the baby is registered by the head of the hospital at the time when most black births do not. I have revealed many mysteries associated with Josephine Baker, but the most painful mystery of her life, the mystery of her father's identity, I can not solve it. The secret died with Carrie, who refused to talk about it. He lets people think that Eddie Carson is his father, and Carson plays together, (but) Josephine knows better.
Carrie McDonald and Eddie Carson have dance songs, play wherever they can work. When Josephine was about a year old, they began to carry her on stage occasionally during the end of the story. She is more open to showing business at an early age because her childhood environment is home to many vaudeville theaters that are duplicated as movie houses. These places include Jazzland Theater, Booker T. Washington, and Comet.
Josephine lived early in life at 212 Targee Street (known to some as St. Johnson Street) in the Mill Creek Valley St. Louis, a racially mixed low-income neighborhood near Union Station, consists mainly of boarding houses, brothels and indoor plumbing apartments. Josephine always dressed badly and hungry as a child, and developed street intelligence that played at the Union Station railway station. He had a little formal education, and attended Lincoln Elementary School only through fifth grade.
Josephine's mother married a nice but unemployed man, Arthur Martin, with whom he had a son, Arthur, and two more girls, Marguerite and Willie. He took laundry to wash to make ends meet, and by the age of eight, Josephine began working as a household for a white family in St. Louis. Louis. A woman tortured her, burning Josephine's hand as the young girl put too much soap into the laundry. At the age of 12, he dropped out of school.
At 13, he worked as a waitress at Old Chauffeur's Club at 3133 Pine Street. He also lives as a street kid in the slums of St. Louis, sleeping in a carton shelter, scavenging food in trash cans, earning a living by street dancing. At Old Chauffeur's Club where Josephine met Willie Wells and married her the same year. However, the marriage lasted less than a year. After divorce from Wells, he found a job with a street show group called Jones Family Band.
In Baker's teen years, he struggles to have a healthy relationship with his mother, Carrie McDonald, who does not want Josephine to be an entertainer, and scolds him for not taking care of Baker's second husband, Willie Baker, whom he married in 1921 at the age of 15. Although he left Willie Baker when his vaudeville entourage was booked to a place in New York City and divorced him in 1925, during that time he began to see a significant career success, and he continued to use his last name professionally for the others. of his life.
Though Baker traveled, then returned with gifts and money to her mother and younger stepdaughter, the chaos with her mother encouraged her to travel to France.
Maps Josephine Baker
Careers
Initial years
Baker's street-corner dancing drew the attention, which led to him being recruited for the St. Louis Chorus vaudeville at the age of 15 years. He headed to New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, performing at the Plantation Club and in the chorus line of the highly successful Broadway breakthrough and revitalization of Shuffle Along (1921) with Adelaide Hall and The Chocolate Dandies i> (1924). Baker appears as the last dancer at the end of the chorus line, where his acting is to appear in a comic way, as if he can not remember the dance, until the encore, at which point he will do it not only correctly but with additional complexity. Baker was billed at the time as "the highest paid chorus girl in vaudeville".
His career began with a blackface comedy in local clubs; this is the "entertainment" that her mother disagreed with, but these shows made Baker a chance to tour Paris, which will be where she calls home until her last days.
Paris and rose to prominence
Baker sailed to Paris, for a new venture, and opened at La Revue NÃÆ'¨gre on October 2, 1925, aged 19, at ThÃÆ'Â © ÃÆ'Â ¢ Â ¢ tre des Champs-ÃÆ' â € ° lysÃÆ' Â © es.
In Paris, he became an instant success for erotic dancing, and because of practically nude on stage. After a successful European tour, he broke his contract and returned to France to star in Folies BergÃÆ'¨re, setting the standard for his future action.
Baker performs "Danse Sauvage" in a costume consisting of a skirt made of a bunch of artificial bananas. The success coincided (1925) with the Art Exhibition, which gave birth to the term "Art Deco", and also with renewed interest in non-Western art forms, including Africa. Baker represents one aspect of this mode. In a later performance in Paris, he is often accompanied on stage by his pet cheetah, "Chiquita", which is adorned with diamond collars. Cheetah often escapes into orchestra holes, where he terrorizes the musicians, adding another element of excitement to the show.
After a while, Baker was the most successful American entertainer working in France. Ernest Hemingway calls him "the most sensational woman anyone has ever seen."
Baker starred in three films that found success only in Europe: silent films Siren of the Tropics (1927), Zouzou (1934) and Princesse Tam Tam i> (1935). He starred in Fausse Alerte in 1940.
At this time he scored the most successful song, "J'ai deux amours" (1931). Early in his career in France, Baker met a former Sicilian mason who passed his own as a tally, which persuaded him to let him set it up. Giuseppe Pepito Abatino is not just Baker's management, but also his lover. Both can not marry because Baker is still married to her second husband, Willie Baker.
Under Abatino's management, Baker's stage and public persona, as well as his singing voice, changed. In 1934, he led in the resurrection of the opera Jacques Offenbach La crÃÆ'Â ole , which aired in December of that year to run six months in the ThÃÆ'Ã… © ÃÆ' Â ¢ ÃÆ' Â ¢ tre Marigny in the Champs -Ã tre â € ° lysÃÆ' Â © es of Paris. In preparation for his performance, he underwent several months of training with vocal trainers. In the words of Shirley Bassey, who has called Baker his main influence, "... he went from 'petite danseuse sauvage' in a voice worthy of 'la grande diva magnifique'... I swear in all life I have never look, and will probably never see again, a spectacular singer and performer. "Despite its popularity in France, Baker never achieved an equal reputation in America. His star in the 1936 revival of Broadway's Ziegfeld Follies earned less than an impressive box office number, and then on the run, he was replaced by Gypsy Rose Lee. Time Magazine calls it "The Negro Woman... whose dance and singing may be above a place outside Paris", while other critics say her voice is "too thin" and "dwarf" to fill Winter Garden Theater. He returned to Europe sadly. This contributed to Baker being a French citizen of law and renouncing his American citizenship.
Baker returned to Paris in 1937, married French industrialist Jean Lion, and became a French citizen. They married in the French town of CrÃÆ'¨vecoeur-le-Grand, in a marriage led by the mayor, Jammy Schmidt.
Working during World War II
In September 1939, when France declared war on Germany in response to the Polish invasion, Baker was recruited by the Bureau of DeuxiÃÆ'¨me, French military intelligence, as "a respected correspondent". Baker collects what information he gets about the location of German troops from officials he meets at parties. He specializes in meetings at embassies and ministries, charming people as he always does, gathering information. His cafe fame lets him rub his shoulders with those who know, from high-ranking Japanese to Italian bureaucrats, and report back what he hears. He attended parties and gathered information at the Italian embassy without arousing suspicion.
When the Germans invaded France, Baker left Paris and went to Château des Milandes, his home in the Dordogne dà © Å © partement in southern France. He accommodated people who wanted to help the Free French effort led by Charles de Gaulle and grant them visas. As an entertainer, Baker has a reason to move to Europe, visit neutral countries like Portugal, as well as some in South America. He carries information for transmission to the UK, about the airfield, port, and concentration of German forces in the West of France. Notes are written in invisible ink on Baker music sheet.
Then in 1941, he and his entourage went to the French colonies in North Africa. The stated reason is Baker's health (since he recovered from other pneumonia cases) but the real reason is to continue helping the Resistance. From a base in Morocco, he toured Spain. He pinned the notes with the information he collected in his panties (relying on his celebrity to avoid strip searches). She meets the Pasha from Marrakech, whose support helps her through a miscarriage (the last of several). After the miscarriage, he developed a very severe infection that required a hysterectomy. The infection spread and he developed peritonitis and then septicemia. After his recovery (which he kept falling off), he began touring to entertain British, French and American soldiers in North Africa. Free France does not have an organized entertainment network for their troops, so Baker and his entourage mostly manage themselves. They do not allow civilians and are not charged admission fees.
In Cairo, King Farouk of Egypt asked him to sing; he refused because Egypt did not recognize France Free and remained neutral. However, he offered to sing in Cairo on honorific celebrations for relations between French Free and Egypt, and asked Farouk to preside, a subtle indication of which side the country was officially neutral toward him.
Setelah Perang, Baker to lead War Cross Dan Rosette of the Resistance. Dia dijadikan Dari Knight Honorary Officer oleh Jenderal Charles de Gaulle.
Baker's last marriage, with French composer and conductor Jo Bouillon, ended around the time Baker chose to adopt his 11th child. After the breakup, Baker's castle in France was confiscated and he had to be physically expelled from the property.
Later career
In 1949, a Baker was reinvented with victory to Folies Bergere. Backed by acknowledgment of his wartime heroism, Baker the player assumes new gravity, is not afraid to take serious music or learning materials. The engagement was a great success, and rebuilding Baker as one of the leading entertainers in Paris. In 1951 Baker was invited back to the United States for a nightclub engagement in Miami. After winning a public battle over the desegregation of the club's audience, Baker followed up his run-out at the club with a national tour. Warm reviews and enthusiastic audiences accompany him everywhere, culminating in a parade in front of 100,000 people in Harlem in honor of his new title: NAACP "Woman of the Year". The future looks bright, with six months of reservations and many more promises to come.
An incident at Stork Club interrupted and canceled his plans. Baker criticized the club's unwritten policy that downplayed the black patron, then scolded columnist Walter Winchell, an old ally, for not rising to his defense. Winchell responded swiftly with a series of loud public reprimands, including allegations of Communist sympathy (serious allegations at the time). The subsequent publicity resulted in termination of Baker's work visa, forcing her to cancel all her engagements and return to France. It was almost a decade before US officials allowed him to return to the country.
In January 1966, Fidel Castro invited Baker to perform at the Teatro Musical de La Habana in Havana, Cuba, at the celebration of the 7th anniversary of the revolution. Her spectacular performance in April broke the attendance record. In 1968, Baker visited Yugoslavia and performed in Belgrade and in Skopje. In his later career, Baker faced financial problems. He commented, "No one wants me, they have forgotten me"; but family members encouraged him to continue performing. In 1973 he performed at Carnegie Hall with a standing ovation.
The following year, he appeared in the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium, and later at the Monacan Red Cross Gala, celebrating 50 years in the French show business. Advancing year and fatigue began to take their toll; he sometimes had trouble remembering the lyrics, and his speeches among songs tended to babble. He still continues to amaze audiences of all ages.
Civil rights activism
Although based in France, Baker supported the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s. When she arrived in New York with her husband Jo, they were denied reservations at 36 hotels due to racial discrimination. He was so upset by this treatment that he wrote an article about the separation in the United States. He also started traveling to the South. He gave a speech at Fisk University, a black history college in Nashville, Tennessee, on "France, North Africa, and Race Equalties in France".
He refused to perform for a separate audience in the United States, even though he was offered $ 10,000 by the Miami club. (The club has finally fulfilled its demands). Its persistence on mixed audiences helps to integrate live entertainment events in Las Vegas, Nevada. After this incident, he started receiving threatening phone calls from people claiming to be from the Ku Klux Klan but saying publicly that he was not afraid of them.
In 1951, Baker made allegations of racism against Stork Club Sherman Billingsley in Manhattan, where he accused him of having been denied military service. Actress Grace Kelly, who was at the club at the time, rushed to Baker, took her arm and charged with her entire party, vowing never to return (although she returned on January 3, 1956 with Prince Rainier of Monaco). The two women became close friends after the incident.
When Baker nearly went bankrupt, Kelly offered him a villa and financial aid (Kelly was then the queen of Rainier III of Monaco). (However, during his work at the Stork Club book, writer and New York Times reporter Ralph Blumenthal was contacted by Jean-Claude Baker, one of Baker's sons.After reading Blumenthal- about the FBI file Leonard Bernstein, he showed that he had read his mother's FBI file and, using a file comparison to a tape, said he thought the Stork Club incident was too much.))
Baker works with NAACP. His reputation as a crusader grew in such a way that the NAACP had a Sunday, May 20, 1951 declaring "Josephine Baker Day". He is presented with a live membership with the NAACP by Nobel Peace laureate Dr. Ralph Bunche. The award he received encouraged him to continue his crusade with the "Save Willie McGee" rally after he was found guilty in 1948, beating the death of a furniture store owner in Trenton, New Jersey. As a decorated war hero supported by racial equations he experienced in Europe, Baker became increasingly considered controversial; some blacks have even begun to avoid it, fearing that their outspoken and obscene reputation from previous years would be detrimental to the cause.
In 1963, he spoke in March in Washington on the Pdt. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Baker is the only authorized female speaker. While wearing a Merdeka French uniform adorned with a medal from LÃÆ' Â © gion d'honneur, he introduced the "Negro Woman for Civil Rights." Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates were among those she recognized, and both gave short speeches.
After the King's assassination, his widow Coretta Scott King approached Baker in the Netherlands to ask if he would take his husband's place as leader of the Civil Rights Movement. After a few days of thinking about it, Baker refused, saying his children were "too young to lose their mother".
Personal life
Relationships
Josephine Baker is bisexual. His first marriage was to American porter Pullman Willie Wells when he was just 13 years old. The marriage was reportedly very unhappy and the couple divorced some time later. Another short marriage followed by Willie Baker in 1921; he defended Baker's last name as his career began to take off during that time, and that was the name he knew best. While she has four marriages with men, Jean-Claude Baker writes that Josephine also has some relationships with women. During his time in the Harlem Renaissance art community, one of his relationships was with Blues singer Clara Smith. In 1925 he began an extramarital affair with Belgian novelist Georges Simenon. In 1937, Baker married Frenchman Jean Lion. He and Lion parted company in 1940. Lion died in 1957 due to Spanish influenza. He married French composer and conductor Jo Bouillon in 1947, but their union also ended in a divorce. He then engaged for some time with artist Robert Brady, but they never married.
Children
During Baker's work with the Civil Rights Movement, he began to adopt children, forming a family often referred to as the "Rainbow Tribe". Baker wanted to prove that "children of different ethnicities and religions can still be brothers." He often takes children with his cross country, and when they are in Château des Milandes, he organizes tours so that visitors can walk in the yard and see how natural and happy the children are in the "Rainbow Tribe".
Baker raised two daughters, French-born Marianne and Moroccan-born Stellina, and 10 sons, Japanese-born Jeannot (or Janot), Japanese-born Akio, Colombian-born, Finnish-born finger (now Jarry), French-born Jean- Claude and NoÃÆ'½, the birthplace of Israel MoÃÆ'¯se, Algerian-born Brahim, Ivory Coast-born Koffi, and Venezuelan-born Mara. For some time, Baker lived with his children and a very large staff in chÃÆ'Â ¢ teau in Dordogne, France, with his fourth husband, Jo Bouillon.
The year later and death
In his later years, Baker became a Roman Catholic. In 1968, Baker lost his castle because of unpaid debts; After that Princess Grace offered him an apartment in Roquebrune, near Monaco.
Baker returned to the stage at Olympia in Paris in 1968, in Belgrade in 1973, at Carnegie Hall in 1973, at the Royal Variety Performance at the London Palladium in 1974, and at the Gala du Cirque in Paris in 1974. On April 8, 1975, Baker starred in a retrospective at Bobino in Paris, JosÃÆ'Â © phine ÃÆ' Bobino 1975 , celebrating 50 years in show business. The revue, funded primarily by Prince Rainier, Princess Grace, and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, opened for a warm welcome. Requests for seating are such that folding chairs should be added to accommodate the audience. The opening night viewers included Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger, Shirley Bassey, Diana Ross, and Liza Minnelli.
Four days later, Baker was found lying peacefully in his bed surrounded by newspapers with glowing reviews of his performance. She went into a coma after suffering a brain hemorrhage. He was taken to PitiÃÆ'Â © -SalpÃÆ'ªtriÃÆ'¨re Hospital, where he died, aged 68, on 12 April 1975.
He received a Roman Catholic full funeral held at L'ÃÆ' â € ° glise de la Madeleine. The only American-born woman to receive a full French military award at her funeral, Baker's funeral was a huge parade event. After a family worship service at Saint-Charles Church in Monte Carlo, Baker was interred in Monaco CimetiÃÆ'¨re de Monaco .
Legacy
Place JosÃÆ'Â © phine Baker ( 48Ã, Â ° 50? 29? N 2 Â ° 19? 26? E ) in Montparnasse Quarter Paris was named in his honor. He has also been inducted into St. Louis Walk of Fame, and on March 29, 1995, into the Hall of Famous Missourians.
In 2015 he is appointed to the Legacy Walk in Chicago, Illinois, USA. The Piscine JosÃÆ'Â © phine Baker is a swimming pool along the Seine bank in Paris named for him.
Writing in the online magazine BBC by the end of 2014, Darren Royston, a history dance teacher at RADA praised Baker by being Beyoncà ©  © that day, and bringing Charleston to England. Two Baker sons, Jean-Claude and Jarry (Jari), grew up to do business together, managing the Chez Josephine restaurant at Theater Row, 42nd Street, New York City. It celebrates Baker's life and work.
ChÃÆ' Â ¢ teau des Milandes, a castle near Sarlat in the Dordogne, is Baker's house where he raises his twelve children. It is open to the public and features stage clothes including a banana skirt (which there seems to be some). It also features many photos and family documents and a Legion of Honor medal. Most of the rooms are open to the public to walk through including a bedroom with a cot where his children sleep, a large kitchen, and a dining room where he often entertains large groups. The bathroom is designed in an art deco style but most of the rooms retain the French chateau style.
Baker continues to influence celebrities more than a century after his birth. In a 2003 interview with USA Today, Angelina Jolie referred to Baker as "a model for multiracial, mulitational families that she began to create through adoption". BeyoncÃÆ'Â © did a Baker banana dance at the Fashion Rocks concert at Radio City Music Hall in September 2006.
Writing on his 110th birthday, Vogue illustrates how 1926 "danse sauvage" in his famous banana skirt "brilliantly manipulates the whims of white men" and "racially and gendered notions redefined through style and performance in a continuous way echoes along fashion and music today, from Prada to Beyoncà ©  ©. "
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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