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Date Posted: 19:12:32 11/21/01 Wed
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"Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood." -Josephine Baker
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No fellas. As you can see, she was ALL woman. Josephine Baker's talent as a singer and impressionist dancer is arguable. What is not, is her dedication to better a flawed world, and try (in her way) to break down barriers of prejudices.
She grew up in the poverty of St. Louis Mo. As a teen she performed in the the Black Vaudeville circuit. By 21, she was the toast of Paris. Her exotic Zou Zou banana dance review of the mid 1920's set France, and Europe on its ear. What Baker experienced in her life in France, was acceptance as an individual. She was accepted by stage audiences, but more impressive was that she was given human equal rights off stage, as a viable indivudual. Something she never received in the racially divided United States. Overcoming the limitations imposed by the color of her skin, she became one of the world's most versatile entertainers, performing on stage, screeen and recordings. Josephine was decorated for her undercover work for the French Resistance during World War II. She was a civil rights activist. She refused to perform for segregated audiences and integrated the Las Vegas nightclubs.This is her story...
Baker, Josephine (b. June 3, 1906, St. Louis, Mo; d. April 12, 1975, Paris, France), African American expatriate dancer, singer, and entertainer.For many people, Josephine Baker's name will always evoke a familiar, controversial image: the "Black Venus" naked onstage, except for a string of bananas around her waist, dancing to African drums before her white Parisian audiences. It was this image that first made Baker a star, one whose international fame lasted for five decades. But the picture of the exotic dancer does not fully capture the complexity of the woman who was one of the first black performers to transcend race and appeal to audiences of all colors from around the world.Baker was born Freda Josephine MacDonald (the name Baker came from her second husband). Her parents were not married; her father was a drummer in a local band, and her mother, a washerwoman, rarely had enough money to support Baker and her three younger half-siblings. At age eight, Baker began working as a maid in white homes, and by age 14 she had left home, married and separated from her first of five husbands, and begun working with a traveling vaudeville troupe. Her first break came when she was featured in Shuffle Along, Broadway's first black musical, in 1921.Originally rejected from the show for being too young, too thin, and too dark, she eventually won the role of the comic "end girl" in the chorus line — the one too confused to keep up with the moves — and wound up stealing the show. Four years later she was offered the opportunity to go to Paris and perform in La Revue Nčgre. By then her teenaged body had fully matured, and her show-stopping finale, "La Danse de Sauvage" — in which she danced the Charleston wearing nothing but a girdle of feathers — made her an overnight sensation. Baker became the living embodiment of everything European audiences found exotic and provocative about black women's sexuality (see also Josephine Baker and La Revue Nčgre).Similar stage and film roles across Europe soon followed. Baker's act was most notorious for its nudity, but its innovative techniques also introduced many popular African American dance styles to European audiences. The unique blend of comedy, sensuality, passion, and exuberance present in her jazz-inspired performances also spilled over into her personal life. Baker and her leopard, Chiquita, were a common sight on Paris streets. Her stable of animals also included dogs, monkeys, birds, rabbits, snakes, a turkey, and a pig named Albert. Christian Dior designed her clothing; her admirers included Ernest Hemingway (who called her the most beautiful woman he had ever seen) and Pablo Picasso; and she was known for her many lovers, both male and female.In the midst of all this adulation, however, American audiences were still cool. Baker returned to the United States to appear with the Ziegfeld Follies in 1936 and received terrible reviews. Her stage show had evolved by then into a more glamorous, refined act, and white America did not seem ready to see a sophisticated black star on stage. In 1937, after returning to Paris, Baker legally became a French citizen. During World War II she served as an intelligence liaison and an ambulance driver for the French Resistance and was awarded the Medal of the Resistance and the Legion of Honor.Soon after the war Baker toured the United States again, and this time she won respect and praise from African Americans for her support of the Civil Rights Movement. She refused to play to segregated audiences or stay in segregated hotels during a 1951 American tour, and as a result the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) named her its Most Outstanding Woman of the Year. She also participated in the 1963 March on Washington, and later that year gave a benefit concert at Carnegie Hall for the NAACP, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).By then, she had taken on another of her most important roles — that of mother. Baker was forced to undergo an emergency hysterectomy that almost took her life after the 1942 birth of a stillborn child, and she never had biological children. But between 1954 and 1965 she adopted ten sons and two daughters of various races and nationalities — the family she called her "Rainbow Tribe." Her twelve adopted children were: Akio (male), Janot (male), Luis (male), Jari (male), Jean-Claude (male), Moise (male), Brahim (male), Marianne (female), Koffi (male), Mara (male), Noel (male), Stellina (female). Josephine's last marriage was to American Artist Robert Brady. Baker planned to retire from show business to raise her children at Les Milandes, her French cháteau, but her savings were not enough to support the entire family in the style to which she was accustomed. The expenses eventually sent her into deep debt, and when her beloved cháteau was seized in 1969, the family was forced to move into a much smaller villa given to them by Princess Grace of Monaco.The last five years of her life were marked by an ironic mix of public adoration and private poverty. At home in France, she was sometimes reduced to begging on the streets for her children — unrecognizable without her makeup, wig, and costumes. Her health also began to decline, and she suffered two heart attacks and a stroke. But she continued to perform, and on stage she was as glamorous as ever. A 1973 tour of the United States brought widespread acclaim, although some African American audiences were upset by Baker's condemnation of the Black Power Movement (which she saw as too separatist). In 1974 she starred in a Monaco production of Josephine, a show based on her life, and the performances were so successful that the show came to Paris in April 1975.That year marked the fiftieth anniversary of her arrival in Paris, and on April 8 there was a huge gala in a Paris hotel to celebrate both that anniversary and Josephine's opening night. Four days later, however, Baker suffered a fatal cerebral hemorrhage during a nap. Twenty thousand people attended her Paris funeral in a massive show of devotion to an African American performer whose boldness and unconventional style had taken France and the world by storm.
: She died in Paris and was buried in Monaco. She became the first American woman to receive French military honors at her funeral.
Josephine Baker has continued to intrigue and inspire people throughout the world. In 1991, HBO released The Josephine Baker Story. The movie won two Emmys, for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries (Lynn Whitfield) and Outstanding Art Direction. The movie also picked up one of three Golden Globe nominations.
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IF YOU WANT TO SAMPLE BAKER'S VOCAL TALENTS, GO HERE AND LISTEN...
http://www.content.loudeye.com/scripts/hurlPNM.exe?/75103/~w-010000/0046673_0112_07_0002.ra
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