Josephine Baker: Her Banana Dance Shocked Paris and Made Her a Star
Entertainer, spy for the French Resistance, civil rights icon, and adoptive mother of 12
Josephine Baker was still a teenager when she caught the world’s attention, and she held it for most of her life. She was a study in extremes: capable of great kindness and great cruelty, supremely confident onstage yet afraid of the dark. Much of what has been written about her, some of it by Baker herself, is either exaggerated or completely false. The following is the nearest I can come to the truth about this fascinating woman.
“She is like Salome. She has seven veils. If you lift one, there is a second, and what you discover is even more mysterious, and you go to the third, and you still don’t know where you are. Only at the end, if you keep looking faithfully, will you find the true Josephine.” — choreographer George Balanchine in the book Josephine Baker, The Hungry Heart by Jean-Claude Baker
Josephine Baker was born Freda Josephine McDonald on June 3rd, 1906, in St. Louis, Missouri, to Carrie McDonald, a domestic servant of African American descent. Although…
