Josephine Baker, the frenchiest American girl

In 1925, during the jazz era in Paris, the sensational cast of musicians and dancers from Harlem, assembled as La Revue Nègre, exploded on the stage of the “Théâtre des Champs Élysées”. Its talented young star, Josephine Baker, captivated the audience with her “erotic dance” and a wild new dance called the Charleston. This show permitted her to became the high priestess of jazz culture and African art in Paris.

Who was this artist which wore banana belt during the show? Where came from the singer of “J’ai deux amours”? What did this American woman to receive the French “Légion d’honneur”?

JOSEPHINE’S CHILDHOOD

Josephine Baker was born Freda Josephine McDonald in 1906, in St. Louis, Missouri. Her mother, Carrie McDonald, was a laundress who struggled to support her family; her father, Eddie Carson, was a drummer in a vaudeville show who abandoned the family when Josephine was a baby. At the age of eight, Josephine began working as a domestic for white families. At thirteen, she found a position as a waitress and met and married her first husband, Willie Wells. They soon separated and she joined a travelling vaudeville troupe.
|Poster of ” Shuffle Among”, [pic] |
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When the Jones Family Band and the Dixie Steppers stopped touring, Josephine applied for a position as a chorus girl in the highly successful show Shuffle Along, the first big Broadway hit featuring African American artists. In 1921, when she was fifteen, they gave her the position of "end girl," a comic role in which she pretended to be too uncoordinated to keep up with the rest of the line of dancers. She was brilliant, performing with great skill and comedic timing. During more than a year, the troop of "Shuffle Along" toured throughout the USA. From this moment, Josephine was recognized as an artist.

When Shuffle Along closed in 1924, Josephine starred at Chocolate Dandies, the new