Josephine Baker

Diagnoses

Vocation

Lifestyle

Notable

Traits

Family

American-French sophisticated singer and entertainer, described by Ernest Hemingway as the most sensational woman anybody ever saw or ever will. Nude on stage, she was an ebony statue, sexy, dazzling and exotic. Paris adored her. Raised in poverty, she worked in white homes from age eight where she had to sleep in the basement with the dog, where she was punished brutally and where the master of the house made improper advances. Hungry for love, she was married twice by age 14. By then, she was already singing and dancing with the Jones Family Band. By 18, she had made her Broadway debut in "The Chocolate Dandies." She was invited to go to Paris with a black Vaudeville troupe, opening the show on 10/02/1925 to Parisian triumph. She was a sensation in the Follies-Bergere wearing only a skirt made of bananas. She became the rage of Paris and leaped to being worth a million dollars within the year for nightclub work and tours. She had an exceptional gift of communicating with the audience which in turn supplied some of her insatiable need for their love. With her jungle elegance she was compared to a panther, a jaguar. During wartime, Baker worked as an undercover agent with the French resistance, as she was fluent in French, German, Italian and English. Her fourth marriage, on 6/03/1947, was to Jo Bouillon. They bought a 15th century castle on which she spent a fortune in renovations. Early in 1951, she adopted the first two babies of her "rainbow tribe," which grew to 12 kids of Korean, Japanese, Finnish, Bolivian, French, Arab, Jewish and African descent. Bouillon acted as the manager and caretaker of her estate, but he could not stem her hopeless extravagance. When he left her in 1960, after 13 years together, she went steadily downhill. In spite of constant tours to pay the bills, her estate collapsed and she was evicted on 10/07/1968 with her 12 kids. Princess Grace stepped in to help, arranging a house for her in Monte Carlo in 1968. However, Baker's health soon suffered and she suffered from a heart attack and a stroke. She recovered and made a magnificent and triumphal return to the stage in early 1974. The stress had taken its toll, though, and she died of a cerebral hemorrhage on 4/12/1975, 5:00 AM, Paris. Link to Wikipedia biography