biography
| name: |
Baker, Josephine
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originally Freda Josephine McDonald
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| sex:
| female
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| lived:
| (1906–75)
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| biography:
| Dancer and entertainer, born in St Louis, Missouri, USA. An amateur singer and dancer, she made her Broadway debut in Shuffle Along (1921). In 1925 she went to Paris with a show called La Revue Nègre, but the show failed, and she and many cast members were stranded there. Hired to appear in an all-black act at the Folies Bergère, she became an instant success with her scanty costume, lively dancing, and scat singing. As the epitome of le jazz hot, ‘Josephine’ remained the toast of France for five decades, gaining an international status. She never accepted the second-class status assigned to most US blacks, and long boycotted the USA, becoming a French citizen in 1937. In the 1950s she took up the cause of racial equality in America, and was among those who addressed the crowds before the Lincoln Memorial at the end of the 1963 March on Washington. Her plans for a ‘world village’ at her estate in France collapsed under financial debt, and in order to raise money she made a comeback in 1973–5. |
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