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14 unusual facts about Josephine Baker


1933 Tour de France

On 27 June 1933, the Tour de France was started by Josephine Baker.

Carolyn Dennis

She was the singing voice for the 1991 made-for-television movie The Josephine Baker Story starring Lynn Whitfield as Josephine Baker.

Dora Kallmus

Her subjects included Josephine Baker, Tamara de Lempicka, Alban Berg, Niddy Impekoven, Maurice Chevalier, Colette, and other dancers, actors, painters, and writers.

Félicien Champsaur

He went on to publish many novels, collections of articles, and other works, including Miss America (1885), Entrée de clowns (1886), Parisiennes (1887), Les Bohémiens (1887), Lulu (1888), L'Amant des danseuses (1888), La Gomme (1889), and Poupée Japonaise (1912), Nora, la guenon devenue femme (1929), a parody loosely based on the career of American dancer Josephine Baker.

Hall of Famous Missourians

Josephine Baker (1906–1975), entertainer and civil rights activist (1995)

Haven Gillespie

He first gained notice in 1925 with "Breezin Along With The Breeze", in collaboration with Egbert Van Alstyne, Ervin R. Schmidt, and Loyal Curtis, which was recorded by Josephine Baker among many others.

Helen Kleinbort Krauze

She published around 900 interviews during her career, including interviews with Carlos Monsivais, Sarita Montiel, Josephine Baker, Spanish actor Manolo Fabregas, Mexican author Hugo Argüelles (Los Cuervos están de luto), Elena Poniatowska, Emilio Portes Gil, Teddy Stauffer, and Pedro Friedeberg.

La créole

A revival at the Théâtre Marigny starring Josephine Baker in the title role was produced on 17 December 1934, with the libretto revamped by Albert Willemetz and some changes to the music.

Marie Bryant

By the age of 10 she was performing impersonations of Josephine Baker at her church.

Negrophilia

Perhaps the most popular revue and entertainer during this time was La Revue Negre (1925) starring Josephine Baker.

Rudolf Nelson

The revues he staged here are legend, presenting numerous top stars of the period, including names such as Josephine Baker, who appeared on January 14, 1926, Weintraubs Syncopators and comic Max Ehrlich.

Seymour Simons

A collaboration in 1926 with Richard A. Whiting produced “Hello, Baby,” recorded by Ruth Etting, and the popular “Breezin’ Along With the Breeze”, in conjunction with Haven Gillespie, which was first recorded by Josephine Baker, used in the film Pete Kelly's Blues (1955), and sung by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in their 1954 film, The Long, Long Trailer.

Sherman Yellen

In both this work and Josephine Tonight!, a musical biography of the early life of Josephine Baker produced by Theatre Building Chicago, Yellen was librettist and lyricist to composer Harper.

Winter Garden Theatre

Following the 1932 death of Florenz Ziegfeld, the Shuberts acquired the rights to the name and format of his famed Ziegfeld Follies, and they presented the 1934 and 1936 editions of the Follies featuring performers such as Fanny Brice, Bob Hope, Josephine Baker, Gypsy Rose Lee, Eve Arden, The Nicholas Brothers, and Buddy Ebsen.


Alioune Diop

In 1966, together with Léopold Sédar Senghor he organized the first World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar in (1er Festival Mondial des Arts Nègres, also called FESMAN); among its many participants were Josephine Baker, Aimé Césaire, Duke Ellington, Langston Hughes and André Malraux).

Bessie A. Buchanan

Buchanan was in Josephine Baker's party at the Stork Club in 1951 when Baker was dissatisfied with her service and stormed out of the nightclub.

Bobino

On April 8, 1975 Josephine Baker, the African American superstar of France who had appeared at Bobino beginning in the 1920s, gave her last performance there at the age of 68.

Café Continental

Lasting for forty-five minutes, the episodes attracted many famous singers and dancers of the day: Josephine Baker appeared in an edition broadcast on 26 June 1948 and the Italian vocal group Quartetto Cetra appeared the same year.

Ealy Mays

He followed in the footsteps of other African American artists, performers, and intellectuals such as Victor Séjour, Henry O. Tanner, Ira Aldridge, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, Josephine Baker, and others who, since the mid-19th century, have chosen Paris and elsewhere in France and Europe for study or expatriate life.

Esplanade Zagreb Hotel

Many world famous personalities have stayed there, including: Josephine Baker, Charles Lindberg, Orson Welles, Vivien Leigh, Alfred Hitchcock, Leonid Brezhnev, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Andrew Dickson, Louis Armstrong, Francis Ford Coppola, Queen Elizabeth II, Ella Fitzgerald, Richard Nixon, Pele, Catherine Deneuve, Tina Turner, Samantha Fox, Nelson Piquet, Woody Allen, Garry Kasparov, and Pierce Brosnan.

Hôtel Le Bristol Paris

On April 4, 1975, Josephine Baker celebrated 50 years in show business with a lavish party thrown at Le Bristol; guests included Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger and even Princess Grace of Monaco.

L.S. Alexander Gumby

The scrapbooks contain autographed photos, stories and letters from such notable performers as Paul Robeson, Josephine Baker, Langston Hughes, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and Ethel Waters, and letters and autographs from Black historical figures such as Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, Father Divine, W.E.B. Dubois, and Marcus Garvey.

Lynne Carter

He impersonated many famous actresses and singers including Pearl Bailey, Josephine Baker, Tallulah Bankhead, Fanny Brice, Carol Channing, Cher, Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, Phyllis Diller, Hermione Gingold, Hildegarde, Eartha Kitt, Ethel Merman, Barbra Streisand, Kay Thompson, and Mae West.

Oscar Alemán

In the 1930s, having discovered American jazz via Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti, Alemán moved to Paris where he was hired by Josephine Baker to lead her band, the Baker Boys at the Cafe de Paris.

Pretty Girl Rock

An accompanying music video for the song was directed by Joseph Kahn and features Hilson portraying an array of American female icons of the past, including Josephine Baker, Dorothy Dandridge, The Andrews Sisters, Diana Ross, Donna Summer, Janet Jackson and T-Boz of the R&B girl group TLC.