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- Her Influence Continued After Her Death. Dance historians credited Josephine Baker with being the Beyonce of her day, and with revolutionizing onstage performances.
- She Received a Heroine’s Burial. In recognition of her wartime heroic exploits and contributions to France, Josephine Baker had been named a Chevalier of the Legion d’honeur by Charles de Gaulle.
- She Went Out On High Note. Josephine Baker’s highly acclaimed revue in 1975 proved to be her last hurrah. It opened on April 8, 1975, with a performance at the Bobino music hall in Paris – where most of the biggest names of 20 century French music had performed.
- Princess Grace Came Through For Baker. In her later years, Josephine Baker fell on hard times. She lost nearly everything, and she and the children of her ‘Rainbow Tribe’ were on the verge of becoming homeless, when Grace Kelly, by then Princess Grace of Monaco, stepped in to save her friend, by smoothing things over with creditors.
Jun 3, 2007 · Under the guidance of her companion and manager Giuseppe (Pepito) Abatino, Baker achieved status as a music-hall, recording, and film star and a model for France's "new woman," a position...
Sep 1, 2006 · In 1926, a gigolo named Giuseppe Abatino, nicknamed Pepito, entered her life as both mentor and lover.
Jun 21, 2021 · This transition in Baker's career came about with the help of her business and personal partner Giuseppe Pepito Abatino.
- 29 min
- Success in France
- Fame and International Celebrity
- American Indifference
- World War II
- Civil Rights Involvement
- Late Career and Death
- Marriages and Personal Life
- Legacy
Baker traveled to Paris in 1925 to perform as one of the acts in a new show, La Revue Negre("The Negro Review") at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, opening on October 2, 1925. Her act was called the "Danse sauvage" ("wild dance"); dressed in nothing more than a feather skirt, she performed a wild, sensual and charismatic act with co-star Joe Alex, c...
After a short while she was the most successful American entertainer working in France, one of the most photographed women in the world, and earned more than any other entertainer in Europe, attaining a stardom and celebrity unimaginable in the racial climate of the United States at the time. Paul Colin helped to introduce her to the artistic and i...
Yet despite her popularity in France, she never obtained the same reputation at home. In 1936, at the height of her success in Europe, she returned to America to star in a revival of Ziegfield's Follies, the long-running and popular Broadway revue. Performing alongside costars Bob Hope and Fanny Brice, Baker had high hopes for replicating her Europ...
She was so well-known and popular with the French people that even the Nazis, who occupied France during World War II, were hesitant to cause her harm. This allowed Baker to show her loyalty to her adopted country by participating in the French Resistance, smuggling intelligence to the resistance in Spain coded within her sheet music, participating...
Though based in France, she supported the American Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s. She protested racism in her own unique way, adopting twelve multi-ethnic orphans, whom she called her "Rainbow Tribe." Her adopted children were: Akio (Korean son), Janot (Japanese son), Luis (Colombian son), Jarry (Finnish son), Jean-Claude (Canadian son), M...
Baker spent her significant income as quickly as she earned it. She owned many pets at one time maintaining "a leopard, a chimpanzee, a pig, a snake, a goat, a parrot, parakeets, fish, three cats and seven dogs." By the late 1960s her lavish lifestyle brought her to the brink of bankruptcy and eviction from her 300-acre estate in the Dordogne. Her ...
Baker was an independent woman, and never relied on men for financial support, and thus never hesitated to leave when a relationship soured. She was first married in 1919 at age 13, to Willie Wells for a few weeks. Her second marriage was to Will Baker, briefly in 1921, at which time she changed her name officially to Josephine Baker. She was roman...
Josephine Baker was one of the most charismatic performers of the twentieth century, and "remained one of the biggest stars in international entertainment until her death in 1975." She exploded onto the scene an overnight sensation in 1925, ended up one of the iconic figures of Jazz Age Paris, and yet remained an influential and magnetic celebrity ...
Rubén Blades as Count Giuseppe Pepito Abatino. David Dukes as Jo Bouillon. Louis Gossett Jr. as Sidney Williams. Craig T. Nelson as Walter Winchell. Kene Holliday as Sidney Bechet. Vivian Bonnell as Josephine's mother. Vivienne Eytle as Josephine's sister. Production.
During her travels in Yugoslavia, Baker was accompanied by "Count" Giuseppe Pepito Abatino. At the start of her career in France, Abatino, a Sicilian former stonemason who passed himself off as a count , persuaded her to let him manage her. [38]
