Joséphine Baker

Freda Josephine Baker (née McDonald; June 3, 1906 – April 12, 1975), also spelled Joséphine Baker, was an American and French dancer, singer, and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in France. She was the first Black woman to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 French silent film Siren of the Tropics, directed by Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant. During her early career, Baker was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in its 1927 revue Un vent de folie caused a sensation in the city. Her costume, consisting only of a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol both of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the "Black Venus", the "Black Pearl", the "Bronze Venus", and the "Creole Goddess". Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she renounced her U.S. citizenship and became a French national after her marriage to French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937. She adopted 12 children, whom she referred to as the Rainbow Tribe, and raised them in France. Baker aided the French Resistance during World War II, and also worked with the British Secret Intelligence Service and the United States Office of Strategic Services, the extent of which was not publicized until 2020, when French documents were declassified. After the war, she was awarded the Resistance Medal by the French Committee of National Liberation, the Croix de Guerre by the French military, and was named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour by General Charles de Gaulle. Baker sang: "I have two loves: my country and Paris." She refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States, and is also noted for her contributions to the civil rights movement. In 1968, she was offered unofficial leadership in the movement following the assassination of Martin Luther King, but declined due to concerns for the welfare of her children. On November 30, 2021, Baker was inducted into the Panthéon in Paris, the first black woman to receive one of the highest honors in France. As her resting place remains in Monaco Cemetery, a cenotaph was installed in vault 13 of the crypt in the Panthéon.