Here's Where It Gets Interesting - How Women Won WWII: A Starlette Spies for France with Josephine Baker

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

She was a larger than life woman who utilized her fame and charm to secretly gather intel for the Allies during World War II. She put herself in danger, fought for freedom, saved countless lives… and she did it all while she shimmied her way across Europe in tiny sequined costumes. Join us while we learn about the one and only Josephine Baker.

Hey friends, welcome to the third episode in our documentary series, How Women Won World War II. I mentioned in our last episode that today we would talk about a person, a larger than life woman, who utilized her fame and charm to secretly gather intel for the allies during World War II. She put herself in danger, fought for freedom, saved countless lives, and she did it all while she shimmied her way across Europe in tiny sequined costumes. I'm Sharon McMahon, and this is the Preamble Podcast. There is no one like Josephine Baker, not now, not ever. And while you may have heard of her as one of the world's most famous entertainers of the 1920s and 30s, y'all, buckle up.

No, I mean like, actually fasten your seatbelts and remain seated for the duration of the flight. because when Josephine Baker was born in 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri, her mother, Carrie MacDonald, had already tried to become famous. She pursued a career as a singer and dancer, but had to abandon it when Josephine was born. Growing up, people widely speculated that Josephine's father wasn't her father. Both her dad, Eddie, and her mom, Carrie, were black, but Josephine had a skin tone that was very light, much lighter than her siblings. Throughout her life, she made claims about who her father was that ranged from a well-known African-American lawyer to a Spanish dancer, to a white German, to a Jewish tailor. Carrie's relationship with Josephine's father eventually ended and she remarried.

And Josephine's new stepfather wasn't good to her. When she was eight years old, her parents' financial difficulties reached a crescendo, and they sent Josephine to work as a. domestic servant in another home. Josephine, at eight, was legally required to attend school, so she would wake up before dawn to complete some of her chores, go to school, and then head home to do the rest of her work, all while living in a home with people who abused her. Josephine lived in the basement, and in order to keep her compliant, the mistress of the house was said to have regularly scalded Josephine's hands. Josephine had little to give her comfort during her long days of servitude, so she turned to the animals in the home, befriending them and caring for them.

When the family she lived with forced her to kill one of her animal friends, a chicken named kitty, Josephine was heartbroken. She ran away and returned to the home of her mother and stepfather. It did her little good. The family lived in extreme. poverty and there were never enough resources to go around. By the time she was 13, she was desperate to escape. She took the only out she saw available. She got married. So just to recap, even though I know it's hard to hear, as a little girl of age, Josephine was sent by her family to be a servant in an abusive household. And by the time she was 13, she was married. The marriage was not the escape Josephine was hoping it would be. She was wed to someone who was a full-blown adult.

He was 10 years older than her and who refused to provide for her. The union crumbled after a year. Josephine's life became increasingly desperate and she spent all her time dreaming up ways to escape it for something new, something secure. Slowly she saw a light appearing at the end of the tunnel. It drew closer and closer until it was clear the light was an exit from the hellish circumstances she was enduring. Josephine's exit was performing. She began hanging around the backstages of St. Louis's Entertainment District, peeking her head in the door and memorizing the steps of the dancers on stage. She made money to support herself by showing off her dancing skills on the street for tips.

By age 14, she was a. able to lie about her age and got a gig as a vaudeville entertainer, which took her to the East Coast. By the time she was 15, Josephine married for a second time, this time to a man whose last name was Baker. It was the surname she would use for the rest of her life, even though this marriage, too, was ill-fated. Because Josephine spent her childhood malnourished, she grew into a painfully thin teenager. She grow into the curves that were a desirable attribute for stage dancers at the time. Fortunately, and with the tenacity of someone who knew opportunity when she saw it, Josephine got her big break filling in for someone who was sick in a New York stage show.

And the rest, as they say, is history. And if this episode was meant to be a biography of Josephine Baker's life, I would give you the whole rundown of how she began to get more and more jobs on New York City stages, how she charmed audiences by being both adorably goofy and wildly talented, and how she became the first African-American star of a Broadway show. But I need to get to the part of her life where she becomes a spy. In 1925, Josephine Baker received an offer to star in a stage show in France, and she jumped at the chance. Not just because it was a great opportunity to try something new career-wise, but because she

felt stifled, misunderstood, and hated by Americans for the color of her skin. She said one day I realized I was living in a country where I was afraid to be black. It was only a country for white people, not black. So I left. I had been suffocating in the United States. A lot of us left, not because we wanted to leave, but because we couldn't stand it anymore, I felt liberated in Paris. Why would she have felt liberated in Paris? Was it that Parisians had realized how foolish and pointless discriminating against someone on the basis of race was? Maybe. But in reality, it had more to do with colonialism and exoticism. In the early 20th century, France was absolutely captivated by people of African origin. Paris shops were filled with artifacts taken from the countries they colonized

in Africa, and French artists began producing paintings featuring black men and women. It's very safe to say that France was fascinated with any and all things African, and this fascination led to less discriminatory attitudes than Josephine experienced in Jim Crow America. It's not even that far fetched to say that when her boat landed, Josephine stepped off it as an instant star. When she walked onto the Paris stage, she said it was like a frenzy, took over my body. I wasn't in control. I just did what they wanted. And what the French wanted was more Josephine.

While the shows she was in would undoubtedly not fly today. They featured tropes we consider racist and themes that were demoralizing. Josephine did what no one else could do. She introduced the people of France to jazz music, and they loved it. I can't let a description of Josephine's stage success go by without describing what she was most famous for at the time, a banana skirt. By 1927, her signature look became a barely their top made of strategically placed feathers or a draping of pearls, and a tiny skirt made out of bedazzled rubber bananas. This costume, along with her impressive vocal range and her comedic dancing,

skyrocketed Josephine's European fame. Photographers, painters, and writers went wild over her banana skirt look, and she was in constant demand for photo shoots and interviews. Women were desperate to copy her look, and while they weren't parading on Parisian streets and bananas, they did use egg whites to slick down their hair to achieve Josephine's coy and chic hairstyle. A line of Josephine dolls were made,

and shops could not keep them in stock. Her nickname in Paris became The Black Venus. Josephine was no different than the superstar stage performers of today in that she was constantly using her fame and talent, to push the envelope of what was acceptable. She dressed in men's suits and tuxedos for interviews, and she eventually earned enough money to purchase a small club of her own, which she called Shea Josephine.

It was at Shea Josephine that she performed for a smaller crowd of invited guests after her huge productions on the bigger stages of Paris. And those lucky few got to see a different side of the Black Venus. She put her heart and soul into singing. In 1927, Josephine was still married to Will Baker, but they had not seen each other in years. She found love again, this time with an Italian man who managed her career and expanded her skills and reach into cosmetics and ballet and fashion. Her wealth and fame ballooned to stratospheric levels. She learned multiple languages. She took singing lessons. She starred in movies. She starred in movies.

She purchased Marie Antoinette's bed. She bought a menagerie of animals, including a chimpanzee named Ethel, and a cheetah named Chiquita, who famously walked around town showing off its diamond collar. She got her pilot's license, which was no small feat. She was never satisfied with being merely good. She strove for excellence in everything she did, and it was this drive, this drive. this motivation that made her into an incredible intelligence asset. The historic record isn't exactly clear,

but eventually Josephine was able to obtain a divorce from her second husband, Will Baker, and her relationship with her Italian manager ended. But it wasn't long before she fell in love with another man, this one whose name was Jean-Leon. He was a French industrialist. When Josephine married him, he gave her something to add to her resume that proved to be of utmost importance. Just a few years later, even after their marriage, you guessed it, dissolved.

Their union gave Josephine her French citizenship. When Josephine traveled throughout Europe on tour, she had seen firsthand the rise of fascism in Italy and Germany. and not everyone loved her. She left Berlin three weeks into a six-month engagement when she realized her face appeared on a leaflet circulated by Joseph Goebbels, a prominent Nazi politician. Mussolini banned her from Italy.

Headlines in Austria called her a black devil. And Josephine was anything but a shrinking violet. This treatment made her want to fight back. And so she did. As Hitler rose to power and prominence in Europe, the French intelligence service found themselves woefully underfunded, and they approached a handful of people to work as unpaid spies. The spies, they hoped, would be driven by a sense of loyalty to France. When Agent Jacques Abte of the French intelligence service pulled up at Josephine's French chateau, he was unconvin. How could a famously bold female entertainer possibly become a successful spy?

When he called out to Josephine, he expected to be greeted by a cheetah wearing a diamond collar, but instead he saw a woman in gardening clothes feeding snails to her ducks. He was immediately drawn in by the Black Venus, by what some had called the Josephine effect, which was her ability to personally connect with everyone she spoke to or performed for. One over, the intelligence officer asked her if she would be willing to spy for France. Josephine said, yes, without hesitation.

She may have been born in America, but France had given her everything she had and was the least she could do. She told Abte, the Parisians gave me their hearts, and I'm ready to give them my life. Josephine's career in espionage began when she struck up a conversation with a few men who were enjoying drinks at a club. One of the things the French intelligence service wanted to know was the true intentions of other countries where they're going to fight Hitler or ally with him. Josephine worked her magic and learned that Italy planned to create an alliance with the Nazis. By the time Hitler began to roll tanks through France in 1939, many of the sources French intelligence had cultivated went dark. It was simply too dangerous to share information.

It made Josephine's work even more important. But it also made it more dangerous because the Nazis knew who Josephine Baker was, and they knew of her unwavering love for her adopted country. At one point, the French intelligence was, service genuinely feared so greatly for her safety that they gave her a cyanide pill to take in case she was captured. A quick death would be better than being tortured by the Nazi regime. They hatched a plan to smuggle information in her touring trunks on her pages of sheet music. They wrote notes in invisible ink. Information like intercepted German intelligence, the locations of Nazi

air bases in France, access plans for taking Gibraltar and the locations of ships at sea. If she was a normal traveler, her luggage would have been carefully searched. But because she was Josephine Baker, the famous Black Venus, security guards were more interested in getting her autograph than they were in searching for classified information. Because France desperately needed to get this information out of the country and to the British intelligence service, Josephine made plans to perform, and she took a train to Lisbon, Portugal, where the British had a secret intelligence base. She made sure the information she had smuggled into the country reached the hands of a British spymaster. She smuggled photographs in her undergarments and attached

documents to her underskirts, often delivering them to Portugal to be picked up by British intelligence forces. And she used her plane to deliver supplies and her entertaining skills to allied troops around Europe and North Africa. While there, she picked up messages that were not easily sent otherwise and delivered them safely. To have the successes that she did, Josephine relied heavily on her talents as a performer. She could improvise and act as a chameleon, changing moods as quickly as she needed to. It gave her incredible advantages in Spicraft. She was the queen of misdirection and could simultaneously be seemingly everywhere and nowhere. At one point, the suspicious Nazis paid a visit to her country home where she had been hiding various groups of resistance fighters, an elderly

Jewish couple, and intelligence officer Abte, who had become her wartime. Romantic interest. She immediately charmed the Nazi soldiers and used her training to help them see exactly what she wanted them to see. And nothing more. She waited for members of the Nazi group to shout that they had discovered someone hiding in the recesses of her sprawling home. But that signal never came. They left without learning her secrets. But Josephine knew that she was being watched. Abte and Baker soon threw themselves at a monumental task, establishing a spiring in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Josephine headed off on missions alone, traveling between Morocco and Portugal, all under the guise of putting on shows. She used the money from her performances to fund the French resistance movement and her clandestine activities. And of course, she used her fame. to meet well-placed people everywhere she went. She used flattery and sweet-talking to gain information about things like troop positions and gasoline supplies, all without drawing any more attention to herself than a superstar normally would. So when Josephine's stomach pains began,

Jacques Abte immediately suspected she had been poisoned. She was tortured with pain, and after two days of suffering, her doctor's, finally agree that she needed to be admitted to the hospital in Casablanca, which was the nearest city to where she had been performing. They couldn't find an ambulance to make the 200-mile trip, so four people had to carry her to a car using a blanket as a stretcher, and she cried in overwhelming discomfort for many hours as they wound their way through the bumpy Moroccan roads. Officially, the press was told that Josephine's

suffered from peritonitis and inflammation of the tissue of the inner wall of the abdomen. But there's some evidence now to suggest that the death of a stillborn child set off her health crisis and that it required doctors to perform a hysterectomy. But because Josephine was so press-savvy, she knew that anything she mentioned to others, especially in public, would be leaked and reported around the world. She may very well have invented the diagnosis of peritonitis, to cover her tracks. Regardless of how she got an infection, it eventually evolved into sepsis,

and she drifted between life and death. On November 21st, 1942, the Baltimore African-American newspaper ran a headline. Josephine Baker reported dead in Morocco. Josephine's sister saw the news, and it spread like wildfire via the press and fans around France and in the United States. Of course, she was not dead.

So imagine the surprise of a New York Times reporter who had been camped outside her room when he saw her open the door. The Times quickly ran a retraction that said Josephine Baker is safe. Josephine was distraught at the thought that her illness might prevent her from spying for France. And when she was feeling well enough,

she suggested that her hospital room might actually make a great place for secret meetings. She hatched a plan to invite people to visit her, and while they were there wishing her well, she would charm them with small talk, gain valuable information, and be able to continue her mission to free France. Diplomats and socialites alike all came to wish the superstar well, and as cunning as ever, Josephine Gotham to share useful information, she could pass on to other intelligence officers. Josephine gathered information about the identity of secret German agents

and the locations of German fortifications along the Atlantic. She helped people obtain Moroccan passports to be able to flee Europe, and she passed the information along to Jacques Abte, who then smuggled the valuable information out of the country using Invisible Inc. She was still in the hospital when the Allies landed in Morocco and fought for three days for control of Casablanca. When the battle ended, Josephine left the hospital for the first time in 19 months. Nearly the whole of Morocco became a staging ground for the Allies, particularly the American military.

During World War II, the military was still segregated, and Baker made a point of performing for both black and white troops, despite the fact that she had been ill for more than a year and a half, and her already thin frame had become even more frail. When Paris was liberated near the end of the war, she appeared in military uniform and was made a second lieutenant in the French Women's Air Force Corps. She was a guest of the Allies in a victory ceremony in Germany, and while there, she sang with the sick and dying survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp. The high command of the Allies asked for any entertainer who might be willing to come to Buchanwalt.

The remains of the camp were stricken with typhus, which was contagious and could be deadly. No one was willing. No one but Josephine. All over the camp, the emaciated former prisoners clung desperately to life. Some so gaunt they could only crawl toward her. What she saw had to erase any doubt of the nobleness of the allied cause. The song she chose in my village suddenly became choked with emotion as she sang of an idealized little town, the bells chiming out. She remembered how not long before the Nazis had stolen the bells from churches all across their occupied territory so that they could melt them down.

175,000 bells had been stolen so they could be turned into weapons of war. As she sang, she thought she heard in the distance the faint sound of bells peeling. The faint sound of life returning, of hope seizing its rightful place in the universe. She saw the tears of the dying and felt tears dampening her face. But this time they weren't tears. of despair. They were tears of joy, tears as the sound of bells, whether they were real or whether she heard them in her mind and felt buoyed by the sound. We don't know. But she knew a change had come and would come. We could end this episode here. We could end on the note of Josephine Baker

singing for the people of Rukhnwald whose cause she had risked her own life for. And that would be a beautiful end to this story. But that wasn't the only war Josephine Baker helped win. And I'd be remiss if I didn't also tell you about how Josephine Baker helped slay another giant. This one back in the United States. Jim Crow. After the war ended, Josephine's romance with Abte ended, and she remarried again. She adopted 12 children from around the world. When she booked an extensive tour in the U.S. She wrote into her contracts that she refused to play for segregated venues. The venue refused to admit people of all races, then she wasn't going to play there. When she arrived in New York, she was shocked to find that she and her husband were refused service

at a hotel because the hotel feared the other patrons wouldn't like seeing a black woman and a white man. And then they were refused service at another hotel, and another. She tried to dine at a very fancy and exclusive restaurant called the Stork Club with Grace Kelly, and they refused to bring food to the table despite having seated their party. All told, historians estimate that Josephine Baker was refused service at 36 New York hotels. In the 1950s, in the United States, after she had just helped the Allies win the war and became a decorated war hero. She organized protests outside the Stork Club and used her celebrity to provoke

national media attention for the glaring race problem the United States had. And Baker didn't just catch the attention of the press. She also caught the attention of Jay Edgar Hoover, who for many years had her movements around the world tracked because he was convinced she was a communist. Jay Edgar Hoover was even successful in denying her admission to the United States for being a suspected communist. It wasn't until John F. Kennedy took office and appointed his brother Bobby as

Attorney General that Josephine was allowed back into the United States. And just in time, because she made history again. This time she was invited to be a speaker at the March on Washington. Here's part of what she said. When I was a child and they burned me out of my home, I was frightened and I ran away. I do not lie to you when I tell you I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens. and into the houses of presidents and much more, but I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee. And that made me mad.

And when I get mad, you know that I open my big mouth. And then look out, because when Josephine opens her mouth, they hear it all over the world. So I did open my mouth, and you know I did scream. And when I demanded what I was supposed to have and what I was entitled to, they still would not give it to me. So then they thought they could smear me,

and the best way to do that was to call me a communist. Those were dreaded words in those days, and I want to tell you also that I was hounded by government agencies in America, and there was never one ounce of proof that I was a communist. But they were mad. They were mad because I told the truth. And the truth was that all I wanted was a cup of coffee. But I wanted that cup of coffee where I wanted to drink it.

and I had the money to pay for it. So why shouldn't I have it where I wanted it? I'm not a young woman now, friends. My life is behind me. There's not too much fire burning inside me. And before it goes out, I want you to use what is left to light that fire in you so that you can carry on and so that you can do those things that I have done. Then when my fires have burned out and I go where we are,

all go someday. I can be happy. You know, I've always taken the rocky path. I never took the easy one. But as I get older, and as I knew I had the power and the strength, I took that rocky path and I tried to smooth it out a little. I wanted to make it easier for you. Ladies and gentlemen, my friends and family, I've just been handed a little note, as you probably say, it is an invitation to visit the President of the United States in his home, the White House. This is a great honor for me. Someday I want you children out there to have that great honor to.

And we know that time is not someday. We know that time is now. I thank you. And may God bless you. And may he continue to bless you long after. am gone. A few years later, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and Coretta Scott King asked Josephine to be the leader and face of the United States Civil Rights Movement. She reluctantly declined because she had 12 children back in France. Josephine Baker, what a woman, singer, dancer,

pilot, mother, activist, and spy. The words of biographer Damien Lewis, She never once had it easy, but she was blessed with a core of steely fortitude, an unbreakable spirit that was hardwired into her soul. She fought for justice and liberty for all. She remained undaunted in her belief that good would triumph over evil. Even during the Allies' darkest hour, she was a powerhouse that quickly became, not just a rookie spy, but a master. Join me for our next episode as we shift our focus back to the brilliant minds

completing intricate work inside the secret cities of the Manhattan Project. I'll see you then. This show is written and researched by Heather Jackson, Sharon McMahon, Valerie Hoback, and Amy Watkin. Edited and mixed by our audio producer Jenny Snyder. and is hosted by me, Sherrod McBam. We'll see you again soon.