You're Dead to Me - Josephine Baker

Episode Date: March 13, 2020

Greg Jenner is joined by historical expert Dr Michell Chresfield and comedian Desiree Burch to travel to 1920s Paris and meet the phenomenal Josephine Baker. Josephine Baker was a renowned performer and entertainer, a civil rights activist and even a spy during the German occupation of France. But just how did the daughter of a laundress in St Louis find herself at the centre of some of the most pivotal moments in history?A Muddy Knees Media production for BBC Radio 4

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, a history podcast for people who don't like history, or at least people who forgot to learn any at school. My name's Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian, author and I'm the chief nerd on the BBC comedy show Horrible Histories. In this podcast we'll help you bone up on your history whilst gently tickling your funny bone as well. And today we are shimmying into the dance halls of 1920s Paris to get down and flirty with the legendary Josephine Baker.

And to help me do that I'm joined by two excellent guests and they are returning guests as well. In History Corner she teaches the intellectual and cultural history of racial ideas and formation at the University of Birmingham. You'll know her from the Harriet Tubman episode in season one, available on BBC Sounds. Please join me in welcoming her back to the podcast. It is Dr. Michelle Cressfield. Hello. Welcome back. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be back. Yeah, it's lovely having you in the room again. And you got some love from the Harriet Tubman episode. I did. My doctor listened to it. It was exciting.

It was amazing. This is what we like. Okay. And in Comedy Corner, she's a playwright, actor, storyteller, one of the funniest stand-ups in the circuit. You'll have seen her at Live at the Apollo, Mash Report, QI. She's the host of the Netflix comedy show, Flinch. It is the wonderful Desiree Burch. Hello.

Hello, Greg. It is so great to be back. Thank you for having me. Absolute pleasure. We had an absolute ball last time. Hello, Greg. It is so great to be back. Thank you for having me. Absolute pleasure. We had an absolute ball last time. Yes, we absolutely did, even though we were talking about the tumultuous life of Harriet Tubman. But I think it was ultimately uplifting because she's a baller. I think a lot of people listened to that and went, wow.

Wow. Yeah. Someone should make a movie. And then they did. And then they did. I didn't see the movie, but I'm sure it did not do enough justice to her as it did our podcast. So last time out you knew the story

of Harriet Tubman a little bit. Yeah. Obviously we filled in some of the blanks. Where are you with Josephine Baker? I think even less with Josephine Baker

because I think probably for obvious reasons she doesn't get talked about very much at school. She just like mentions like oh yes and this really famous black person and so she was an expat

and lived in France because I think generally lots of Black people went there because they were like, oh, we can actually like breathe and move around and be, you know, like human beings and do what we do, especially if they are artists. I know the thing about like the banana dance that she had a very famous banana dance.

And I think it was like her costume was made out of like banana peels and she would like peel them off in a very burlesque style. I want to say that she was bisexual, but I could be making that up. OK. And I imagine that she probably pushed a lot of boundaries because I imagine she probably didn't take stuff from pretty much anyone. And that's the podcast. Great. So what do you know? What do you know?

So what do you know actually is where we have a go at guessing what you at home might know about today's subject. And I think the name might resonate with you. I think Josephine Baker is a name that feels glamorous, floating in our pop culture brain, but we're not quite sure necessarily who she is. You know, movie star maybe, actor, whatever. As Desiree said, you can visualise her as a dancer in the sort of jazz age in Paris.

Amazingly, there hasn't been a movie or a big TV series we can binge about her, so someone needs to commission it, please. She has popped up in a couple of movies. She was in Midnight in Paris. She was in the very fun time travel TV show Timeless. She had a cameo there, which I really like that show. It's very silly.

But she's sort of known for that high energy dance, for the kind of iconic banana dance, but also I think she's sort of frozen in time in the 1920s a little bit. We don't get the kind of full range. So I think today we're going to hopefully learn a lot more about her. Let's start at the very beginning. Michelle, where and when is Josephine born and what's her family situation? So Josephine is born Frida Josephine McDonald on June 3rd, 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri. But what's interesting is she actually grows up in East St. Louis, which is actually in Illinois. So her mother, Carrie, had really big dreams. She hoped to be a music hall dancer. She's really gifted, but she has to abandon that and she becomes a laundress.

This creates a lot of tumultuousness between she and Josephine in her life. Josephine's father publicly, a gentleman by the name of Eddie Carson, kind of claims responsibility as her father. But historians are pretty convinced that her biological father was, in fact, white. So you see a lot of things in Josephine's early life, particularly around colorism. Her mother, her siblings are quite dark. She's quite fair. Yeah, and she's the high yellow sort.

Exactly. That's the kind of foundation of her early life. Okay. So her father is a musician? He's a drummer and also a known dancer. He and Carrie would have featured in local dance halls and things like that. And so he abandons the family when Carrie is quite young, off to go do his drummer thing. And that's when Carrie really takes on the responsibility of caring for the family.

So she works very hard to care for her children. She eventually takes up with another guy who is Josephine's stepfather. So a musical childhood of sorts in terms of her parents, but it's not a very happy childhood, is it? No. By the age of eight, Josephine is warmed out to do work in local households. And is she the youngest? No, she's the oldest. She's the oldest. She's the first.

Her mother kind of finds a new partner, has three more children. And Josephine's actually sent to live with her grandmother for quite a while. She eventually returned home. So when she's working, she does odd cash and hand jobs, sweeping, scrubbing steps, kind of odd things. But eventually she's sent to be a live-in maid for an employer. And because there is a part where she's legally required to go to school, sometimes she has to wake at 5 a.m. She does her morning chores. She'll go and get a little education.

She comes back and she finishes her chores around 8 p.m. Yeah. She has to live in the basement with the family dog, is made to sleep in a box. What? Yes. Why even a box at that point? Like, just throw some rags on the floor. Like, at that point, the box is an insult.

Right. So this particular box is an insult. Right. So this particular employer is quite abusive. So she's known for abusing, slapping Josephine, puts her hands in scalding hot water and burns her. Okay, this is now the 1900s. Just fire this bitch. What is all this hate? Yeah, exactly. So Josephine loves the family dog.

She loves the chicken until the employer makes her kill the chicken. Of course. Of course. Because why should this employer do one decent thing in her whole godforsaken life? Yeah. So she has a pet chicken named Kitty. And she spends many months fattening up the chicken and loving on it. You know she did this just because Josephine loved the chicken, not because they couldn't find another chicken to eat.

It was just like, oh, you like it? Then I'll destroy it. Oh, you need these hands? Why don't I burn them? It's horrible. Josephine is eight, nine, ten, something like that. Yeah, about like eight, eight, nine. And I think it's made all the worse because she doesn't quite feel at home with her mom and her stepdad. The stepdad is routinely out of work. Carrie picks up a lot of the financial responsibility for the household. One time her sleeping, the whole family in one bed. Of course.

There is also a very important moment in her childhood that happens in St. Louis in 1917. So this is a major moment in African-American history around the violence. I think most people know of Tulsa. Yeah. Right. But this is another town that was like people were murdered. Right. Yeah.

Their stuff was burnt. Absolutely. Yeah. So the East St. Louis riots really happened in July of 1917. East St. Louis gets a large influx of African-Americans looking for jobs. The riot starts in May as a labor dispute when black workers are brought in to replace white workers who had gone on strike. That was creating tension enough. But then rumors began to circulate that a white man had been robbed by an African-American man and whites began to beat and assault any African-American that they happened upon. This is the Liam Neeson response. I'm looking for anybody black because you might have a wallet. So the National Guard are brought in. Tensions subside. Eventually, the National Guard is removed in June.

And so you have in the city just this kind of height of kind of racial animus. So in July, a white guy comes into the East St. Louis area and fire shots at African-Americans randomly. A group of African-Americans arm themselves, go to the city center in which another car of whites come. And the African-Americans, believing that they're defending themselves, shoot into the car. The car happens to be police officers. Of course. This is a powder keg. A powder keg is absolutely right.

It sets off three days of violence where basically whites go into the East St. Louis neighborhoods. They burn everything to the ground almost and then fire gunshots at African-Americans as they're leaving their homes. It's estimated that 39 African-Americans lose their lives, nine whites. But historians believe that the number is probably somewhere around 100. Yeah. Can't be shooting at people for that much time and only get 39 of them. Exactly. And thousands more are left homeless. And it's believed that Josephine's house actually is burnt down in this. And so she will remember this later as a formative aspect of her childhood. Of course, like so far in her life, basically the world is like you don't belong anywhere. end this and so she will remember this later as a formative aspect of her childhood of course like so far in her life like basically the world is like you don't belong anywhere anywhere you go

you don't belong here just for the record with everything in america just started with an angry white dude with a gun so messed up but it's literally like we can trace this somewhere back to an angry white guy with a gun right so j So Josephine's house burns down. She's probably 11. No childhood at all, is it? No, not at all. So much of her life just happens really young and fast. Although is that untrue for any black person of note or of not note? Your life happens young and fast. You're like, okay, well, we're grown up now.

For a creative person, how do you go from that to being a musician, a dancer, a performer? So she'd always really been interested in dance. So she and her brothers and sisters would do kind of little cabaret shows for the family. She would panhandle out in the streets trying to get money for that. By 13, however, she has a big fight with her mother. She works as a waitress in St. Louis. She eventually, though, hooks up with these touring acts. First it's the Jones family band, and later it's the Dixie Steppers, who were vaudeville acts who would tour the country. She goes to New York alone with them at 15, and she lies about her age. And she joins a chorus.

A chorus is very hard for her to get in. So despite her being seen as too fair for her family, she's actually too dark for a chorus. And she's too skinny uh yeah so part of that early trauma had really affected her physique and that she just gets really thin yeah um which is interesting because she was a very plump baby so her mom called her tumpy an accidental variation on humpty dumpty oh that's cold yeah but eventually someone gets sick which is what happens with your lucky breaks. And so she joins the chorus. Someone get sick. Crowbar to the back. We don't know. Arsenic poisoning.

Someone's taken ill. Tonya Harding in this. Yeah, seriously. It's like, it's a big break. She goes to New York at 15. She lies about her age and she gets a job in these two black stage shows. The first is Shuffle Along and the second is The Black Dandies. And these shows are really important because they're some of the first black shows on Broadway.

Yeah, I feel like Shuffle Along I've heard of like my whole life. Right. Yeah. So it's very iconic. And she has a solo in the show as well, which becomes really, really important. A dance solo. Yes. Okay. So these African-American performers. Right. But what's interesting about Shuffle Along and some of her other work with the Dixie Steppers, it does feature African-Americans in blackface, which is a really peculiar kind of thing.

Yeah, it's a thing that happened that was like, well, people want to see blackface. So I mean, even blacker face. Right. About this kind of exaggeration of stereotypical black features that she's participating in. But yeah, that's absolutely right. And she's funny. I mean, Desiree, you're funny. That's your job. You're a comedian. You're a performer. A funny dancer is a rarer thing to have. Are you a funny dancer on the dance floor? No, it's like I like to dance, but I'm more funny than dancing.

So she's funny. She's this sort of act that she does where she pretends to be bad. Yes. And then she's really good. Yes. That's brilliant. That takes real talent. Yeah.

To be so good that you can pretend exactly how to be bad. It's like acting drunk. Yeah. Yeah. Act's brilliant. That takes real talent to be so good that you can pretend exactly how to be bad. It's like acting drunk. Yeah. Yeah. Actors who can act drunk. It's really, really difficult to do, isn't it? As part of the chorus, she pretends that she doesn't know the lines, doesn't know the steps, sort of flails along. And then suddenly at the end, she gets it better than everyone else. Yes, that's absolutely right. So chorus lines are known for their precision, sharpness, and everyone in unison. She makes a name for herself for being bad. So she would have these solos or be out of sync with the rest of the chorus. She'd make these funny faces.

She'd contour her body in weird ways that were out of time, but then eventually would kind of launch into these dance moves that were syncopated and wild and amazing and brought the audience's attention, which is really interesting because it earned her the opprobrium of the other chorus girls. Of course. But she is the cums. Of course, they were like, you are showing us up. We're a unit. And she's like, you're a unit. Absolutely right. But the audience loves her.

So she gets quite the reputation. And there's one quote that says she stood out like an exclamation mark. That's beautiful. But some who say that she is both horrible or ravishing, they can't quite work out if they think she's this amazing, brilliant, beautiful performer, if she's weird and a bit confrontational and scary. Probably why they haven't found someone to play her in a film yet. Do you know what I mean?

Like you need someone who can encompass all of that, where I imagine she was the kind of person where they didn't have forms that fit her genius. And so it's like people don't understand how to recognize if you're really good or if you're terrible. Right. That's that part of that jazz age, right, where you see a lot of assessments of jazz musicians and you don't know if they're good or bad because it's about improvisation. It's about originality. And I think people really liked her because she was unexpected. They never knew what she was going to do.

Yeah. Right. And the jazz age is really born of that. And jazz, it's a new creation. Right. It's a new art form. Very much at this time. It's at the apex. So everything that is new and revolutionary,

a lot of people are shocked by it because they're like, is this how it's meant to go? Yes. Both are things that have the potential to annoy a lot of people while being astounding. So we might at this point assume success on Broadway, have your own show, but that's not the story. The story is that she now goes to France.

Yes. So how does that happen? In 1925, there's a young American socialite who puts together a review called Les Revues Negres, which is supposed to introduce the Parisian public to jazz, but also to black culture. Oh, these alluring blacks we've heard about.

We're so curious. Right. That's so apt that you say that, right? Because at this moment, it's really interesting to think about what serves as black culture in France at this time. So there is this obsession with African art, but African art and culture that's really born of a colonial imagination. Right. So a lot of focus on primitivism, on the idea of black bodies and black culture being somehow more in sync with a kind of primitive and pure past.

Yeah. So it's like it's organic. They're organic people. They're free range humans, untouched by civilization. Rearrange humans like before, untouched by civilization. Yes, absolutely. Yes, very, very much that. For some, this kind of primitivism really legitimates that Black people would be inferior. And for others, it's something to be really admired. Both of those are just two sides of the same exoticizing coin. But like it is that of like, oh, but no, I think you're better because you're like raw human. Is that of like, oh, but no, I think you're better because you're like raw human. Yes.

And so I think one of the ways to think about this move from the U.S. to Paris is that she kind of moves from a kind of racism to a kind of exoticism. Right. Which is by and large, no less reductionist. Yeah. She's still being defined by her race. Yes. But in Paris, there are opportunities for her to be creative. Right. Absolutely.

When she gets on the stage in Paris, she talks about the idea that a frenzy took over her body, that she wasn't in control anymore, which must have been pretty exciting and also a little bit scary for those in the audience who weren't quite sure what was happening. But also the dance that she does is called the danse sauvage, the savage dance. This is a dance that is primal, urgent, exotic, foreign, dangerous, sexy?

Yes. All those things? All of those things. Okay, in which case, I guess we maybe need to have a watcher clip. So, Desiree, there's a laptop right there. Can you talk us through what you're seeing? All right. So, she's got her, like, banana, like, skirt on, tutu-looking thing.

She's now shaking her behind in a circle. She was doing some arms are up in the air. It's very Carol Burnett, but like, you know, it's that like gangly sort of like arms or whatever. And it's kind of sexy, but it's also a little hilarious and reminiscent of things that we might qualify as being movements in African dance or whatever, like hands going out. Also, she just kind of turns around and shakes her ass a bit, you know, and she is gangly and goofy looking. She's someone that you look at her and you kind of want to start laughing and you don't know why. She's sexy. She's beautiful. But there's also a comic performance there. How many actresses do we have who pull off both of those things? Because

today we tend to prize Hollywood actors for being either funny or hot. Right. If they're hot enough, we'll pretend that they're funny. And I think you really hit on a really important tension that really highlights her career. It's that she's really playing in this space of caricature and spectacle, but also like really sexy

and really alluring. And I think if you are a Parisian who is encountering her for the first time, she creates a lot of tension in terms of how you're supposed to feel about black bodies, about black culture.

It's that weird thing of like, you are manipulating this thing, but at the same time, a manipulation of a certain gaze implies being disempowered within that thing. Sometimes you suspect it's for the wrong reasons and you're kind of like, well, you know, they're paying me to do this thing. And within this thing, I can come alive a little bit more. But particularly when you have an audience, it is difficult to ascertain whether or not this is really you expressing yourself or if this is you responding to what people are hearing. You like to think it's 50-50, but it's frequently not. We're here in the UK. And as a Black performer, I feel similar things today. You know, it's not quite as intense as that, but it is still the kind of like, why do you like this thing?

Are you laughing too hard at this for the right or wrong reason? Am I really doing what I want or am I doing what works? Yeah. And I think you see a lot of that around the kind of construction of the bandana skirt. It debuts in 1926 at the Folies-Bourgere. I'm not doing my French. You did fine. Don't worry.

But, right, there's a lot of conversation. Like, there's myths around, did she create this? Was this created for her? From what I understand, she's an active participant in the construction

of this banana skirt, and it really sets off this kind of craze of, women are, like, buying almond oil to darken their skin to look like her. Wow. So it sets off a really major moment.

All these orange people walking around Paris like, did I do it? Absolutely, absolutely. She used egg whites to slick her hair down. So you see a lot of women trying to get that kind of closely coiffed look that she was so known for. Until the flies come around. I'm a historian of celebrity,

and I look at her as a really interesting case study from the 20s because she's one of the best paid performers in the world. She's earning big money. As you say, she becomes a fashion icon in France. People are buying dolls of her. They're buying various clothes to look like her. She's known as the Black Venus, which is an eroticized but also racialized epithet.

You know, Venus is the goddess of love, brackets sex. And the fact that black is in the title is, you know, it's there for a reason. She's not just the Venus. She's the Black Venus. She's the Black Venus. I mean, let's be honest, Venus was obviously blonde. Ernest Hemingway called her the most sensational woman anyone ever saw. I mean, and he should know because he's the man. Ernest Hemingway called her the most sensational woman anyone ever saw. I mean, he should know because he's the man.

Ernest Hemingway. And he had plenty of interesting encounters with women. Yes, interesting is a vast plane of expressing. We haven't got time to get into Hemingway and his problematic opinions on women. But he knew some ladies and he was not cool with all of them. But also, there's this publicity stunt in 1927. opinions on women, but he knew some ladies and he was not cool with all of them. Yes. But also, there's this publicity stunt in 1927. She claims to have

married a count, a guy called Giuseppe Pepito Abattini. Story goes that he's a count, he's aristocracy, he's proper money. Are there Italian counts? In my mind, they're all just Romanian. They're all vampire. I think it's Sesame Street, and that's why in my mind.

One. Yes. He was a former bricklayer. Nice. He did do some counting. Yeah. He put a lot of bricks in that wall. He counted each one.

He was a sort of stonemason bricklayer. He kind of came to her and went, let me be your manager. Let me be your lover. Yes. And she was like, okay. Yes. But at this point, do you want to guess how many marriages she's already had? Oh, whoa. We fast forwarded, do you want to guess how many marriages she's already had? Oh, whoa.

We fast forwarded. Sorry. What the heck? Okay, so she's already in Paris. She's now with this bricklayer. Let's say two. Two is correct. You did say marriages.

I went to the lowest number because if you said like seven, I would have been like, what is she even doing? But if you count Albertino, three. Oh, yes. The fake marriage, right? So it's two real marriages in this fake. But if you count Albertino, three. Oh, yes. The fake marriage, right?

So it's two real marriages in this fake. Wait, so wait. I'm sorry. Rewind. Who was she married to? So I call it the tale of the two Willys. Uh-huh. Careful. Careful now.

Come on. It's a family show. It's Willie Wells and Willie Baker. So she has her first marriage at 13, although it doesn't last more than a year. How the heck did this happen? She was in Illinois, not Alabama. What are we doing? Was he like a billion years old as well? No,

I think by all accounts he's quite a young he's older than her. But like still a teenager? Late teens? So they marry. Apparently he's not going to be the really financially adventurous or aggressive type. He's not supporting her. So she leaves him.

At like 14? Yeah. She knows what she wants. She was like, bills, bills, bills. And this 19-year-old was not covering any of them. Alright, cool. So soon after, she meets Willie Baker in Philadelphia. So while she's on tour, she's 15. She's been married twice. Whoa, both of these

were before? Both of these were before 15. So she leaves Willie Baker when she goes to New York. Okay, gotcha. So that marriage lasts a little longer, but not more than three years. So in Paris, she is Josephine Baker. Right. Because she's still married technically,

or at least carrying on having that surname from her second husband. Who also, I think, she doesn't see as the kind of man that she wants. Probably born of this childhood that she has, where she wants to kind of cultivate a family and create that love. And I think that's a theme that will really function throughout her life. I think she is really looking for a certain type of love

that she thinks that these men will give her, and they don't. And in 1927, she does have this fake stage marriage with Pepito, or Giuseppe Albertino. And everyone's like, oh, wow, cool, amazing, great, celebrity wedding. It's a celebrity marrying aristocracy. And the newspapers cover it and everyone's excited. And then a few months later, they're like, hang on. This guy doesn't seem legit.

Even then, the newspapers didn't do their fact-checking, did they? No one's like, she's marrying a count. It's official. No one looked. But there was love there. And he is her manager as well. Yeah, so her manager for quite some time. A good decade probably, isn't it?

Yes. And is fiercely devoted to her. Loves her very much. And she's selling big, big ticket sales. Making a lot of money. What is she spending it on? She's spending it on like opulence. On crazy.

I was going to say frocks and cocaine. That's what she's spending it on. Absolutely. Well, I don't know about the cocaine, but definitely. I mean, it was the 20s. They were just putting it in like the juice. That's what she's spending it on. Absolutely. Well, I don't know about the cocaine, but definitely on Fox. I mean, it was the 20s. They were just putting it in the juice. That's true. She's being dressed by all the finest people.

She might have bought Marie Antoinette's bed. Like you do? She definitely bought lots. On eBay? Yes. Just Googling, like, oh, yeah, I can't buy that. Can't buy that bed. She buys a hotel.

Okay. Yeah. Cool. So she's investing in property. Investing, yeah. Yeah. She uses her money to cultivate this bed. She buys a hotel. Okay. Yeah. Cool. So she's investing in property. Investing. Yeah. She uses her money to cultivate this image of someone who's chic and sexy and beautiful and alluring and quite eccentric.

So probably she spends most of her money on a menagerie of animals. And they all wear diamonds. Yes. Desiree, do you want to guess? Oh my God, yes. Do you want to guess what animals are in her menagerie? Which is a very sort of Lord Byron thing. We've had this before.

I'm just going to put, like, I feel like there's probably some kind of big cat, like a leopard, a jaguar, something with like diamond on it. Ding, ding, ding. Right. Big cat is spot on. It's Chiquita, isn't it? Yes. A cheetah named Chiquita.

Uh-huh, of course. Who wears a diamond collar. Yep. Was known to jump into the orchestra while Josephine Baker is performing. Just like, this is boring. And another cellist was mauled. Are there more? Do you want to have another guess? Is there going to be some kind of small primate, like an organ grinder monkey or some other kind of chimpanzee?

There are monkeys. There is also a chimpanzee called Ethel. Nice. Again, diamonds. Of course. There is also a chimpanzee called Ethel. Nice. Again, diamonds. Of course. There's Toot Toot the goat. There's a horse called Tomato. Yes.

There's a friendly snake called Kiki. There's a tortoise. I want all of these things. And there's a parakeet. Nice. At least one parakeet. Yep. I'm on board.

So, I mean, if you got it, flaunt it. Yep. Everybody gets a diamond. Now I know where all my diamonds are at all times. She takes that cheetah everywhere. Yeah, really. She keeps it around. There's a nice story of her going to the cinema, isn't there?

Yes. So Diana Vreeland, who's the editor of Vogue, tells the story of being at a film. L'Atlantique. L'Atlantique. Thank you. Which is about these foreign legion soldiers in a desert oasis. And it has this scene where you have these cheetahs. And the lights come up and she turns around and she sees josephine baker and her cheetah and she says oh

you brought the cheetah to see the cheetahs and then josephine baker says that's exactly what i did and so they leave and diana freeland says then i see this cheetah jump into a rolls royce and then they saunter off yes of course this cheetah's like thank you for letting me see my family but I'm far above them now let's get into the rolls and go home I want to know who was working

at that cinema and I was like yeah this is fine you can just bring the cheetah in I mean health and safety well you know

there was like one underling who was like I'm sorry ma'am and the boss was like you do not talk to Miss Baker that way yeah that's true

right this way I tried to stop it coming in but unfortunately she had a cheater i think you'll find the concessions are free for some yeah one more pet desiree for you to guess there was a pig his name was what do you think i mean i'd give it a human name because that's i'd be like you know fred or fred's nice yeah or like probably alliterative like Peter, you know, or something. She went with Albert or rather probably Albert. Oh, there you go.

Of course, she's in Paris. Why not give him a French name? I would be Thierry. Oh, that's nice. That's nice. How about the pig who wore perfume? Oh, well, of course. He's a French pig.

You're not going to not perfume him. He's going to wear cologne, isn't he? I mean, absolutely. Albert wearing, I'm just wearing a bit of Dior. Oui. What is that scent, Albert? Oh, it's Chanel de Marseille. It's un peu de aftershave.

So she's a superstar dancer and performer. She's also a brilliant singer. By the 1930s, she really transitions into singing. And she works with voice coaches and she records a song like translated to I Have Two Lovers about her love for Paris and the United States,

which becomes, I think, this really big theme in her life. She also does a lot of movies. She pens her first memoir at 20. Wow. She writes three herself. I mean, I guess that makes sense. At 20, she's accurately, like,

you know, lived a life. A lot of people write an autobiography at 20. It's like, what the... Already on the third she's accurately, like, you know, lived a life. A lot of people write an autobiography at 20. It's like, what the... Already on the third husband. Right. Already, you know, lived in two different countries. Why not?

That's like all of Elizabeth Taylor, but just the first part of a triptych, you know? Like, that's amazing. Yeah, so she is really focusing on, like, rejuvenation, reestablishing herself. She's a makeup line. Doing really... Okay, so she's a little Rihanna, too.

Yeah, doing fabulous. Doing fabulous in the 1930s. I she's a little Rihanna too. Yeah, doing fabulous. Doing fabulous in the 1930s. I mean, I think Rihanna is the name that has been touted if there was ever a movie to be made. Yeah, that makes sense. She was like a brilliant singer, a great dancer. Yeah. Is she much of an actress, Rihanna?

I don't know. Well, I enjoyed her in Ocean's 8. Oh, I didn't see that. Oh, yeah, yeah. She was good in that. Okay. Yeah, and she had, I think it was her diamond bald. I don't remember the event, but she wears this Josephine Baker-inspired gown, which is gorgeous.

So we need to put a call in to Rihanna's agent. Yeah, right. Get this film made. Perhaps she's already listening to this podcast, Greg. I'm certain she is. Yes. Husband number three, I mean, technically probably number four, comes in 1937 because Count Pepito, he dies. Oh.

I mean, true love ends in a sad way, you know. So her third husband, because she's getting through them relatively fast, is called Jean Lion. He's French, with a very French name, Jean Lion. John Lion. It's less good in French. She marries him. And then something really important and tragic happens,

which is France is invaded by the Nazis. Yes. And Michelle, this is a point where her career really changes because she goes all in. She joins the French resistance. Yes. So some accounts say that she was actually trained to be a French resistance fighter under the sewers of Paris.

She uses her diva status to travel Europe and to infiltrate all of these places. She's really targeting diplomats and military officials and her job is to flirt with them and to get them to divulge important information. There are some accounts that say that she was actually trained to shoot guns under the parasuers. So she kind of became a spy. She totally becomes a spy. Literally becomes a spy.

Does she take this up as a means for her own survival? I think a lot of people are like, why would you do this? And she says, you know, France has given me so much. I could surely give them my life. She gets her French citizenship through Jean Leon, who's the husband she marries, in 1937. And so she has a member of the French resistance who tours with her as posing as her band manager. And she writes messages in invisible ink on her sheet music, sometimes attached to her underwear or under her arms or as part of her dress. And she goes through checkpoints. And one of the things she would say is, who would dare strip search Josephine Baker?

Yeah. She also does things like she uses her private plane to deliver supplies. She works at the air ambulance. She's really committed to the cause. She's in the French Air Force. And it's amazing because she's one of the most famous people in the world. Yeah. And yet she's a spy.

It's sort of a James Bond problem. It's like, the name's Baker, Josephine Baker. She also has a real bout of sickness for like a year and a half in North Africa, I think it is. Yeah, so she's very sick and a life-threatening thing, but she powers through. She kind of convalesces for a while. And she spends her time entertaining French, British, and American troops. And one of the things she says... Well, she's definitely ill.

It's important to her, and so she really wants to participate. She says, when soldiers applaud me, I like to believe they will never acquire a hatred for color because of the cheer I've brought them.

I think one of those ways in which she's really mobilizing her celebrity for good. Yeah. So she has served in the French Resistance. She has charmed France. She is one of the biggest stars

in the world. She has made money. She's got amazing pets. Already, iconic heroine of the 20th century. Like already the movie, I can see it in my head. It's great. But that's not the end of the story. There's a sort of gear change as well

because once the Nazis are defeated, once France is liberated, she goes back to America. And this is where the story changes for her, doesn't it? Of course, it always does when you go back to America. She goes back to America because she really wants the Americans to see her in the same way and love her in the same way that the Parisians did. It doesn't quite go that way.

She really is committed to leveraging her celebrity to fight racism. So she makes it part of her contract that she will not play venues that segregate. Yes. And she sticks to this. So there's one instance where she finds out that black patrons had been denied. And so she just sits down. She's like, I'm not going to take the stage. She is going all over the country. She is reported to have been denied over 39 establishments. And we're not just talking in the South. We're talking places like Las Vegas and New York who will not allow her to either enter through the entrance that she would like or accept her at all because of the color of her skin so that was a really big visceral moment for her having achieved all that she did in the war and all of this acclaim in France to kind of have this experience in the United States. Yeah because in France she's literally a war hero she's given a medal in 1946

she later joins the Legion d'Honneur the the highest award you can be given in France. So not only is she a celebrity superstar, she's also just a hero. She gets back to America and she can't even see. I mean, there's a famous story at the Stork Club in 1951 that really gets to the heart of this, doesn't it? Yes. So the Stork Club is one of the premier supper clubs in New York. And so she dines there with a group of friends in 1951. And she begins to notice that while the other patrons are still being served service to her table ceases a very classy move she makes here so she makes two phone calls one to walter white who is her lawyer but also the field secretary for the national association for the advancement of colored people so walter white a big name in african-american

history not just in meth yeah right not Not a Breaking Bad reference. Different dude. Different guy. She also calls the chief of police and says, I am being discriminated against. So eventually this makes it back to the waitstaff who bring her her steak. And she says, no, thank you. It's too little too late. Right. Give it to the cat.

Chiquita can have it. So the NAACP pickets the supper club, which really takes a hit in its reputation. She gets in a war of words with this journalist, Walter Winchell, who accuses her of being a communist, right? Which is one of the ways in which you tone police African-Americans post-World War II. He is a big deal. I mean, Walter Winchell is the gossip columnist in America. He wields enormous influence. And so when you make an enemy of him, you're up against one of the loudest voices in America. As a result, the FBI put her on a watch list.

They do. Oh, my goodness. after this all kind of blows up. And I think what's interesting here, we think about Paul Robeson, we think about W.E.B. Du Bois as men who faced this particular type of surveillance, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X. But Josephine Baker also was a high enough priority for the FBI that called her a troublemaker. So she goes back to Europe. She goes on a speaking tour

talking about anti-racism all over Europe. And it's where she first gets this idea that she wants to be part of an experiment to really change the way in which the world thought about race and thought about humanity and getting to see past color. I mean, she's really beginning to articulate

this kind of like post-racial kind of utopia. And also she's sort of being pulled into the Cold War as well. It's not just civil rights. She tours South America. She knows Eva Peron and Juan Peron. She knows Evita. She knows Madonna.

Yeah. Guys, she knows Madonna. And also Fidel Castro knows who she is. She goes to Cuba. She goes to Haiti. Yes. She's political. Very political and very much part of that

Cold War global push for emancipation. So I think all told, 471 pages of files kept on Josephine Baker. Yeah, well, once you're called a communist in that era, you're on that watch list for life. And also if you're hanging out with Fidel Castro, that will happen. We're going to add that into the file. So she's allowed back into the USA in 1963 because Bobby Kennedy, brother of the president, is attorney general.

And by that point, he's like, no, you can come back. It's OK now. Guys, she's hot. So bring her on. But she comes back for a very auspicious occasion. Yeah. So Josephine Baker is one of two women to speak at the march on Washington. But what makes Baker's speech really important is that she's the only one to give a speech.

And she takes the stage right before MLK. And she's in her French military uniform. That's incredible. I've never known, like you never get to pan out from that clip to be like, here was the whole day, you know? Right, yeah. That's amazing. So she's the one who's like, okay, I'm going to get you guys ready

for the main event. She's the warm-up for Martin Luther King. Yeah, yeah. But like the last warm-up of the day. She's like, okay, I'm going to get you guys ready for the main event. She's the warm-up for Martin Luther King. Yeah, yeah. But like the last warm-up of the day. This is like, are you ready? Yeah. Who here has a dream? Yeah, and what's interesting about that speech, right, is if you think about his speech

or you think about her speech, they really are articulating brotherhood, a kind of utopia vision for society where you see people beyond skin color. And so she says, quote, I have walked into palaces of kings and queens and into 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 what? I open my big mouth and then look out because when Josephine opens her mouth, they hear it all over the world. Yeah. I mean, that's badass. But also she's talking to herself in the third person. I know. Proper diva.

Yeah. Yeah. So she gets married a fourth time to another Frenchman called Joe Bouillon. Her third husband had been Jean Leon. Whatever happened to him? They divorced. You know, it doesn't work out. He had very little personality apparently. Okay, cool.

Top of the show, Desiree. You mentioned that you thought maybe she was bisexual, that she may have been queer. These are hard things to historicize sometimes because these sorts of relationships don't necessarily get written down. And I think, too, particularly because there are stories that Josephine would later exile one of her sons because of his homosexuality. Oh, wow. Yeah, so it's very difficult to talk about, particularly, I think, for women. She's in theater. homosexuality. Oh, wow.

Yeah. So it's very difficult to talk about, particularly, I think, for women. She's in theater. I think there is a lot of understanding around the female relationships and friendships and the kind of blurred boundaries there. So she's believed to have had several relationships with female co-stars, a rumored love affair with Frida Kahlo. I mean, who didn't have a love affair with Frida Kahlo, apparently? But my favorite story, I think, so we're back to the count. They're on a trip and Josephine gets the attention of this Hungarian

captain. And so the count has had enough. And he says, I will not stand for this. I'm going to challenge you to a duel. So they go to a cemetery and they take out these swords. No. Eventually, she talks both men down. But she is one of those people that is really looking for that companionship. She has lots of lovers. She's not ashamed of that. And that avowed sex positivity is very much a part of her life. She loves to love. She loves to love.

Desiree, have you heard of Josephine Baker's Rainbow Tribe? No. This is her trying to be mum to the world. Michelle, can you talk us through it? Because it's quite an interesting thing that we might feel a little uncomfortable with maybe. I don't know. It's her speech that she gives in Copenhagen in the 1960s. She first articulates this vision that she wants to be mother of the world and she wants to have five sons of different nationalities.

And so after her marriage to Bouillon, who's a really kind of accommodating spouse, someone I think most people could get behind. She kind of sets off to kind of get these first five sons, which is how she. The first five. I got to get. She's forming the A team. But I mean, is she adopting sons or she's like, we got to knock these babies out quick, quick, quick, quick. So actually they're on tour and she thinks she's pregnant and she has a miscarriage. And it's the aftermath of that that she really sets out on adoption. And so she hires an agent whose job it is to find these children from all over the world. And so her first adopted son comes from Japan.

But this is like all powerful women. This is a Madonna, Angelina Jolie situation. Let me get one from every continent. That's absolutely what she does. So eventually Venezuela, Morocco, Belgium, Finland. And the Finland adoption is actually quite interesting because that might have been ill gotten in some kind of way. They just snatched a kid and sold it. Kind of. He would go by Jari, but his birth father functioned as her driver. And so he drove her to the orphanage and staged

Jari to kind of, she tells the story of her coming to the orphanage and she sees this baby who kind of jumps into her arms. And so he gets the fee for kind of setting it up. But that's his birth father. And it might have been a way to kind of get back at his wife. But the kid is kind of shepherded away to France. When it's all said and done, she has 12 children. They're just hanging out with the tiger and the monkey and the tortoise together she raises them on this estate that has 39 rooms this castle's 100 staff in addition to the chateau it has a motel a bakery cafes a jazz club a miniature golf

course and a wax museum at what point is your house so big that you're like i need to stop for a coffee we've only gotten to the first of 12 bathrooms. I can't. Like, what? But she sort of opens it to the public, doesn't she? She does. This is sort of

a racial theme park. Right. So she opens it to the public, to tourists. The whole idea of it is to see her children just coexisting in this interracial paradise.

The children have really spoken about how much they resented this. Of course. Just because you want to be looked at doesn't mean we do. Right. She didn't have any one of a Jewish background,

any of her kids. So, like, she adopts a French kid and, like, renames him Moze. Nope. Because she can't get a child from Israel. Nope. So she dressed the children in strong national ethnic and religious garb. So it's like it's a small world ride.

Yeah. It's happening right now. And also she blows all her money on it. She opens this in 1949, I think. By 1969, she's pretty much bankrupt. In her 60s, she's run out of money. Damn it. What about the hotel?

Well, she's had to sell that, I guess. Damn it. She's turfed out of her theme park and she's sitting on the step famously for like seven or eight hours.

She just sits there. In a blanket. Yeah. And it makes the news, like the journalists pick it up. And she puts in a call to her old friend,

Fidel Castro. Yeah. And he sends a gift. Do you want to guess what the gift is? Could the gift be a house in Cuba that i can

go live in right now no it's a box of cuban fruit it's not so at least send the cigars fidel she's not what you want is it you're looking for like some money or yeah cuban fruit somewhere to crash i need this damn papaya for i'm homeless do you not get this but she does have a celebrity friend who does sort her out. Princess of Monaco. Oh, yeah. Grace Kelly. Yeah, Grace. Okay.

They'd met in New York in the 50s. Whoa. And their story goes back a long way. They met in the 50s. Princess Grace becomes a really big fan of Josephine Baker. And so she, along with a couple other celebrities, raised the funds to allow Josephine to kind of have this big review. And it's called Josephine a Babino and it premieres in 1975 in Paris.

How old is she now? She's had over 50 years in the business. She was born in 1906. Whoa. So she's 70 years old basically doing this. Almost. Yeah, 68. And she's still rocking it.

Grace gives her a house, which is nice. And she has this big event that's so popular. You have people like Princess Grace, Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger, Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, who are all in the audience kind of watching this triumphant return for her. This just really big moment that is supposed to open up this new chapter for her life. The quote is, she seemed to have more energy than the young showgirls with whom she was dancing and at times seemed younger than them. She's 68 years old.

But she needed it more than all of them put together, so I get that. And she dies almost immediately afterwards. No! No! Did she dance her whole heart out on that stage? Basically does. She left it all on the stage. Do you want to guess what her deathbed is like?

I mean, is it Marie Antoinette's bed by any chance? Probably. She's probably had to sell that if she did before. Probably true. She dies surrounded by her reviews.

Yeah, her reviews. They find her just unconscious surrounded by the newspaper reviews of that night four days after her performance. Yes. It's believed that she had

a cerebral hemorrhage either caused by a heart attack or a stroke and she's taken to the hospital and the star kind of falls on Josephine Baker. I mean, if you've got to go, big spectacular farewell. That's a showbiz life and death, though, right there, of course. I just want to say quickly, there's a Vogue article in 2016 that said, Josephine Baker radically redefined notions of race and gender through style and performance

in a way that continues to echo throughout fashion and music today, from Prada to Beyonce. It's an incredible legacy. The Nuance Window! And that leads us in, I suppose, to The Nuance Window, where we are going to evaluate what she contributed to the 20th century. This is a two-minute section where Michelle talks and we listen. It's a very narrow, nuanced window. Well, we could really crack on because there's so much to say, but we have to keep it tight. So I'm going to ask Michelle to

be punctual and pithy. So two minutes. Michelle, take it away. Yes. So I think that Josephine Baker, an amazing life, an amazing person, but she presents all these interesting questions around respectability, around sexuality. I think what's important to remember about her at a time when she was really pushing for new boundaries on sexual expression, many of her contemporaries who are African-American were pushing for a type of respectability. So the way in which she's challenging these boundaries of thinking about new opportunities for African-American women, for women in general, we should really hold on to that. We should really think about that. Because oftentimes I think we want our heroes to be perfect. We want them to be unproblematic. I think that Josephine Baker really provides us an opportunity to think about, for better or worse, the emancipatory potential in being

problematic. And I think that that's a wonderful thing for not just African-American women, but for women writ large. Thank you so much. That's amazing. The emancipatory power of being problematic is like the name of everything. That's so great. And yeah, I kind of always think about Josephine Baker, even though they're not of the same era-ish,

but maybe kind of actually are in concert with someone like Zora Neale Hurston, who was of that same... Yeah, they're both coming out of the heart, like that Harlem Renaissance movement. And both of them were people that other Black people wanted to reign in because they were like, we need to do this respectability politics. And then both these women were like, why would I respect any of that? You know, like, you want me to be less than a person? Like, why would I ever do that? That's absolutely right. And you don't know, like when you're doing it, I'm sure she didn't

know kind of what was going to end up for her. But I'm very happy that she went the route she did. God, she's amazing. So what do you know now? Okay, well, we have reached the point of the show where we quiz our comedian. Okay. Desiree. See if I've retained any of this besides the wow, blown away look on my face right now.

I mean, I've enjoyed the expressions you've been pulling this episode. What? We've had some amazing range of emotions. This is what's called the So What Do You Know Now? It is 60 seconds on the clock. Okay. So, without much further ado, here we go. First question.

In which year was Josephine Baker born? 1906? Yes. Very good. Josephine's mum gave her what nickname as a child?

Tumpy. The fat one. Thanks, mum. She did. What happened in St. Louis in 1917? Oh, the riot. I don't know what

it was called. That's right. The East St. Louis riot. Yes. She famously wore a skirt made of what in Paris? Bananas. Bananas. Name three of the animals in her menagerie.

Okay, she had a horse named Tomato. She had a cheetah named Chiquita. And she had a goat. I can't remember the goat's name. Toot Toot. Toot Toot. Yeah, correct. What was the name of the chimpanzee?

Do you remember that? Oh. It was a really nice old lady's name. Ethel. Ethel, yes. Thank you. What did Josephine collectively call her adopted children? It's not the Rainbow Connection because it's Kermit the Frog,

and it's not the Rainbow Coalition because it's Jesse Jackson. It's the Rainbow Tribe? Yes. Very good. Name one of the two military honors she was awarded by France. Oh, is it Legion d'Or? Legion d'Honneur, yes. D'Honneur, yeah. Very good. Name one of the two military honours she was awarded by France. Oh, is it Legion d'Or? Legion d'Honneur, yes. D'Honneur, yeah.

Very good. What happened to the Stalk Club in New York in 1951? Well, it got picketed after they refused to give her proper service. That's absolutely right. And she had to make some calls. And finally, on the 12th of April 1975, Josephine Baker died surrounded by what? All of her glowing reviews. Amazing run.

You got 10 out of 10, which are totally understandable because all of this stuff is amazingly memorable. What a life. Yeah, absolutely. What an incredible life. Just amazing. Three memoirs doesn't seem enough. No, it really doesn't.

You're absolutely right. And I think you're right. Rihanna is the only person that comes to mind who I think could pull that off. I think so too. Yeah. Well, there we go we go on that note we have to end the podcast I feel like we've learned a lot about Josephine Baker but also I feel like we've learned a lot about the 20th century through Josephine Baker she's kind of this amazing Forrest Gump Zellick character who just she's there at all the places you want to be yes very much all right well that is all we've got

time for so if you've enjoyed today's podcast, please do share it with your friends or leave a review online and make sure to subscribe to You're Dead to Me so you never miss an episode. It's on BBC Sounds. But for now,

let me say a huge thank you to our fantastic guests. It's been a marvellous encore performance. In History Corner, we had Dr Michelle Crestfield from the University of Birmingham. Thank you, Michelle.

Thank you. And in Comedy Corner, the incomparable Desiree Birch. Thank you, Desiree. It was such a pleasure. And if you in Comedy Corner, the incomparable Desiree Birch. Thank you, Desiree. It was such a pleasure. And if you want to hear more of Michelle and Desiree, then pop on to the BBC Sounds to listen to the Harriet Tubman episode from Series 1. And to you, dear listeners, join me next time as I tempt two more fabulous guests onto the dance floor for another historical hot step. But for now, I'm off to go and stitch some bananas into my pants and do the Charleston around the studio. You don't have to stay for that,

but if you want to, you're welcome. Anyway, bye! You're Dead to Me was a Muddy Knees media production for BBC Radio 4. The researcher was Amy Grant, the script was by Emma Naguse,

the project manager was Isla Matthews and the producer was Cornelius Mendez. From the one village behind the mountain. Imagine you're living a very different life on the other side behind the mountain. Imagine you're living a very different life on the other side of the world. You feel I cannot do anything.

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