The Many Faces of Josephine Baker Read online

  An international star of the Jazz Age, known for her daring dances, exotic costumes, and menagerie of pets, Josephine Baker was born into poverty in St. Louis in 1906. A natural comedian with dreams of performing on stage, she talked her way into her first dance role as a determined young teen and then jumped at the opportunity to travel with a vaudeville troupe. It didn’t take long for her natural talent to shine on stage, and she made her mark as “the funny one.” Josephine exploited her dancing and performance skills, doggedly pursuing her dream of becoming a respected star. By the time she was 19, Josephine was performing in Paris, and a whole new world opened up. In a few short years she had propelled herself from a St. Louis girl with a dream to a full-fledged Parisian sensation.

  The Many Faces of Josephine Baker traces Josephine’s personal and professional paths, exploring how her sense of commitment to fighting racism and injustice grew and matured as she traveled around the world, leading her to become an outspoken participant in the US Civil Rights Movement, conduct important espionage work for the French Resistance during World War II, and adopt her “rainbow tribe”—12 children, each from a different nationality, ethnicity, or religious group—in an effort to prove racial harmony was possible.

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  Women Heroes of World War II: 26 Stories of Espionage, Sabotage, Resistance, and Rescue

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  Copyright © 2015 by Peggy Caravantes

  All rights reserved

  Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated

  814 North Franklin Street

  Chicago, Illinois 60610

  ISBN 978-1-61373-034-8

  Cover and interior design: Sarah Olson

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Caravantes, Peggy, 1935–

  The many faces of Josephine Baker : dancer, singer, activist, spy / Peggy Caravantes.

  pages cm. — (Women of action)

  Summary: “Author Peggy Caravantes provides the first in-depth portrait of Josephine Baker written for young adults. This lively biography follows Baker’s life from her childhood, to her participation in the civil rights movement, her espionage work in WWII, and the adoption of her twelve children. Also included are informative sidebars, fascinating photographs, source notes, and a bibliography”-- Provided by publisher.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-1-61373-034-8 (hardback)

  1. Baker, Josephine, 1906-1975—Juvenile literature. 2. Dancers—France—Biography—Juvenile literature. 3. African American entertainers—France—Biography—Juvenile literature. 4. Spies—France—Biography—Juvenile literature. 5. World War, 1939-1945—Secret service—France. I. Title.

  GV1785.B3C37 2015

  792.802’8092—dc23

  [B]

  2014026074

  Printed in the United States of America

  5 4 3 2 1

  Dedicated to friends, old and new

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  1 Her Own Journey

  2 Show Business Debut

  3 Joséphine Charms Paris

  4 La Folie du Jour

  5 Two Loves

  6 Storms of Life

  7 Joséphine’s Challenges

  8 Let My People Go

  9 In My Village

  10 Joséphine and Jo Split

  11 Losing Les Milandes

  12 The Curtain Falls

  Appendix: The Rainbow Tribe

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  RESEARCHING INFORMATION ABOUT Josephine Baker was a challenge because of the many versions of her life story. Most of the confusion is due to Josephine herself. She began to erase her early past when she left the United States for France at the age of 19. She destroyed every picture and paper she had because she did not want to remember those days of struggle.

  Later on, when Josephine talked about her early life, her memories became more and more fanciful, more romantically embellished. No matter what time she was remembering, she was always aware of how it affected her public image at the moment she was speaking. She would say anything as long as she looked good in the story. Once, when challenged by a reporter about the truth of what she was saying, she responded heatedly that she did not lie—she just improved on life.

  Her many biographers sorted through the myriad versions of her story, but they did not all reach the same conclusions. All of them consulted mounds of archival materials and interviewed hundreds of people who knew Josephine. Each biographer believed he or she had found the truth, and though there are many points upon which they agree, there are just as many on which they disagree. Consequently, depending upon a reader’s choice of biography, the person will get only that writer’s conclusions about what is truth about Josephine Baker.

  In the process of trying to sort it all out, a lot of misinformation has been repeated by writer after writer. But the truth is nebulous—almost impossible to pin down. I’m not sure that, by the end of her life, Josephine herself could separate fact from fiction.

  I, too, have struggled while searching through many resources, trying to distinguish truth from fabrication. My goal has always been to introduce today’s young readers to the story of a remarkable woman who rose from poverty, overcame racial prejudice, and became a star, even as she remained an enigma.

  1

  Her Own Journey

  WITH ONLY THE CLOTHES ON HER BACK, 13-year-old Josephine Baker, along with Clara Smith and the Dixie Steppers, climbed aboard a train headed for Memphis, Tennessee. As the train moved through East St. Louis, Illinois—one of America’s worst slums, filled with dilapidated and sordid housing—Josephine pressed her nose against the car’s window. Dense clouds of coal smoke mixed with the stench of dying cattle. Piles of garbage filled the overcrowded streets. Remembering her years there, Josephine vowed: “I’m leaving here a nobody but someday I’m gonna be somebody … and you ain’t gonna get to see me … ’cause I ain’t ever coming back here again!”

  And so began Josephine Baker’s journey to fulfill her dream of becoming a star.

  Born Freda Josephine McDonald on June 3, 1906, in the St. Louis Female Hospital, she was the daughter of Carrie McDonald, a washerwoman, and Eddie Carson, a drummer in St. Louis gambling houses. The two dated, and about a year after they met, Carrie gave birth to Josephine. The round, roly-poly infant reminded her of Humpty Dumpty. When Carrie had first heard the egg’s name said aloud, the words sounded like “Tumpy.” That became the nickname that stayed with Josephine throughout her childhood.

  Carrie became pregnant again when Josephine was 16 months old. With the birth of Richard Alexander on October 12, 1907, the happy-go-lucky Eddie deserted Carrie, leaving her to provide for the babies. She struggled for a couple of years to earn enough money to
keep the household running, but she was unsuccessful. Eventually, she married 23-year-old Arthur Martin, a brawny factory worker, thinking he would provide for her and the two children. Unfortunately, his moodiness and quick temper often cost him jobs, so Carrie took in laundry to support the family.

  For the next several years, the family of four lived in a succession of run-down, rat-infested dwellings. Josephine’s stepfather often failed to pay the rent. Each time a landlord evicted the family, they searched for another place to live. The financial situation grew worse with the births of two more girls, Margaret and Willie Mae. The hard life discouraged Carrie. She often took out her frustration on her oldest daughter, who resembled the father who had deserted them. In later years Josephine recalled, “Mama said things to me I’m sure she couldn’t mean, that she hated me and wished I were dead.”

  At age six, Josephine attended first grade at Lincoln Elementary School, which served poor and middle-income black students. Her only school clothing was a blue dress trimmed in white, and she wore it every day for the entire year. The other children mocked her lack of shoes. To get them to laugh about something else, Josephine became the class clown. She crossed her eyes, stuck out her tongue, and made silly faces. Mostly, she wanted to get out of the overcrowded classroom of 50 students and be free to roam the streets of her neighborhood. In the next few years, Josephine attended school only about one day in three; she didn’t learn to read and write until adulthood.

  During part of her first-grade year, Josephine stayed with her Grandma McDonald and Aunt Elvira, who lived in the same neighborhood. Elvira, who headed the family, was a large copper-skinned Cherokee woman with a booming voice and two braids of long black hair. She spent her time either weaving shawls or performing tribal dances in the house. The loud sounds she made when dancing scared Josephine, who always ran outside. In contrast, Josephine enjoyed being with her grandmother, who showed her the love for which she longed. She baked cookies and cornbread for the little girl and told her stories about her great-great grandparents who were slaves brought from Africa to America. She sang to her, told her Bible stories, and repeated over and over Josephine’s favorite story, Cinderella.

  Josephine wished she could be like Cinderella and change from her dirty, tattered clothes into beautiful gowns with sparkling jewels. She created a fantasy world and acted it out in the basement of her grandmother’s house. From some of Mrs. McDonald’s old clothes, Josephine created costumes for the plays she performed for the neighborhood children. She made benches for her audience by placing boards across boxes. She charged each person a penny to watch her sing and dance. As part of the performance and to get the laughter she craved, Josephine crossed her eyes and grinned broadly—techniques she used in show business as she grew older.

  One Sunday, Josephine was walking from church to her grandmother’s house when she stepped on a rusty nail that punctured her bare foot. It became infected, and her leg swelled to an alarming size. Her foot was so painful that her mother took her to the hospital, where the doctor wanted to amputate the leg. Josephine became hysterical at the thought of never walking or dancing again.

  “No! No! Please don’t cut if off,” she shrieked. The doctor agreed to drain the wound first. Ugly, smelly, infected blood oozed out, but the technique saved her leg.

  After leaving the hospital, Josephine returned to live with her parents and her siblings. Another child to feed increased the family’s money problems. After Josephine’s leg healed, Carrie told her that because she was the oldest child, she must earn money to help support them. At first seven-year-old Josephine went around the neighborhood looking for jobs. She offered to sweep steps or clean snow from sidewalks. Few people hired her. Then Carrie found her daughter a job as a maid for a widow named Mrs. Kaiser. In exchange for the child’s work, the woman would provide her clothing and food. With that job, Josephine’s childhood ended.

  For a short time, Mrs. Kaiser was good-hearted to the young girl; she bought Josephine a dress and a pair of shoes. But the kindness didn’t last long: the widow was a bully and began treating Josephine like a slave. The little girl worked hard at the woman’s large country house, but because of Missouri’s compulsory education law, she also had to attend school. So Josephine rose each day at 5 AM in order to complete all her tasks as a maid before going to school. For breakfast she ate cold potatoes and then carried coal, lit a fire in each room, chopped wood, scrubbed steps, and swept the rooms. She returned from school to peel potatoes, wash dishes, clean the kitchen, and do laundry. For supper, the woman provided the child cold cornbread and molasses, which Josephine shared with a white rooster she named Tiny Tim.

  When Josephine’s chores ended around 10 PM, she picked up Tiny Tim and stumbled to the cellar. There, she slept in a wooden box with the dog, Three Legs, who gave her fleas. She scratched and scratched. Her scratching annoyed Mrs. Kaiser, who beat the child to make her stop, but first the widow made the girl remove her clothes so that the blows would not wear out the fabric. As Tiny Tim grew fatter from sharing Josephine’s pitiful dinners, Mrs. Kaiser began eying him as a potential meal for herself. One day, she told Josephine to kill Tiny Tim so he could be prepared to eat. With tears streaming down her cheeks, the child grabbed the bird between her legs and cut its neck with a pair of scissors. The squawking and the warm blood covering her hands traumatized Josephine. She wanted to run away but knew it would be useless because she was so young and had nowhere to go.

  Exhaustion, lack of food, and fear took their toll on the child. She became thinner and thinner and developed a rasping cough. One day, she felt especially ill and forgot to watch the water she was boiling to wash dishes. Some of it splashed over on the stove. Mrs. Kaiser grabbed one of the girl’s hands and plunged it into the pot of boiling water. Josephine later described what happened next: “I scream, I scream, Mother, Mother, help me. I escape to the next house screaming like a lunatic. I fall in front of the door. All my skin and my fingernails are boiled, ready to fall off. The blood is cooked. When I wake up, I’m in the hospital.”

  Carrie had to take Josephine home again, but not for long. She soon found another household to employ her daughter. In early January, Josephine went to work for the Masons, a childless couple. They agreed to provide a room and food in exchange for the girl’s housework in their beautiful home. The Masons treated Josephine kindly. They provided her with a real bed and enough nourishing food that she gained weight. They allowed her to play with the neighborhood children and to attend school, wearing pretty clothes and shoes that Mrs. Mason bought her.

  In their basement, Josephine used worn velvet curtains to set up a theater. Mrs. Mason gave her old clothes and a feathered hat to wear as costumes. She entertained the children in the neighborhood by singing and dancing for them. For the first time in a long time, Josephine felt happy. But her contentment did not last.

  For several nights she heard a noise like heavy breathing and thought a ghost had come to her room. She told Mrs. Mason about the sounds. Her employer told her that if the phantom came back, Josephine should call her. That night she heard it again. When the ghost tried to climb into her bed, Josephine yelled, “Oh, it’s the ghost, Mrs. Mason, please come quick!”

  The woman rushed to the little girl’s room and discovered that the ghost was Mr. Mason.

  The next morning, Mrs. Mason told Josephine she could not work for the couple anymore. Josephine did not understand why she had to leave and thought the woman was angry because she had been scared. She promised not to yell out again, but her employer did not relent. Josephine asked if she could take her new clothes with her. Mrs. Mason agreed. When Josephine went to the basement to collect them she realized, “Never again would I draw back the musty velvet curtains. Never again would I wear my feathered hat. I would never again be queen. I choked back my tears. Somewhere deep inside me I vowed that somehow I would grow up to be a famous star with beautiful flowing gowns.”

  Josephine returned home, where Carrie blamed her
daughter for losing a good job. The money was more important to her than her daughter’s safety, and she ignored what would have happened to Josephine if she had remained in the Mason household. Josephine’s stepfather, Arthur, just laughed at the child’s naiveté.

  These two experiences of working in someone’s home scared Josephine. At not quite eight years old, she decided to find her own work and gathered a group of neighborhood children who also needed to earn money. They walked to the part of town where white families lived and sought work there. The children offered to scrub or wax floors, polish furniture, run errands, shovel snow, and babysit. Josephine’s height and slender frame made her look older, and she claimed to be 15 years old. She told potential employers that she was stronger than she looked. For each job she got, she made about 50 cents. She kept a nickel for herself and gave the rest to Carrie for the family. When they could not get jobs, Josephine and the other children rummaged through white people’s garbage, looking for a chicken neck or fish head or a few discarded vegetables to make soup.

  In another attempt to earn a little money, Josephine and her siblings often went to the Union railroad yard, where they picked up lumps of coal and stuffed them in sacks. They later sold the coal pieces for a few pennies each. Josephine became daring enough to leave her brother and sisters on the ground and climb on top of hopper cars. From there, she threw them larger pieces of coal that sold for more money. Pushing the limits, she jumped down only when she felt the rumble of the train starting to move. She recalled, “I throw myself. The train just accelerating … I fall on the ground.”

  Josephine spent any spare time visiting her grandmother and her aunt, who one day invited the young girl to come live with them again. Josephine agreed. She was no longer scared of her Aunt Elvira, who didn’t seem as big as she remembered. Elvira spoke more softly and acted tired. At her grandmother and aunt’s house, Josephine had her own bed instead of having to sleep on the same bedbug-infested mattress with her three siblings.