Essay On Josephine Baker

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Josephine Baker was an exceptional woman who never depended on a man. She never hesitated to leave a man when she felt good and ready. In her lifetime she accomplished many great things. She adopted 12 children, served France during World War II, and was an honorable correspondent for the French Resistance. She fought against fascism in Europe during World War II and racism in the United States. She grew up poor and left home at an early age and worked her way onto the stage. Baker was more popular in France than in the states. Audiences in America were racist towards Baker and that’s when she vowed she wouldn’t perform in a place that wasn’t integrated. Freda Josephine McDonald was born on June 3, 1906 in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father, …show more content…

She realized she would never have to depend on a man for financial stability. A habit she might have learned growing up without her real father. She remarried in 1921 to Willie Baker, whose last name she decided to keep. She remarried again in 1937 to Frenchman Jean Lion, from which she obtained French citizenship. Then a last time in 1947 to a French orchestra leader Jo Bouillon, who helped to raise her 12 adopted children. She was never again officially remarried but spent the rest of her life with American artist Robert Brady after exchanging marriage vows in a church in Acapulco, …show more content…

She loved animals, and at one time she owned a leopard, a chimpanzee, a pig, a snake, a goat, a parrot, parakeets, fish, three cats and seven dogs. Her career flourished in the integrated Paris society; when La Revue Nègre closed, Josephine starred in La Folie du Jour at the Follies-Bergère Theater. Her jaw-dropping performance, including a costume of 16 bananas strung into a skirt, gained her celebrity status. Josephine in 1927 earned more than any entertainer in Europe. She starred in two movies in the early 1930s, Zou-Zou and Princess Tam-Tam, and moved her family from St. Louis to Les Milandes, her estate in Castelnaud-Fayrac,

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