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Who Did What Now
162. Josephine Baker - Death of a Showgirl - Part III
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Resistance, Rainbow Tribe and Revue
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Acast powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.
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Hello, Pablo Torre here, host of the Murrow Award winning and Peabody nominated show Pablo Torre Finds out from the Athletic, where we use journalism to investigate mysteries like whether the richest owner in sports helped fund a no show job for his NBA superstar. In other words, Kawhi Leonard got from aspiration a $28 million no show job.
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Yeah, it's amazing. I'm honestly so jealous.
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Or how our friend Action Bronson feels about covering his calves. When was the last time you wore pants?
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I don't. Probably 15 to 20 years. The last time I put pants on I had an acc times a week.
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Follow us down the rabbit hole on Pablo Torre finds out. Watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
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Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com hello delicious friends, and welcome to who did what Now? The history podcast. That's not your history class. With me, your host, Katie Charlwood, history harlot and reader of books. So a comment on threads today made me cry. Like, not in a bad way. Well, kind of in a bad way because I don't like to feel human emotions if I can help it. I'm doing very well at closing myself off to the world. But I made this joke, right, about how I'll get, like, DMs from like, people on like Facebook or whatever. And it goes along the lines of I've searched everywhere for your podcast. Help me find your podcast. I've looked everywhere, I've searched and searched, and nowhere, across land and sea could I find it. And so I'll always ask them, like, what apps, like, what podcasting apps are you looking at? Because, like, I'm on the major one. So, like, is it a distribution issue? Like, what do I need to fix here? Like, is something wrong that I'm not searchable? Because, like, if you can't find me, something's wrong. And so I'll ask them and they'll respond with something like Facebook, which, as I'm sure those of you listening know, is not a podcasting app. So I made that little, like, joke and someone commented, I think it was like Chicano in Paris. They said that they found. I found your podcast and scrolled through it and when I saw you did an entire episode on the Zoot Riots and then listen to it, I was hooked and felt seen and had to let you know that what you do fucking matters. And thank you. Bye. See, I'm getting emotional. Now, right. I'm not good at taking compliments, even though I joke about how I survive on caffeine and compliments and potatoes. But I'm, I'm just, you know, a wonder bread, mayonnaise sandwich over here, you know, a little bit of seasoning. But I'm. I'm a historian. I'm a sociologist, I'm a. You're a friendly neighborhood social scientist. But I, I specialize in, you know, misinformation, propaganda, disinformation, sensationalism, and history. I talk about the stuff that gets overlooked and hidden and there are so many facets and parts of history which are so often misrepresented and dismissed. And so I try and tell a full story. I try and give full context, and I'll always work hard at doing that. And this is probably the most serious most of you have ever heard me be, but I'll always try. And when a person of a particular group that you have discussed that's not your group, tells you that you're doing something right, it matters and it means something to me. And I, I'm glad that I'm doing something right in here in my kitchen, rambling into my microphone. But I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, Katie. Quit your jibble, Jabba, and fact me, in fact you. I will. But we don't have to get our source on today because again, the sources are in the very first episode and there's just so many. So time for a catch up for episode, whatever it is. Josephine Baker, Part 3, Death of a Showgirl. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then let's begin. Guess we have to catch up on Josephine Baker and inhale. Born in St. Louis, Missouri to a black mother and quite probably slash, possibly slash, most likely white father. She grew up in poverty, unresented by her mother, and she escaped her home life by marrying two men named Willie, all before the age of 15. She fled to New York, became a chorus girl, moved to Paris, became a sensation, a movie star and actress, a blessed performer, and wrote her memoirs at the age of 21. She had affairs with men, women and a stonemason pretend count who got shot in the shoulder during a duel for Josephine's affection. She gets a divorce. Her lover dies. She gets remarried and obtains French citizenship and a new agent. She joins the Free French Movement and becomes a member of the French Resistance when the Nazis occupy France. Showgirl turned spy saves people from Nazis and. And gets divorced again. She fights segregation and almost dies from surgery and auctions off Fenway to Support people in need. And that's what you missed, Anglis. Oh, okay. So France has been liberated post Second World War, and Josephine Baker, for her efforts in the Resistance, received the Croix de Guerre, the Rosette de la Resistance, and she was made a Chevalier of the Legion d' Honneur, Bachon de Gon. And while the relationship had flourished under wartime pressures, Josephine and Jacob T went their separate ways. But love was never too far out of reach for Josephine because she reconnected with orchestra leader Jean Bullion. He was smart. I mean, like, he went to a music conservatory, and he was, like, chill and quiet and sensible, and he had a good business head on him, which is like, something she needs in her life, because Josephine Baker was a diva. Like, she was a diva and she was creative and all of the chaos that came with that. So Bullion had accompanied her on some of her early, like, wartime shows. And Josephine, she was a darling of France and she wanted to use her celebrity to fight racism. But first by doing a few things at home, one of which was buying and renovating the Chateau Les Milan, the abode she had been living in when Paris was occupied, because she planned to raise a family there. Like, not just any family. She wanted to have a multicultural, multi racial, multi religious family, something that she referred to as, like, the brotherhood. She thought that humankind was a brotherhood that we should all be a part of. Like, it's very idealistic. It's very idealistic, but this is something she believed was possible, and she thought that she could display this and bring it into fruition and it would make people realize that, you know, race is a social construct and that religion need not divide us and all that jazz. So while that's being renovated, like, while her estate is being sorted, you know, she's touring North Africa performing for troops who were still stationed there. And while she's there, I don't know what it is with Josephine and North Africa, but every time she goes there, she has severe intestinal issues. So she has to have surgery again. Like, in the last episode, you know, she said that she had been cut open so many times, they may as well have put in a zipper. And when she's feeling, you know, a little bit more recuperated, like after surgery, Josephine marries Jo Bullion on 3rd June, 1947, which just so happened to be her 41st birthday. There is hope for me yet, lads. There's hope for me yet. Maybe someone will want to marry me. Maybe someone will want access to both the UK and Europe, because I got that yo Sorry. Instead of a regular honeymoon, Joe and Josephine perform in Mexico with his orchestra. And this is broadcast on the radio. Like this was a big deal at the time. Like it was. And they are so popular that they get invited to perform at the Majestic Theatre in Boston. And, and this, this tanks actually. Like she doesn't have, I'm gonna say, a great amount of luck in the US like for a whole host of reasons, but one main one, if you guessed racism, you guessed right. So like when she is invited to speak at the all Black Uni in Nashville, so Fisk University, she discusses her experiences without prejudice when she traveled and how she had racial equal France. So like legally she had racial equality in France. But let's not pretend there wasn't like microaggressions going on because you know, you know, we all know what happened at the parade, you know, with the other soldiers. She just happened to be France's darling. And we would be remiss to say if the fact that she was a light skinned black woman, like if colorism didn't come into it, you know, and I think that plays a part in it. Like now I wouldn't be the utmost authority on colorism and I don't think any white person can be, but it would be ignorant if we didn't think that played a part in it. So Josephine, she talks about how black people have talent, but it's ignored by white people in America. Sorry, at the time, what did I do that? Did I do that? Did I do that? So this was the start of her public speaking career and she goes to return to France. But before she does, she invites her family to come back with her to escape, you know, racial prejudice in the United States. Not like that's a thing that could be happening now. Sorry. So her mother, Carrie, she had remarried again and her latest husband did not want to immigrate. Like he flat out refused. But Carrie, who was, you know, much older now, she decided to say, fck that for a game of soldiers. Like I'm sorry if your husband doesn't want to go to Paris with you. I feel like that's a him problem. Okay. And so she says this for game of soldiers and she's going, right? And Carrie McDonald never returned to the USA like that was her done. And so she goes over, but then so do like her children, so Josephine's siblings, and so they move over too. So they move over to the, the Chateau de Le and they're doing the estate and they. And like it's a big estate, there's stuff on it. There's, um. I think she gives one of her brothers, like a petrol station, a gas station type thing. And so they're like, they're earning their keep, but they're. They're there, you know. And Josephine, this is her way of caring for her family. Like, this is what she's trying to do. Like she's got the means to do so at this point. And I think for her, this was a way of healing old wounds. You know, the way that she was raised, everything that she was brought up with. And not to excuse the behavior or how she was treated at the time, but when you think about the way that society was and the environment that she was growing up in and the way that Carrie was treated too, like, this is not exactly the most unprecedented of events. Like, it's not surprising that such an environment is created in a time of huge prejudice and an atmosphere of like, fear and terror. So this is her way, I think, of just like bridging that gap and trying to smooth things over and have that peace in her life. And so she and her fourth husband, they opened up a cabaret club, you know, called Club de Champs de Lys. It is a catchy song. I regret nothing. Okay, so the Champs Elysees. So, yeah, the Club des Champs d'. Elysees. And all of these celebrities of the era, they come to the opening like it was. It was kind of a big deal. So, like, you have all of these, like, big jazz stars, all blues rhythm. Everybody, everybody. The who's who of arts and performing. Like, everybody's there. And so this is sort of running along as well as, you know, the building of the estate. And she's also recording like. Like records. Like, she's recording music, she's singing. And her voice, like, it matured so beautifully over the years. And I love the fact that we can still listen now. Like, we can listen to an LP of Josephine Baker. Like she was alive a century ago. And we can hear her voice. And when you talk about modern technology and how technology is like, you know, has dangerous parts. But when you can actually, like, hold on to moments like this and you can listen to someone who was so important, there's just. There's also something. This is very pretentious of me, but I love that crackle, like that sound when you put that record on. It kind of goes like before it starts. Like, I love that crackly noise. And I like an LP and I like that they're re releasing LPs now. Like that artists are doing it. But like, release three guys. Like, three is fine. Like, mummy bear, daddy bear, baby bear. Like, you got three is fine. Like, everyone is gonna have their baby bears porridge. You know, one that's just right and that's all you need. I say that as someone who doesn't own a record player anymore, but I still have a drawer full of Kate Bush LPs and David Bowie and some Rolling Stones and a few other things. That's not the point, okay? I like them. So, Josephine. So she's doing this and she's doing all this stuff, but she is still determined to have a family. And she even gets a blessing from Pope Pius xii. Like, I'm not sure what her religion was at the time. I know that she does convert to Catholicism at one point, but, like, what her religion was previously, I'm not entirely sure. But being in France, which is a predominantly Catholic country, or at least it was, it does seem likely that that would be. That would be the religion to choose. Because France, as we know, used to be, like, super Catholic, like, incredibly Catholic, lest we forget the impotence trials. So she's looking for a blessing. She gets a blessing from the Pope because every little helps, I guess. Meanwhile, she is a huge, huge international star. And like I said earlier, she wants to use her celebrity to. To fight racism and inequality. Like, she's supposed to be doing this big, grand US Tour. And she has it in her contracts that she will not play to segregated audiences anywhere. Poc People of color were denied entry. She refused to play. Right. And she is rejected by 39 establishments all across, like, New York, Las Vegas, Miami, like, all of these, you know, big venues. Oh, like in France. In France, she was a decorated war hero. Like, in the us she can't walk through the front door. And as well, like, she's turning down buckets and buckets of duckets, right? She is turning down so much money because she will only play because she demands to perform to integrated crowds. And, like, she could have easily turned around and gone, no, no, I will perform to this black crowd and perform to this white crowd, and then you will give me the money, and that will be the thing that I do. But no, no, no, no. Because she has a moral compass, right? She has a code of ethics. She has what some people call a fucking backbone, okay? And, like, it's so weird to see today, even the amount of people that are willing to take, you know, a handful of cash instead of, I don't know, having ethics, having basic empathy for other people and standing up for what's right. But anyway, I digress. Oh, sidebar. Actually, if you're listening to this at time of recording, it's recently been announced that Bad Bunny is going to be playing the super bowl halftime show. Now, as someone who doesn't really listen to new music or support the sports, I mean, I support people doing the sports, but I'm. I don't know, I don't have an American football team to support. I will ask one of my American friends to just tell me who to support. Like that's going to be. That's going to be the thing, considering I follow the Boston Celtics. Now, that is my basketball team because. Because comedian, actor, Florida man Ben Reynard told me to. And that is now my team. Okay? So if anyone has any issues, they can blame him. Oh, please don't. Please don't annoy him. Ben, why are you making it follow this? I don't know. I don't know. But that's. That's it. The Boston Celtics are my basketball team because of a comedian. I can't be trusted, really. But so what. What I think is hilarious is I really want, I really want more than anything else in the world for Bad Bunny to perform the halftime show. Completely espanol, right? I want it completely in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish. I don't really understand Spanish. And by that I mean I don't understand it at all, but I can appreciate it. And let me tell you, I would watch that and share that with everybody I have ever met in my entire life because I like being a petty bitch. Anyway, back to Josephine. So she meets this club owner in Cuba and he also has a club in Miami. And he ends up winning a legal battle to allow an integrated crowd at the Copa City Club Copa. Copa City Club Copa City Club Copa sounds better. I'm going to say Copa. So it had never ever in the history of its existence had a black guest before. So this was fucking massive. Like James and the Giant Peach, right? Massive or the peach of James and the Giant Peach, I should say. And so like she is selling out night after night to this just an integrated crowd like because people just want to see her perform. And so she starts touring. She does like a month long stint in New York performing at night and then fighting for civil rights during the day. And like she is incredibly vocal about the execution of Willy McGee. So Willie McGee was a 35 year old black World War II veteran who was falsely accused of the rape of a white woman and was sentenced to death. Considering the way that rape trials and sexual assault trials go in the all of the countries. Now the fact that someone was sentenced to death over it kind of feels a little bit that it might have been, I don't know, prejudiced in some way. So there are appeals after appeals, but eventually Willie Magee was executed in Mississippi in 1951. And Josephine Baker is not only very loud about this, but she forks up the cash. She pays for him to have a proper burial. When she's on tour in San Francisco, she hears that there are no black bus drivers or like, any drivers of color at all, right? And so she shows up at the depot, like at the bus depot, and she starts, like, just hounding, hounding the guy, right hand to the guy that runs it. And she's just like, how come so many black men were qualified to drive trucks in the army and yet somehow not one of them is qualified to drive a bus in San Francisco? Like, he gets this dude, he just gets snippy with her, like. Like, he's just. Just a racist arse, you know? And she responds with, monsieur, you are a nasty little man. And you know what, gentle listeners, delicious friends. I bet he was a nasty little man. Some nasty little man. So not only is she, like on the ground doing this, like boots on the ground, she's also meeting with huge corporations to try and get them to hire more black workers. Because when there's times of mass unemployment in, it's always sort of minorities of the country that tend to be left at the bottom of the ladder. Like, because, like, when an entire nation is built on, you know, the bones and blood of people of color, whether it be indigenous, black, Asian, you know, and, you know, if the oppressive force of that nation, the ruling class, if you will, are white people, when times get tough, the people that are going to get aid and help first are going to be white people, right? That's it. It's a place of privilege. And some people might be thinking, I don't have privilege. I lived like this. Or I had that. Listen, for every opportunity a white person gets, it is going to be thrice is hard, is complicated, with more barriers and obstacles. For a person of colour and to not see that is. It's ignorance at that point. It's ignorance. So, like, one of my favorite things Josephine Baker ever does, right, is she performs a citizen's arrest against some dude, he's like, hurling these, like, racial slurs at her. And she's like, not today, sir, not today. And so she performs a citizen's arrest. So the NAACP declares May 20th, 1951, as Josephine Baker Day. She is the NAACP's Woman of the Year. And she has a parade in Harlem, New York. She's riding in a cavalcade, and she's in this cream convertible. She's in a cavalcade, and it's like a motorcade, I think they call it in the US and so she's in this cream convertible traveling down 7th Avenue, and around 100,000 people show up to watch. So she has this big parade, after which she has a cocktail party thrown in her honour by the New York City mayor, Vincent and Piloteri. And after that, she attends a ball. So there's a ball. So she's got a parade, a cocktail party and a ball. And so she's got these three separate events. And so she wears three. Three different Christian Dior outfits throughout this day. For those of you who don't know, Christian Dior's sister was a member of the French Resistance. So because Josephine Baker and she's wearing these beautiful haute couture, like, gorgeous French designer gowns, she ends up being named the best dressed woman in the U.S. so the best dressed woman of 1951. And so she's, like, wearing these gorgeous outfits on tour. She's wearing all of these French designers. She's showing off these beautiful, amazing, very classy, classy designs. A lot of the designers that Jackie Kennedy loved, actually, because she was really a big fan of French tailoring and design. And there's this whole, like, push towards femininity and everything at this point with, like, the new look and all that stuff. And so there's this re. Emergence of this style, and it's something like we even reference today. So anyway, she's at the Copa City Club in Miami. She's in the Roxane, New York. But she ends up having to cancel all of her shows in Atlanta because of Jim Crow. So at this time, there was this law in Georgia, and it said that a hotel could lose its license if it let a black person stay there. So because she had nowhere to stay, she couldn't perform because, like, she's not going to go sleep in, you know, a truck. Like, she's in her 40s. And also she's Josephine fucking Baker, okay? She's not doing that. So because of this law, she just has to cancel all her Atlanta shows because Atlanta is in Georgia. Which leads me to another story of discrimination. So she goes to a dining establishment, the Stork Club in New York City with some friends. So she's just. After a performance, she's Been at the Roxy. She's tired, she's starving. She could eat a horse. She may have eaten a horse at one point. Whom's to say? But she's hungry. So she orders crab steak and French wine. Now, all of her friends, they are served, but after an hour, none of her food had arrived. When she inquired, you know, she's like, hi, where is my food? And the waiting staff said that they had run out of crab and ran out of steak, even though she can see them delivering crab and steak to other tables that came in after her. So they also say that they are still looking for that bottle of French wine. Unsurprisingly, she calls bullshit. And here's the thing. The Stork Club had an unwritten policy of discouraging people of colour, basically dowering them out, right? And Josephine, she was not going to be quiet about this. And so she gets the NAACP involved, who are also not quiet about it, which then leads to the Academy being involved. Like, they write a letter going, well, looks like you're not going to get any members of the Academy coming to the Stork Club, you racist dick. I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but that. That's the vibe, right? It's like, see how you do? Now, what this does is this absolutely tarnishes the Stork Club's reputation. And within a few years, this bustling, thriving business just has to shut down. Like, it just loses from here. So she's out here calling it, like, un American, like, you're un American because you're not serving. You know, it's a whole thing. And, like, the papers run with it. It's. It destroys. It completely destroys the store club. But, like, here's the thing. When she goes to dine, right, there's a journalist that she knows professionally. Their acquaintances, Walter Winchell. So he's at another table and she greets him before she sits down. So this journalist was popular and powerful and he was also a regular at the Stork Club. Now, he claims that he left before she ordered and that he had never seen any kind of discrimination at the Stork Club at any of the points that he was there in the entirety of all of the times that he had been wind and dined at the Stork Club. Josephine calls him out by name, and so he retaliates. He mocks her wartime achievements and worst of all, accused her of being a communist and a fascist. Like, this is during the Red Scare, okay? He knew what he was doing. And being the prominent journalist that he was, there is no way he wouldn't have known the effect it was going to have, right? It. It is such a dangerous, dangerous card to play. And it was bullshit anyway, but he did it. And even if he wasn't there at the time and he hadn't seen this particular incident, if he hadn't noticed as a journalist, if he hadn't noticed that not one black person had been properly served at the Stork Club in all of the years he had been frequenting it, like, you'd have to be as observant as a brick. Like, the whole point of being a journalist is that you observe the world around you and you procure the information from it. You make sense of everything around you. But clearly the. That in happening. And like her shows, they start getting cancelled because of this accusation. And Walter Winchell, because this, this is a poor show, right? This is a poor show on his part because he deliberately tries to destroy a woman's career, a black woman's career, no less. Not only ruin her career and her livelihood with absolute bollocks, all because he was too blind to notice that there was never a black person who, With a full plate at a place that he dined at on a regular basis, right? So because he did this, because he was seen as like, stooping and dropping down and punching down and being an absolute shitbag, right? Because of this, like the respect for him in the journalistic community and society and all of that just drops like his stock plummets effectively. And he is, he is, he is no longer respected, effectively. So this bullshit, it sets off a chain reaction for Josephine Baker. Her shows, her cancelled, her visa is cancelled. And like, she's got no citizenship, so she's screwed because she needs her visa, because she's got French citizenship, right? So she loses all access to the US for over a decade, right? She, she deals with this and then she's like, she's still touring, she's like, no, no, I'm good at the show must go on. And so she goes to Cuba where she faces more discrimination for being black and an alleged communist. Allegedly police raided her rooms, tried to get her to admit that she worked for Moscow, and they stopped some of her shows from going ahead. Like, they literally stop her from performing at the larger venue that she was supposed to be like, gigging at. So she ends up performing in a small venue and this is packed every single night because of course it is because she's Josephine Baker. So her picture, the police have her picture on a wall with, like, wanted communists. And she's on an FBI watch list. Like, the Justice Department is like, prov. That you're, like, so pro America. And she's like, why? Why do you deserve that? So she's still touring, she's still kicking about, and she goes to South America, more specifically Argentina, which is run by the dictator Juan Domingo Peron, who was the husband of Eva Peron, who you may know as Evita. Now, Josephine, at the time, she was unaware that the Perons had embezzled money from the poor or that Argentina was a safe haven for Nazi war criminals. And in fairness, this wasn't exactly, like, out information. This wasn't known at the time. So she. She felt an affinity for Eva Peron. She saw her as a kindred spirit, the same sort of rags to riches and using her power for good. And because Eva Peron died young. And so Josephine reached out to Juan Peron to pay her respects and the like. Like, she. I mean, she was always kind of reasonable about death, but she saw how it affected other people. And so she goes. Because she thinks she's dealing with, like, a grieving man. I mean, he is grieving. We. We know what he did to Evita's body. It is. I'm. I'm unpleasant. Unpleasant is the word I'm going to use. So Josephine Baker gets manipulated here because she doesn't know how awful it is. And Juan Peron took advantage of her passion and her naivety because she thinks she can do some good, like Eva Peron was doing. And she wants to build on that and help the Argentinian people. And so, like, he gets photos of them together and, like, talking to workers, and it. It sort of goes the 50s version viral. And the NAACP starts distancing themselves from her because photos with a dictator, like a fascist dictator, talking to workers, it's not. Doesn't have the best optics, you know, but, like, she was unaware of. Of this at the time. And so Juan, he arranges for her to go on this tour of these hospitals because he knows she's a humanitarian. And so she visits a few. Now he says that they're all done to, like, this very specific standard, and they have this, like, great level of care. But only two of the hospitals, like, when she goes, like, seeing them, only two have been fixed up. And so when she goes off on this hospital tour, she sees exactly how the weak, ill and infirm are being treated. And it's at this point that she realized that she's been hoodwinked. And so she's like, Done. She's done with Juan Peron and all of his bullshit. And she decides to go back to her Chateau Les Milan and she decides that now is the time to start her Rainbow Tribe. Josephine Baker is out there collecting children like Beanie Babies or La Boo Boos. Okay, so I'm being sassy about it, but her goal was to raise a family of children in brotherhood and universalism, right? She wanted a group of children of different races, religions, etc, to grow up without prejudice and to be treated equally. Like, yeah, okay, I understand that a collection of children, different races, religion is sounding a little bit like the casting call from a Gap ad, but she's doing this because she genuinely thinks that if she can show this to the world, this brotherhood of universalism, that it will make the world see sense, you know? And the first place she goes is Japan with the intention of returning home with a Japanese child. So she goes to a home run by a friend to collect a two year old Japanese boy named Teruya, whose name would be changed to Jeannon in France. So this was an adoption that her and her husband, Jean Billions had agreed to do together. So she went to Japan, she went to collect this child, and it's at this home that she sees a one and a half year old Korean boy, Akio, and she decides she wants to bring him home as well. Needless to say, her husband was a wee bit surprised when she came home with two infants instead of one. And for some people, two children would be more than enough, myself included. But Josephine Baker, like Lana Lynette, was not most people. Later, she brought home a blonde boy from Finland named Yari. Then she went to Bogota in Colombia, and allegedly when she was there, when she was traveling, touring and such, a mother of like eight children asks Josephine to adopt her youngest boy, Gustavo, so that he could have a better life. And so Josephine, she takes Gustavo and in return buys the family a house. And she promises to bring Gustavo back and visit them. But instead of that, she changes his name to Louise and doesn't tell him of his origins in Bogota until he's much, much older. Now, this is a bit of a sticky wicket, right? But when it comes to Josephine Baker, I don't think it's ill intent. I think there's an assumption that what she's doing is the right thing. And she might have said, oh, I'll bring him back, and had the intention of doing that. But then her, I'm gonna say chaotic lifestyle may have just gotten in the way of that, you know, and it may have been an intention that just never came to pass. So Josephine and her husband Jebellon then adopt two more children, this time out of the French welfare system, Jean Claude and a 10 month old Jewish boy called Moish. At this point, Josephine was planning to focus all of her efforts on her estate and her family, her little rainbow tribe, because like her estate at this point is receiving over 300,000 visitors a year. So you could say it was fairly popular. And so because she's planning to focus on this, she decides that she's going to do one final performance, her finale before she retired, you know, for the fans. Josephine Baker has her finale, her final performance at the Olympia Theatre in Paris. And it is so popular that all of these other venues, many of them in France that she had previously performed in, they wanted her to do a final performance there as well. So like all major acts, her goodbye show became a goodbye tour. While on tour in Algeria, she adopted the only two survivors on an air raid in a small village, Marianne and Brahim. Now Brahim, his name would later be changed to Brian. So she just showed up with these kids, right? And when she lands home, her husband Jo, he was levied because, okay, the family was already massive. And then she adopts two more children without consulting him. And you know, she wasn't exactly great with money, right? And so he's already, he's already trying to like, money manage this situation. And remember, she's sinking all this money into the estate and she's spending money on these tours and it's just, yeah, it's after this that she's on tour in the Cote d' Ivoire where she adopts a baby boy named Koffi. And this leads to a huge fight between Josephine and her husband. Like, it's bad and it's so bad that she tells him to leave and he does. But like they don't divorce right away, but she tells him to go and he goes. Now Josephine Baker was not the most organized or disciplined parent. Like she liked being the fun parent. Like, that's what she was good at. And I think she didn't quite realize, like, what being a parent entails. Like she has this idea and it's a very optimistic, idealistic idea. But the reality of that was a little less at the forefront of her mind. The practicalities of parenthood was not something that she had a great grasp of. Like she didn't discipline them. Like, that was not a thing she did. And then she would like leave for weeks at a time to like go gigging and perform like, they had nannies. Like they weren't left alone, like a bunch of toddlers running through an estate, but like, they had nannies and caretakers and all that jazz. But she was not the most present of parents. She'd go away, go perform and come back, shower them with gifts and then leave again. Like, it gets to the point, because this is such a common cycle that the children, they don't call her maman, like, they don't call her Mama. They call her cadeau, which is French for present or gift. Not a mama, a maman, no. So this is just how Josephine lives her life. And when she's on tour in South America, she hears the news that her mother, Carrie, has passed away. Now, Carrie MacDonald, she had become like, a sort of attraction of the Chateau le Milan estate. Like, so she would sit under a tree in a rocking chair and she'd be in this white dress and she would greet people. Like, she would speak to them if they spoke English, and she would chat to them. And she was just this sort of like the wise old woman under a tree. Like, it's such. It's such a powerful image. So it's not surprising that people would take an interest in her. Now, Josephine's siblings, they worked on the estate, like I was saying before about the sort of the petrol, the gas station and things. And so, of course, they went to their mother's funeral. Josephine did not. So, like, she had this very pragmatic view of death, and she's like, everybody dies sometimes. And so she didn't really see the point in returning, and especially returning for a dead person. That being said, with one person now being out of her life, she decided to add another person into it. While on tour in Venezuela, she added another member to her Rainbow Tribe. So the story goes that there is a tribal chief in Venezuela and she adopts his grandson Mara, which is, okay, another child to support. So Mara comes and joins the Rainbow Tribe over in the chateau and Josephine goes on tour again. And when she's touring, like, and it's around about Christmas time, a member of her crew finds a baby abandoned in a bin, like, in the trash. Now, I've heard two versions of this story. One is that the baby is in a bassinet and it's sort of just like, surrounded by, like, rubbish. And the other is that, like, it was found just in. In the trash. So this baby boy who's discovered, like, they name him Noel. And this infant was another addition to the Rainbow Tribe. It was at this point that Jean Bouillon divorced Josephine Baker in 1961 and he moved to Argentina to open up a restaurant. So Now Josephine had 10 boys and one girl, her daughter Marianne. Like, she said that she wanted a sister. And as luck would have it, a Moroccan friend of Josephine's would abandon Stellina in France at birth. And Stellina would be the second daughter and 12th child of the Rainbow Tribe. So, like, in this period of time, sort of the mid 20th century, inter country adoption wasn't the most regulated on a global level. And Josephine's fame, it certainly helped most of her children. They were adopted by her and her husband under the French family code of 1939. And so even though they divorced, like, he was also, like, written as the adopted father of, like, Stellina. So even though they were separated, he, like, continued being that sort of father figure even though he was, I don't know, a restaurateur in Argentina, of all places. So each child of the Rainbow Tribe was assigned a religion in accordance to their heritage. So Jano, who was from Japan, he was Buddhist. Moish was Jewish, Marianne was Catholic, Brahim, Brian was Muslim, Yari was Protestant, Coffee was animist, so on and so forth. So there's two ways you can take this. One is that she's just assigning these religions to, like, each of the children, just so they have a different one each. Right. And the other is that she's trying to ensure they still have a connection to their heritage by giving them a religion and to, like, also show that you can have different religions and grow up in harmony. Anywho, Josephine Baker, like everything else in her life, the kids, she put them on display because she said, and I quote, there was no point in adopting children of every colour to be kept away from everyone else. They must be made visible so that people can see that it is in fact possible that children from different races, raised together as siblings, have no animosity, that racial hate is not natural, it is an invention by mankind. Direct quote. So they all loved the Chateau Lemberlandi, which has now opened as a tourist attraction. Okay? And people are coming to see her Rainbow Tribe. So the chateau, it has 39 rooms, 100 members of staff. The estate has a bakery, a jazz club, a museum and a mini golf course. Now, I'm not sure if it's a mini golf course or just a mini golf course. That was unclear. So it's got all that and her children and her menagerie. Yeah, she's still got all her animals, right. The kids fucking hated it, right at One point, a monkey steals a baby. That was a thing that happened. A monkey came in and stole a baby out of a crib. I feel like I shouldn't have to explain to anyone that that is not a safe environment. And she is continuing this, right? She's pushing this whole idea to show brotherhood. You know, she's sinking into debt doing so. Meanwhile, she's asked to join in the 1963 March on Washington. She was initially denied a visa because of the whole accused of communism, then photographed with a fascist dictator in Argentina thing. However, Attorney General Robert Kennedy overrules it. And so she gets her visa and she shows up in her full French military uniform. She is the only female speaker and she is the warm up speaker for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And she says, I have walked in 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 buy a cup of coffee. She also said that the world was behind the movement that she had been following for 30 years. She gives this idealistic and emotional speech and she really thought that she could make the world see race was just a social construct with her racially inclusive family. And she thought she could just. And she wanted to dial it up to 11. And so she has this idea to turn her estate into a college of brotherhood. This is the part where I remind you that all your faves are problematic. All your faves are problematic. No person is perfect. And some people do shitty things sometimes. So Yari, the Finnish boy, when he's like 14, 15, Josephine Baker sends him to Argentina to live with Jean Bullon. She sends him away because Yari is gay and she's worried that it's going to spread. Like, I understand that it's the 60s, but Josephine Baker was a bisexual woman. She said it was only natural, you know, like, did she think that somebody just turned her a little bit gay? No. Like, you don't catch homosexuality. Well, I mean, you can if you do it right, but no. So he is sent away and that's a shitty thing to do. Meanwhile, she has put all this money into her Chateau Les Milan and she's broke. Like, she is sunk economy. Everything is gone. She can't afford to pay the workers wages at, you know, the estate, and so they just start stealing from her. And things get so bad that she is peeling gold leaf tiles off of the walls and giving them to the bank as collateral. Now she's doing shows in Carnegie hall to raise money for, like, civil rights charities and for her Rainbow Tribe. And none of this works like, in 1964, like, there's a press conference, like, begging for help and Richard Bardot appears on TV to ask for donations for Josephine. Now this, this is a bit controversial because, you know, the logical thing to do would be to sell the entire estate, downsize and move somewhere more manageable. But again, this is a sunk economy. So Josephine's so invested in it that she doesn't want to let go. And because she really believes that this college of brotherhood is going to change the world, she's getting donations from Zsa Zsa Gabor, Rigid Bardot, Pope Paul vi, but it's not enough. And so she's performing again. And she's performing at the same rate that she was when she was in her 20s. Like, she is constantly going. And because she is working herself to the bone, she has her first heart attack and she ends up being in the hospital for two months. And when she gets home, like, she doesn't have workers, doesn't have nannies, and she just can't look after her kids. And so they get sent to boarding school, which costs more money. And so, again, she's performing again, even though she's, you know, recovering from a heart attack and she's still trying to outrun her debts. And so in 65, she goes to King Hassan II of Morocco and she begs him for help, and he gives her money to stop the foreclosure on the chateau. And he gives, like, an annual. An annual amount, an allowance of, like, 20 grand a year for the kids. And Fidel Castro, right, he takes pity on this whole situation. And so he pays for her and all of her children to go on holiday to Cuba. And so this kind of calms things down for a while. But then, of course, her intestinal issues, like the scar tissue, the infections, they rear their ugly head. And so more operations, more time in hospital, and she just. She just can't afford anything. But she's so determined to have this college of brotherhood. And again, all of these friends, like I said, Jaja Gabor, Richard Bardot, they are just like a couple thousand here, but here. And she's just making lots of really bad decisions. Like, she's not the most financially conscious of people. So, like, she's given, like, a gig in a club and she's going there and she's working. And that money was supposed to go towards, like, reasonable, logical things, but then JFK is shot, and so she goes to the funeral, she flies over, she brings the kids, and they're all dressed in new designer outfits, right? Like the flight and the clothing, right? It was more than what she earned in a year. Like she spent so much money, right? Finally, after all of the, like, robbing Peter to pay Paul, she is served an eviction notice in September 1968. And so they end up having to leave the whole estate and move into this like two bed apartment. And so she's there with all of like the younger kids. So there's like 9ish, maybe 10 of them all together. You know, Yari is over in Argentina, another one is somewhere else. And so, you know, all her stuff gets auctioned off. And the date that is set for her to vacate the chateau estate was the 15th of March. So it gets sold and she's told, you're going to be out by the 15th of March. And she's like, okay, but Josephine Baker, like myself, is a petty b. Because she's told, oh, it's the 15th of March. And then she finds out that the people who bought it want to move in earlier. And so she decides that she's, she's not gonna let them in yet. She's like, no, it is still mine until the 15th of March. So she goes back to Le Melan, the Chateau Les Milan, barricades herself in the kitchen and poses for photos and gives newspaper interviews, right? Now consider this. She was once one of the richest women in the world and the richest black woman in the world, right? She was just loving the high life and now she's like homeless, okay? And so like they're interviewing her and they're asking her these questions and she's like, everything's fine. I could live in a tent. I can live anywhere. And so the new owners, they are so mad. They're like really impatient. They want to get into the chateau. And she's like, no, not until March 15th. And she's really digging her heels in, right? And so in a move of what I can only describe as sheer stupidity on the new owner's part, they send eight men. Eight men to effectively storm the house and forcefully remove her from it, right? Let's just picture this. You have eight grown ass men dragging an elderly black woman outside of her home in the rain. Like, and she's in her negligee, right? She's in her, her night dress, she's got a shower cap and she's holding a kitten wrapped in a blanket that she found on the property because she wasn't gonna leave the kitten behind because it's Josephine fucking Baker, okay? So, like she is there for seven hours on the front steps. She is there for seven hours. And this is when she has another heart attack, right as she is there in the rain in her negligee and a shower cap and holding a kitten. Now, I know some of you might be thinking, is it a bonnet that she's wearing? Well, Josephine Baker was bald at this point. Like she didn't have hair. So I don't know if she would be wearing a bonnet. Like everywhere I read was like a shower cap. So it could have been a bonnet and somebody just didn't realize what it was. So that is open to interpretation. But like, so she would wear wigs and headpieces and everything when she'd perform. At this point, it was to do with all, like the stuff she put through her hair when she was younger. And it just kind of like destroyed it. So as she is thrown out in the rain, she screams, if I die tonight, I want to be buried in the pink nightgown of my agony. Now, I love the fact that it's a pink negligee. It's just again, drama, diva drama. So there are reporters and everything around because again, this is Josephine Baker. It's a big deal. And so she ends up back in hospital again. And remember what I said about optics earlier? Throwing an elderly black woman, you know, with eight grown ass men. Throwing an elderly black woman out into the rain in her nightie while holding a kitten, like, that's not a good look for anybody. Like that is just wait a couple days, guys. Like March 15th, you have a date. Why are you storming the gates? Like, there is no reason to. You can hold off a few days. And of course this makes the news, right? This is a huge deal. And because it gets, like shared all over the world, Fidel Castro sends her a box of fruit. I mean, sure, Fidel, sure. So he gives her a box of fruit. And Grace Kelly, Princess Grace of Monaco, who, like Josephine Baker had befriended at a Red Cross event in Monaco, right? Grace Kelly gives her a house when she finds out that they're homeless. She gifts Josephine and her family a huge villa on the coast of Monte Cristo. And it's got like a view of like the Grimaldi Castle, you know, where Princess Grace of Monaco is living, like. And Josephine, once she's, you know, healed up a little bit, she goes back to performing. So she's trying to, like, raise money, do reviews. And she has this new show. And on the opening night of her show, like, it's in this club called, like Chez Josephine. Well, it's not called Shea Josephine. They nickname it Shea Josephine just because she's performing there. And so you've got people that are like, coming to this review. You've got Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly, you have Jackie Kennedy Onassis, you've got Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, Diana Ross, Shirley Basset. Right? You've got all of these people. And it's like a huge deal. It's a very big moment. Like she doesn't realize the impact she had and how popular she was. Like, she didn't know how much she was loved, respected and adored. Meanwhile, she's got this villa in Monaco and like her teenage kids are being teenagers and she never really got the chance to be a proper parent to them. Like again, she liked to be the fun parent, not the strict one. And here she was having to be both. Like, she loved doing the fun stuff with her kids and not like the nitty gritty stuff. And because she like needs money and she needs to perform, I think performing for her was always a driving force. And so she didn't really have the opportunity to stay at home and try and mend those relationships with her kids. So in 1972, she's invited to perform at the Carnegie hall again. And so it's like a UNICEF night. All the proceeds are going to UNICEF. And it's a celebration of 50 years since she first appeared in Shuffle along. So she's 67 years old and she's on stage in this, I'm gonna call it bedazzled, like net stocking outfit and a four foot tall headdress full of orange feathers. Like you can still see the pictures online. It's, it's gorgeous. So she, she goes back to Monaco and she's got like a regular heartbeat. She's stressed. And her daughter Marianne, she's run away, she's gone. And so this adds to her stress. And her doctors are like, you need to rest because you're 67 years old. And she's like, no, no, I have a, I have a contract in Copenhagen, I've got stuff to do, I don't have time to be sick. And she was worried that all of our health issues were gonna cause her tours and shows to be cancelled. Like, she's 67, she's working 12 hour days. Like, that's, that's wild, you know. So she flies back to the US for a tour. It's like 17 cities and she's like doing like so many cities. And then she has a break and then does so many More. And so in the middle of this like the Prime Minister of Israel flies her over for the 25 year freedom anniversary. Now this is a period of time in which we are still presented with the idea that the separation in Palestine was a harmonious one and this was a place of respect and care and refuge. So she was working with Jewish refugees during the Second World War. And so in her mind she would have seen this as like a very good and bright and accepting thing to do. And so she flies there, she does her bit. And so when she returns she's a day late getting back and her manager has to refund a sold out crowd because she didn't show up because she was a day late. And so he's like, I've got to take it out your pay because you know you are the reason you're a day late. And so she quits, she just quits her tour. And so yeah, things are not going well for her. She's in debt, she's wasting money. She's struggling as well because she's ill and with her age like she's not remembering like the lyrics to her songs anything anymore. And like she's very exhausted because she's 66, 7 and so she's trying to perform and like people are very gentle and considerate with her because they're like, you know, she's 67 and she's struggling. Then the Monoch and Red Cross decide that they're going to put on like this big celebration that year for their gala and they called it Josephine A televised tribute to her life starring her and younger dancers dressed as her. And on the opening night, this is madness, right? On the opening night she sang 34 songs in 15 scenes. She gets a 30 minute ovation and then she's out to dinner for, for like with a big dinner with like 250 people at the Bristol to honor her. And there is a seven layer cake, it's very tall and Princess Grace of Monaco helps her cut it. And so after like her second performance like in Josephine starring Josephine, so her and her like co stars, they're all like really much younger and they go across the street to eat one of her favorite foods, spaghetti. I love this story. And she wants to like continue and go dancing. And like all of her younger co stars are like I am tired. And she's like, you young people are no fun anymore. So four days after this big show, okay, so it's like the day after like the second show but after the big show it's the fourth Day after that, so, so she was having her typical day. She had a little afternoon nap. And so her friend is, you know, she goes in and she wakes her up because she's supposed to have an interview with a journalist. Her friend goes in, tries to wake her up, but she's not waking up. Josephine Baker had had a stroke and was now in a coma. So she is rushed to the emergency room of Pitti Sarpen Hospital. And so she's there and her family show up and so does Princess Grace of Monaco. So they all rush there and the doctors tell them that there is a 70% chance that if they operate that Josephine Baker is going to be severely physically impaired. And so they all agree that there's going to be no operation because, like, it is the last thing she wanted. Like she hated the idea of the idea of living like that. And so on the 12th of April 1975, Josephine Baker passed away at the age of 68. And when her friend found her, initially when she found her in the bed unresponsive, she was surrounded by, by reviews of her latest show. And these were rave reviews. And the show Josephine there were just amazing, just five star, 10 out of 10, all of these amazing reviews about her performance and her show. And so she had been reading these reviews and they're like all around her and she was being celebrated. And so the last memory that Josephine Baker would have had was of the world celebrating her. Like back when she was 21, she had said that I shall dance all my life. I was born to dance just for that. To live is to dance. And so she has a full Catholic funeral at La Glise de la Madeleine. And this is like a big public funeral and it is, it is paid for by Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco. It's a full military funeral, right? She gets a full military funeral and over 20,000 people come, right? She is the only American born woman to receive full French military honours at her funeral. And so after that, like Princess Grace, she has this like a private, quiet funeral at La Glise St. Charles back in Monaco and she is interred at the Cimetier des Monaco. And so ends the story of Josephine Baker. And that is the death of a showgirl. If you liked this series on Josephine Baker, please rate and review. 5 stars. If you didn't like it, shut your mouth. You don't have to say anything, don't worry about it. I am so glad that I got to tell this story as, as full as I could and I know there's probably parts that I still managed to miss because she did so much. Like, she did so much. And listen, all your faves are problematic and some people do the wrong thing for what they believe are the right reasons. It happens all the time. But she was such an inspiration and crossed borders when others wouldn't or couldn't and stood up when it was time to stand. Like, it's so funny, I think of like that line in Hamilton, like, if you stand for nothing, what will you fall for? And like she risked her life like in so many occasions trying to do the right thing. And yeah, she was a diva and dramatic and just very much, all of the muchness. And I fucking love her for it. And like, I really want to go see the Josephine show in Paris. I don't care if it's all in French. I don't care. I'll go watch it. I don't care. But yes. So ends the story of Josephine Baker. Or does it? Thank you for listening and I guess it's recommendation time for watching. Apart from coming to see my show in London. Come see me perform. I say perform. Talk about history in a top that shows a little bit too much cleavage. For watching. If you get a chance to see Jess Thunder, The Bless Queen, Miss Exotic 2025, you should go see her. She's fab. For listening. For listening, I'm going to recommend Scam Goddess, because you know me, I love a scam. I love a huckster, I love tricks. I love absorbing that information. I don't love them, I love hearing about them. Because I don't know, I got problems. I don't know. Anyway, and for reading and because you know, I like my cozy mysteries, I'm going with Deep Fried Trouble, the Eugenia Patterson mysteries. And with that, I am going to wish you good night. Adios. Au revoir, au vuitters, my friends. Bye bye. Acast Powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend.
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B
Hello, Pablo Torre here, host of the Murrow Award winning and Peabody nominated show Pablo Torre Finds out from the Athletic, where we use journalism to investigate mysteries like whether the richest owner in sports helped fund a no show job or for his NBA superstar, in other words, Kawhi Leonard got from aspiration a $28 million no show job.
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A
Yeah, it's amazing. I'm honestly so jealous.
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Or how our friend Action Bronson feels about covering his calves. When was the last time you wore pants?
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A
I don't. Probably 15 to 20 years. The last time I put pants on, I had an accident three times a week.
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B
Follow us down the rabbit hole on Pablo Torre finds out. Watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
- [80:15]
A
Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast. Com.