The Josephine Baker Story by Ean Wood

Author:Ean Wood [Wood, Ean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-85712-363-3
Publisher: Music Sales Limited
Published: 2000-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

One thing in this is untrue: she was not saving money. Quite apart from her natural tendency towards extravagance, by 1931 she was supporting (or at least helping to support) a vast army of people. Quite apart from those in her actual employ, like maids and gardeners, there were also hairdressers, couturiers, vets, voice coaches and make-up artists – and of course Pepito.

In March 1931, the Colonial Exposition was to open and the organisers asked Joséphine if she would be their “Queen of the Colonies”. She was delighted to be chosen, feeling that she was at last being accepted by conventional French society.

However, this turned out not to be the case. When the news that she was to be the exposition’s queen appeared in the papers, it caused a furore. Letters of protest were sent, not only to the papers but also to the general commander of the exposition, Henri Olivier; to France’s Minister of the Colonies, Paul Reynaud; and even to the President of France, Gaston Doumergue. The protests were based on the facts that she was not French (she came from Harlem, which was not even a French colony) and that she did not speak good French or the language of any of France’s colonies.

One objection that hurt her considerably was the rather illogical one that African women marry and have children very young, even at twelve or 13, and that therefore, by her age – almost 25 – she should rightly be a grandmother, and so she was obviously too old for the position. This hurt her in two ways. One was that she was already worrying that, as a performer, she might be getting old and passé. The other was that it touched on her growing desire to have children.

From America came another, familiar objection: that she had removed herself from the black community and had become a sort of ersatz white. The New York World-Telegram focused on the way that she had straightened her curly hair, running the headline, “Queen, Where Is Yo’ Kink?”

Reluctantly, the committee had to withdraw its offer, but once the exposition had opened she toured it as an honoured guest, escorted by Henri Varna. She was delighted by the whole thing and told him that he had never provided her with better backdrops.

Joséphine’s life at this time began to divide in two. On one hand, there was the glamorous creature of the Casino de Paris, the public figure opening fêtes, modelling expensive dresses and riding in the Bois de Boulogne, while on the other there was the simply dressed inhabitant of Le Beau-Chêne, where she gardened, cooked, walked her dogs, played with her cats and napped with Chiquita. There was a childlike simplicity about her life there that she felt was real when her stage existence was phoney, which in a way was true. But even on the stage, no matter how glamourised she was, that same childlike simplicity always showed through. It was a large part of her charm.

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