"Tall, coffee skin, ebony eyes, legs of paradise, a smile to end all smiles," - Picasso
American-born French dancer and singer, Josephine Baker's fame reflected the Parisian passion for African-American culture in the 1920s. Born in St. Louis, Missouri on June 3, 1906, Josephine Freda MacDonald dropped out of school at age 13 to pursue a stage career. She first gained notice for her exuberant dancing as a chorus member in the all-black musical revue Shuffle Along (1921) in New York City. In 1925 she went to Paris and won enormous fame starring in an American production, La Revue Nègre. Her show-stopping finale, "La Danse de Sauvage" - in which she danced the Charleston wearing nothing but a girdle of feathers - made her an overnight sensation. Baker became the living embodiment of everything European audiences found exotic and provocative about black women's sexuality.
In 1936, Josephine returned to the United States to star in the Ziegfield Follies - a move which proved disastrous. American audiences were not prepared for a stylish, graceful, sophisticated black woman, and a disillusioned Josephine returned to Europe.
Thereafter, Baker remained in Paris, becoming a French citizen in 1937. During an era of French fascination with African and African-American culture, she introduced European audiences to dances originated by blacks. Her flamboyant and elegant costumes influenced French fashion, and some of her outfits, especially one that consisted only of a ring of bananas around her waist, became legendary. Baker also served in the French Resistance during World War II (1939-1945) and in the 1960s participated in the civil rights movement in the United States. It was also during this time that she began adopting children, forming a family she often referred to as "The Rainbow Tribe." Josephine wanted to prove that "children of different ethnicities and religions could still be brothers." Josephine Baker died in Paris in 1975. The French government honored her with a 21-gun salute, making Josephine Baker the first American woman buried in France with military honors