Joséphine Baker is a Actor and Sound French born on 3 june 1906 at St. Louis (USA)
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Birth name Freda Josephine McDonaldNationality FranceBirth 3 june 1906 at St. Louis (
USA)
Death 12 april 1975 (at 68 years) at Paris (
France)
Awards Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, Croix de guerre 1939–1945
Josephine Baker (3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer, and actress who came to be known in various circles as the "Black Pearl," "Bronze Venus" and even the "Creole Goddess". Born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, Josephine Baker became a citizen of France in 1937. She was fluent in both English and French.
Baker was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, Zouzou (1934), or to become a world-famous entertainer. Baker refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States and is noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. In 1968 she was offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by Coretta Scott King, following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. Baker turned down the offer. She was also known for assisting the French Resistance during World War II, and received the French military honor, the Croix de guerre and was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by General Charles de Gaulle. Biography
Relationships
Baker was married four times. Her first marriage was to American Pullman porter Willie Wells when she was 13 years old. The marriage was reportedly very unhappy and the couple divorced a short time later. Another short-lived marriage followed to Willie Baker in 1921; she retained Baker's last name because her career began taking off during that time, and it was the name by which she became best known. In 1925 she began an extramarital relationship with the Belgian novelist Georges Simenon.
In 1937 Baker married Frenchman Jean Lion. She became a French citizen and became a permanent expatriate. She and Lion separated before he died.
She married French composer and conductor Jo Bouillon in 1947, but their union also ended in divorce. She was later involved for a time with the artist Robert Brady, but they never married. Her adopted son Jean-Claude Baker describes his mother as a bisexual, having had relationships with men and women. In her later years, Baker converted to Roman Catholicism.
Children
During Baker's work with the Civil Rights Movement, 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." She often took the children with her cross-country, and when they were chez Château des Milandes, she arranged tours so visitors could walk the grounds and see how natural and happy the children in "The Rainbow Tribe" were. Baker raised two daughters, French-born Marianne and Moroccan-born Stellina, and ten sons, Korean-born Jeannot (or Janot), Japanese-born Akio, Colombian-born Luis, Finnish-born Jari (now Jarry), French-born Jean-Claude and Noël, Israeli-born Moïse, Algerian-born Brahim, Ivorian-born Koffi, and Venezuelan-born Mara. For some time, Baker lived with her children and an enormous staff in a castle, Château des Milandes, in Dordogne, France, with her fourth husband, Jo Bouillon.
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