Josephine Baker, the entertainer who became a spy

"I love performing. I shall perform until the day I die."

Jun 07, 2022

Born Freda Josephine in 1906 to a washerwoman, Josephine Baker rose from a street performer on the poor streets of St. Louis to one of history's most successful artists - the first African American woman to star in a motion picture. This could have been simply another inspirational story of a young woman who embraced her talents to escape poverty and discrimination, but Baker went a step further.

She adopted twelve children from around the world - which she called the “Rainbow Tribe”, fought against racism and discrimination, became a fierce civil rights activist (refusing to perform for segregated audiences), worked undercover for the French Resistance during World War II and became a sublieutenant in the Women’s Auxiliary of the French Air Force.

Here's a short glimpse into her extraordinary life story.

Baker dropped out of school when she was 12 years old. She soon began working as a housekeeper and babysitter for wealthy white families, and as a waitress at the Old Chauffeurs Club - where she met Willie Wells, with whom she married when she was just 13 - the first of several marriages during her lifetime.

The two went their separate ways a year later and Josephine married (in 1921) William Howard Baker - the source of her now-famous surname (which she kept after divorcing him years later).

In 1919, Baker began performing with the Dixie Steppers, a traveling group of vaudeville performers touring the United States. With the group's decline sometime later, she decided to leave for Paris in 1925, at the age of 19, making her way to dance for the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in “La Revue Nègre.”

Part of the programme for La Revue Negre

Her glamorous and unique dancing style took the white audience by storm, but that was just the beginning. Her career would take a big turn the following year at the Folies Bergère music hall.

Baker danced in a performance called La Folie du Jour while dressed in nothing but a skirt made of 16 bananas. That would propel her to enormous success, earning her the attention of figures like Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway, as well as more than 1,000 marriage proposals.

She would soon become one of Europe's highest-paid performers.

What came next is an example of what an extraordinarily brave woman Josephine Baker was.

I've gathered below a compilation of a few articles that tell this story in detail.

Becoming a spy

“In 1936, riding the wave of popularity she was enjoying in France, Baker returned to the United States to perform in the Ziegfeld Follies, hoping to establish herself as a performer in her home country as well. However, she was met with a generally hostile, racist reaction and quickly returned to France, crestfallen at her mistreatment.” Source

“I ran away from home. I ran away from St. Louis, and then I ran away from the United States of America, because of that terror of discrimination, that horrible beast which paralyzes one's very soul and body.”

“Josephine moved to a chateau she rented in the south of France, where she took in other refugees fleeing the Nazis. After the fall of Paris, she came into contact with Jacques Abtey, the head of French counter-military intelligence. Abtey sought to recruit people who could engage in espionage to help resistance efforts against the Nazi occupation. Josephine was an ideal candidate for this work, as her celebrity allowed her to move easily between countries and offered her enhanced protection. (…) Josephine housed resistance fighters at her chateau and supplied them with visas. She attended parties and diplomatic functions, including parties at the Italian embassy that brought her in the orbit of high-ranking Axis bureaucrats. She collected information on German troop movements, and what harbors or airfields were in action. Josephine was confident that her celebrity and connections would protect her, and that no one would suspect her of espionage. She wrote down intelligence on her hands and arms, pinning notes inside her underwear. She did so knowing she would never face a strip-search—and she was right.

The Nazis had gotten wind of the resistance activity happening at Josephine’s chateau, and visited the estate. Josephine had been hiding several resistance fighters at the time of the visit. She successfully charmed the Nazis when they questioned her, but she took the close encounter as a sign that it was time to leave France. Abtey contacted General Charles de Gaulle, who instructed both Abtey and Baker to travel to London via Lisbon (which was neutral.) Between them, the pair carried over 50 classified documents and secret intelligence. Josephine carried hers by writing the information down in invisible ink on her sheet music.” Source

Josephine Baker distributes rations to the citizens of Paris. Gallica Digital Library.

After World War II finally ended with Germany’s surrender in 1945, Baker was awarded two of France’s highest military honors: the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honour with the rosette of the Resistance.

“Of course I wanted to do all I could to aid France, my adopted country,” she said in an interview with Ebony magazine decades later, “but an overriding consideration, the thing that drove me as strongly as did patriotism, was my violent hatred of discrimination in any form.”

The last performance

Josephine Baker died in her sleep of a cerebral hemorrhage on April 12, 1975, at the age of 68, just four days after a triumphant performance at the Bobino Theater in celebration of the 50th anniversary of her Paris debut.

More than 20,000 people lined the streets of Paris to attend her funeral.

"I shall dance all my life," she once said. "I would like to die, breathless and spent, at the end of a dance."

In 2021, Baker became the first Black woman to enter France’s Pantheon mausoleum of revered historical figures.

Josephine Baker is one of the 200 women featured in my new book, A Woman’s World. If you enjoyed this content and would like to support my work, please consider pre-ordering the book via this link. Thank you!