Ean Wood - The Josephine Baker Story

Copyright 2000 Ean Wood
This edition 2010 Omnibus Press
(A Division of Music Sales Limited, 14-15 Berners Street, London W1T 3LJ)

Photograph: Pictorial Press, Redferns, Hulton Getty and the private collection of Bryan Hammond

ISBN: 978-0-85712-363-3

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In writing this book, I have been helped by many people. Some have tracked down books and magazine articles, letters and photographs, recordings and videotapes. Others, who knew Josphine or saw her perform, have provided me with stories and descriptions that have helped me understand the many facets of this multi-faceted woman.

I am grateful to the authors of three excellent earlier biographies of her, one by Lynn Haney, one by Phyllis Rose and one by Bryan Hammond and Patrick OConnor.

My personal thanks go to Mike Crowley, Robert Fyson, Bernard Marlowe, Euan Pearson and Tom Vallance. Also to Alyn Shipton of Bayou Press for allowing me to quote from the as-yet-unpublished memoirs of the musician Rudolph Dunbar, who worked in Paris during much of the time when Josphine appeared there; to Peter Barrett, who was Josphines friend for some 16 years; and to the staff at Sanctuary Publishing for their enthusiasm and support during the whole process of producing this book. And above all to Myra, for her encouragement, criticism, patience and love.

Ean Wood
London 2001

Ean Wood was born and raised on an island in the middle of the Irish Sea, where his father, a local magistrate, made a living by trading in tobacco and firearms. After a spell as a grill cook for the CID in London, he wrote his first screenplay for an Anglo-Portuguese feature film about white slavery and sardine fishing. He later joined the National Coal Board Film Unit as a documentary writer and director, winning awards as far afield as Zagreb.

Work followed as a sound editor on a succession of horror films starring various combinations of Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price, and later as soundtrack editor for directors such as Derek Jarman.

The Josephine Baker Story is Eans third book for Sanctuary Publishing, following his successful Born To Swing The Story Of The Big Bands and George Gershwin His Life And Music. He is currently working on a biography of Marlene Dietrich and his second novel.

In the revue La Folie Du Jour, at the famous Folies Bergre music hall in Paris, the curtains of the vast stage open to reveal a jungle clearing. Among tall trees with intertwining vines, a French explorer has set up camp. He lies down on a litter to sleep, surrounded by a dozen of his black porters, standing and sitting.

As he sleeps to the sound of distant drumming music, a young native woman, Fatou, appears high among the vines in the dim light of the jungle canopy. Crouching and creeping like a cautious wild animal, she seems inquisitive about the scene below. Pausing in her approach, she sticks her thumbs in her ears and waggles her fingers mockingly. Whatever this strange new situation is, she is confident that she can deal with it.

Gleefully, Fatou runs across the vines to a tall tree at the side of the stage. She climbs swiftly down it and then erupts across the foreground, dropping into an animal crouch and looking alertly this way and that like a creature in unfamiliar surroundings. Above the waist, she wears only a few long strings of beads. Her breasts are bare. On each arm are three bracelets on the upper arm, at the elbow and on the wrist. From her earlobes hang circular hoops of gold. On her fingers are many rings. Her hair is shaped in the fashionable bob of the day, but it is a heightened, stylised bob. Seeming almost varnished, it hugs her head like a shining black helmet, pointed at the nape of her neck. Not at all like a womans soft flowing hair, it makes her appear not quite human a spirit or an animal; a force of nature. On her feet are light sandals and around her waist is an extraordinary girdle of golden bananas, each hinged loosely at one end to her waistband and otherwise swinging free.

As the whole audience knows, Fatou is the celebrated Josphine Baker, the toast of Paris, the shocking, amazing dark star of the Folies. She is not the nominal star of the show, who is a middle-aged male comic called Dorville, but such is her personality and impact that, compared to her, he almost fades into insignificance.

It is not simply that she is half naked. Nudity has been one of the staple attractions of the Folies for 30 years. It is partly that she is brown-skinned, which to the audience makes her seem exotic, tempestuous and instinctive. Even more, it is the speed, agility and strangeness of her dancing, which is unlike anything Paris has ever seen. And perhaps most of all, it is the sensuous, witty sparkle of her personality, her being so at ease in her sexuality that she is able to mock it and to mock her audience for being hypnotised by it. She is all joyous vitality seductive, admirable and almost frightening.

Springing to her feet, she clasps her hands above her head and begins a fast, primitive dance, her feet hardly moving but her hips shaking rapidly and the bananas of her girdle pulsating. As she dances, she slowly rotates on the spot, turning completely around and around again. Slender and long-waisted, she is so lithe that even her bones seem supple.

Her arm movements become more frantic. Grabbing her right wrist with her left hand still above her head, she flaps her right hand in a loose, derisive movement. She drops into a half split, her left leg bent, and then rises again, shimmying and dropping first one hand and then the other to her hips. Facing the audience, she continues to shake her hips, gyrating her pelvis with wild abandon. The bananas flourish around her waist, quivering and jerking. The dance appears instinctive, unplanned. As she herself has said, I listen to the music and do what it tells me.

Turning suddenly sideways, she freezes, hands on bent knees, head held proudly upright, her bum poked out cheekily towards the sleeping explorer. Her dance is over.

It is 1926 and this is Josphine, aged 20, at the height of her early success. It was the writer Anita Loos, newly famous as the author of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, who pointed out at the time that she had a cheeky bum.

A more typical member of the audience, at a performance of La Folie Du Jour, was a 22-year-old London University student, Cedric Fyson. On holiday in Paris, he went to the show with his girlfriend and her mother. Later, he wrote in his diary, Sunday, August 22nd, 1926took a taxito the Folies Bergre A most extraordinary show, quite coming up to our expectations; a mixture of gorgeous clothing and none at all!! I have to admit that I enjoyed it thoroughly, however, despite the lewdness and vulgarity Place was packed indeed we only went on this Sunday afternoon, because the house was full for all the other performances. Of special note were the extraordinary & bizarre dances of a dusky, & very underclad, American girl, Josephine Baker, who appeared to be the star turn.