Josephine Baker
London: Self Made Hero, 2017. First edition. Softcover. First edition, first printing of the English translation. Card self-wrappers. 568 pp. with bibliography, index, discography. Fine. Graphic novel/comic strip-style biography of iconic Jazz Age entertainer Josephine Baker from her birth in the St. Louis Female Hospital in 1906 (birth name Freda Josephine McDonald) and her rough youth in St. Louis (she was a street child sleeping in cardboard boxes for a time) and first married at age 13. She would perform as a street dancer, eventually joining a group and, despite her mother's strenuous objection, became a vaudeville performer. After divorcing her first husband, she married again at age 15 to William Howard Baker and though they divorced in 1925, she kept the last name of Baker. Josephine sailed to France in 1925 where she quickly became a night club star (often a scandalous one due to her very revealing costuming or lack thereof). She was far more comfortable in Paris than in the U.S. due to the permissive French attitudes on sex and race. Soon she became the most succesful and famous American entertainer in Paris, praised by Hemingway, painted by Picasso, photographed by Man Ray, and befriended by the natives and the American ex-pats. Fine. Item #E35739
ISBN: 9781910593295
Price: $35.00