Frank Beacham's Journal

James Cagney was born 122 years ago today

James Cagney was born 122 years ago today.

Cagney, a stage and film actor, won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances — though he is best remembered for playing tough guys. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth among its 50 Greatest American Screen Legends.

In Cagney’s first professional acting performance, he danced and dressed as a woman in the chorus line of the 1919 revue, Every Sailor. He spent several years in vaudeville as a hoofer and comedian, until he got his first major acting part in 1925. He secured several other roles, receiving good notices, before landing the lead in the 1929 play, Penny Arcade.

After rave reviews, Warner Brothers signed Cagney for an initial $500-a-week, three-week film contract to reprise his role. This was quickly extended to a seven-year contract.

Cagney's seventh film, The Public Enemy, became one of the most influential gangster movies of the period. Notable for its famous grapefruit scene, the film thrust Cagney into the spotlight, making him one of Warners' and Hollywood's biggest stars.

In 1938, he received his first Academy Award for Best Actor nomination, for Angels with Dirty Faces, before winning in 1942 for his portrayal of George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy.

He was nominated a third time in 1955 for Love Me or Leave Me. Cagney retired for twenty years in 1961, spending time on his farm, before returning for a part in Ragtime, mainly to aid his recovery from a stroke.

Cagney walked out on Warner Brothers several times over the course of his career, each time coming back on better personal and artistic terms. In 1935, he sued the studio for breach of contract and won. This marked one of the first times an actor had beaten a studio over a contract issue.

He worked for an independent film company for a year while the suit was being settled, and also established his own production company, Cagney Productions, in 1942. He returned to Warner Brothers four years later.

Jack Warner called him "The Professional Againster,” in reference to Cagney’s refusal to be pushed around. Cagney also made numerous morale-boosting troop tours before and during World War II and was president of the Screen Actors Guild for two years.

He died in 1986 at age 86.

Here, Cagney, smashes a grape fruit in Mae Clark’s face in Public Enemy, 1931

Jimmy Cagney relaxes with his guitar on the set of The Bride Came C.O.D., 1941

James Cagney, who plays George M. Cohan, shows his dancing skills in this scene with Bob Hope from the 1955 film, “The Seven Little Foys”

James Cagney in the 1949 film, White Heat, a film noir considered one of the classic gangster films.

Cagney played psychotic gangster, Cody Jarrett, a character based on New York murderer Francis Crowley, who engaged in a pitched battle with police in the spring of 1931 at the age of 18.

Executed on January 21, 1932, Crowley’s last words were: "Send my love to my mother."

Ginger Rogers was born 110 years ago today

Ginger Rogers dances with Fred Astaire

Ginger Rogers was born 110 years ago today.

An actress, dancer and singer who appeared in film, on stage, radio and television throughout much of the 20th century, Rogers made a total of 73 films. She was best known as Fred Astaire's romantic interest and dancing partner in a series of ten Hollywood musical films that revolutionized the genre.

She achieved great success on her own in a variety of film roles and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Kitty Foyle (1940). She ranks #14 on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars list of actress screen legends.

Here, Rogers and Fred Astaire dance in Swing Time, 1936

George M. Cohan was born 143 years ago today

George M. Cohan was born 143 years ago today.

An entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer and producer, Cohan began his career as a child, performing with his parents and sister in a vaudeville act, "The Four Cohans."

Beginning with Little Johnny Jones in 1904, Cohan wrote, composed, produced and appeared in more than three dozen Broadway musicals. He published more than 300 songs during his lifetime, including the standards "Over There," "Give My Regards to Broadway," "The Yankee Doodle Boy" and "You're a Grand Old Flag,"

As a composer, he was one of the early members of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). He displayed remarkable theatrical longevity — appearing in films until the 1930s and continuing to perform as a headline artist until 1940.

Known in the decade before World War I as "the man who owned Broadway," he is considered the father of American musical comedy. His life and music were depicted in the Academy Award-winning film, Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), and the 1968 musical, George M!

A statue of Cohan in Times Square in New York City commemorates his contributions to American musical theatre.

Leslie Caron, French film actress and dancer, is 90 years old today

Leslie Caron, French film actress and dancer, is 90 years old today.

Caron appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series. Her autobiography, Thank Heaven, was published in 2010 in the UK and U.S., and in 2011 in a French version.

Caron is best known for the musical films, An American in Paris (1951), Lili (1953), Daddy Long Legs (1955), Gigi (1958), and for the non-musical films Fanny (1961), The L-Shaped Room (1962) and Father Goose (1964).

Caron received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. She speaks French, English and Italian and is one of the few dancers or actresses who have danced with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev.

Born in Boulogne-sur-Seine, Seine (now Boulogne-Billancourt, Hauts-de-Seine), France, Caron is the daughter of Margaret, an American dancer on Broadway, and Claude Caron, a French chemist. She was prepared for a performing career from childhood by her mother.

Caron started her career as a ballerina. Gene Kelly discovered her in Roland Petit Company "Ballet des Champs Elysées," and cast her to appear opposite him in the musical, An American in Paris (1951), a role in which a pregnant Cyd Charisse was originally cast.

This role led to a long-term MGM contract and a sequence of films which included the musical, The Glass Slipper (1955), and the drama, The Man with a Cloak (1951), with Joseph Cotten and Barbara Stanwyck. Still, Caron has said of herself: "Unfortunately, Hollywood considers musical dancers as hoofers. Regrettable expression."

She also starred in the successful musicals Lili (1953), with Mel Ferrer; Daddy Long Legs (1955), with Fred Astaire, and Gigi (1958) with Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier.

Caron has continued to act, appearing in the film, Chocolat, in 2000. She is one of the few actors from the classic era of MGM musicals who are still active in film. Her other recent credits include Funny Bones (1995) with Jerry Lewis and Oliver Platt; The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2000) with Judi Dench and Cleo Laine; and Le Divorce (2003), directed by James Ivory, with Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts.

Here, Caron dances with Gene Kelly in a famous scene from “An American in Paris” in 1951

Leslie Caron and Fred Astair dance in the film, Daddy Long Legs, 1955

Lena Horne was born 104 years ago today

Lena Horne was born 104 years ago today.

An African American singer, actress, dancer and civil rights activist, Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies. She had more substantial parts in the films, Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather.

Due to the Red Scare and her left-leaning political views, Horne found herself blacklisted and unable to get work in Hollywood. Returning to her roots as a nightclub performer, Horne took part in the March on Washington in August, 1963, and continued to work as a performer, both in nightclubs and on television, while releasing well-received record albums.

She announced her retirement in March, 1980, but the next year starred in a one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, which ran for more than three hundred performances on Broadway and earned her numerous awards and accolades. She continued recording and performing sporadically into the 1990s, disappearing from the public eye in 2000.

Born in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, Horne was descended from the John C. Calhoun family, both sides of her family were a mixture of European American, Native American and African-American descent, and belonged to the upper stratum of middle-class, well-educated blacks.

Her father, Edwin Fletcher "Teddy" Horne, Jr. (1892–1970), a numbers kingpin in the gambling trade, left the family when she was three and moved to an upper-middle-class black community in the Hill District community of Pittsburgh.

Her mother, Edna Louise Scottron (1895–1985), daughter of inventor, Samuel R. Scottron, was an actress with a black theatre troupe and traveled extensively.

Scottron's maternal grandmother, Amelie Louise Ashton, was a Senegalese slave. Horne was mainly raised by her grandparents, Cora Calhoun and Edwin Horne.

When Horne was five, she was sent to live in Georgia. For several years, she traveled with her mother.

From 1927 to 1929, she lived with her uncle, Frank S. Horne, who was dean of students at Fort Valley Junior Industrial Institute (now part of Fort Valley State University) in Fort Valley, Georgia, and who would later become an adviser to Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

At 18, she moved in with her father in Pittsburgh, staying in the city's Little Harlem for almost five years and learning from native Pittsburghers Billy Strayhorn and Billy Eckstine, among others.

In the fall of 1933, Horne joined the chorus line of the Cotton Club in New York City. In the spring of 1934, she had a featured role in the Cotton Club Parade starring Adelaide Hall, who took Lena under her wing. A few years later, Horne joined Noble Sissle's Orchestra, with which she toured and with whom she recorded her first record release, a 78 rpm single issued by Decca Records.

After she separated from her first husband, Horne toured with bandleader Charlie Barnet in 1940–41, but disliked the travel and left the band to work at the Café Society in New York.

She replaced Dinah Shore as the featured vocalist on NBC's popular jazz series, The Chamber Music Society of Lower Basin Street. The show's resident maestros, Henry Levine and Paul Laval, recorded with Horne in June, 1941 for RCA Victor.

Horne left the show after only six months to headline a nightclub revue on the West Coast at Slapsy Maxie's. She was replaced by actress Betty Keene of the Keene sisters.

Horne already had two low-budget movies to her credit: a 1938 musical feature called The Duke is Tops (later reissued with Horne's name above the title as The Bronze Venus); and a 1941 two-reel short subject, Boogie Woogie Dream, featuring pianists Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons.

Horne's songs from Boogie Woogie Dream were later released individually as soundies. She was primarily a nightclub performer during this period and it was during a 1942 club engagement in Hollywood at Slapsy Maxie's in which talent scouts approached Horne to work in pictures.

She chose Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and became the first black performer to sign a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio. She made her debut with MGM in Panama Hattie (1942) and performed the title song of Stormy Weather (1943), based loosely on the life of Adelaide Hall.

She appeared in a number of MGM musicals, most notably Cabin in the Sky (also 1943), but was never featured in a leading role because of her race and the fact that films featuring her had to be re-edited for showing in states where theaters could not show films with black performers.

As a result, most of Horne's film appearances were stand-alone sequences that had no bearing on the rest of the film, so editing caused no disruption to the storyline. A notable exception was the all-black musical, Cabin in the Sky, although one number was cut because it was considered too suggestive by the censors.

By the mid-1950s, Horne was disenchanted with Hollywood and increasingly focused on her nightclub career. She was blacklisted during the 1950s for her political views.

After leaving Hollywood, Horne established herself as one of the premiere nightclub performers of the post-war era. She headlined at clubs and hotels throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe, including the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York.

In 1957, a live album — Lena Horne at the Waldorf-Astoria — became the biggest selling record by a female artist in the history of the RCA-Victor label.

In 1958, Horne became the first African American woman to be nominated for a Tony Award for "Best Actress in a Musical" (for her part in the "Calypso" musical Jamaica) which, at Lena's request, featured her longtime friend, Adelaide Hall.

In 1981, she received a Special Tony Award for her one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, which also played to acclaim at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1984.

Despite the show's considerable success (Horne still holds the record for the longest-running solo performance in Broadway history), she did not capitalize on the renewed interest in her career by undertaking many new musical projects.

Horne was long involved with the Civil Rights movement. In 1941, she sang and worked with Paul Robeson. During World War II, when entertaining the troops for the USO, she refused to perform "for segregated audiences or for groups in which German POWs were seated in front of African American servicemen.”

She was at an NAACP rally with Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, the weekend before Evers was assassinated. She also met President John F. Kennedy at the White House two days before he was assassinated.

She was at the March on Washington and spoke and performed on behalf of the NAACP, SNCC and the National Council of Negro Women. She also worked with Eleanor Roosevelt to pass anti-lynching laws.

Horne died on May 9, 2010 in New York City of heart failure.

Here, Horne performs Stormy Weather in 1967

My friend, Jim Gavin, wrote a wonderful book on Lena Horne, called Stormy Weather. On her birthday, here’s a interview with Jim recalling this iconic figure.

Bob Fosse was born 94 years ago today

Bob Fosse, center, leads the cast through an energetic dance number during a rehearsal of his musical “Big Deal” at the Minskoff Rehearsal Studios, Broadway, March 31, 1986

Bob Fosse was born 94 years ago today.

An actor, dancer, musical theatre choreographer, director, screenwriter, film editor and film director, Fosse won an unprecedented eight Tony Awards for choreography, as well as one for direction. He was nominated for an Academy Award four times, winning for his direction of Cabaret (beating Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather).

Born in Chicago to a Norwegian American father, Cyril K. Fosse, and Irish-born mother, Sara Alice Fosse, Fosse was the second youngest of six children. He teamed up with Charles Grass, another young dancer, and began a collaboration under the name The Riff Brothers. They toured theaters throughout the Chicago area.

After being recruited into the military, Fosse was placed in the variety show, Tough Situation, which toured military and naval bases in the Pacific. He then moved to New York with the ambition of being the new Fred Astaire.

Fosse’s appearance with his first wife and dance partner, Mary Ann Niles (1923–1987), in Call Me Mister brought him to the attention of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Fosse and Niles were regular performers on Your Hit Parade during its 1950-51 season, and during this season Martin and Lewis caught their act in New York's Pierre Hotel. Martin and Lewis scheduled them to appear on the Colgate Comedy Hour.

Fosse was signed to a MGM contract in 1953. His early screen appearances included Give A Girl A Break, The Affairs of Dobie Gillis and Kiss Me Kate, all released in 1953. A short sequence that he choreographed in the latter (and danced with Carol Haney) brought him to the attention of Broadway producers.

Fosse was reluctant to move from Hollywood to theatre. However, he made the move, and in 1954, he choreographed his first musical, The Pajama Game, followed by George Abbott's Damn Yankees in 1955. It was while working on the latter show that he first met Gwen Verdon, the redheaded rising star and his future wife. He married her in 1960.

Verdon won her first Tony Award for Best Actress in Damn Yankees (she had won previously for best supporting actress in Can-Can).

Fosse appears in the film version of Damn Yankees, which he also choreographed, in which Verdon reprises her stage triumph as "Lola." They partner with each other in the mambo number, "Who's Got the Pain."

In 1957, Fosse choreographed New Girl in Town, also directed by Abbott, and Verdon won her second Leading Actress Tony. That year he also choreographed the film version of "Pajama Game," starring Doris Day.

In 1960, Fosse was, for the first time, both director and choreographer of a musical called simply, Redhead. With Redhead, Verdon won her third Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. The show won the Tony for best musical and Fosse carried off the award for best choreography. Fosse partnered with Verdon as her director/choreographer again with Sweet Charity and again with Chicago.

Fosse won the Tony for Best Direction of a Musical in 1973 with Pippin. He performed a memorable song and dance number in Stanley Donen's 1974 film version of The Little Prince, and in 1977, Fosse had a small role in the romantic comedy, Thieves.

Notable distinctions of Fosse's style included the use of turned-in knees, sideways shuffling, rolled shoulders and jazz hands. With Astaire as an influence, he used props such as bowler hats, canes and chairs. His trademark use of hats was influenced by his own self-consciousness.

According to Martin Gottfried in his biography of Fosse, "His baldness was the reason that he wore hats and was doubtless why he put hats on his dancers." He used gloves in his performances because he did not like his hands. Some of his most popular numbers include "Steam Heat" (The Pajama Game) and "Big Spender" (Sweet Charity).

Fosse directed five feature films. His first, Sweet Charity in 1969, starring Shirley MacLaine, is an adaptation of the Broadway musical he had directed and choreographed. Fosse shot the film largely on location in Manhattan.

His second film, Cabaret, won eight Academy Awards, including Best Director, which he won over Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather starring Marlon Brando. The film was shot on location in Berlin. Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey both won Oscars for their roles.

Fosse went on to direct Lenny in 1974, a biopic of comic Lenny Bruce starring Dustin Hoffman. The film was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director Oscars, among other awards.

However, just as Fosse picked up his Oscar for Cabaret, his Tony for Pippin and an Emmy for directing Liza Minnelli's television concert, Liza with a Z, his health suffered. He underwent open-heart surgery.

In 1979, Fosse co-wrote and directed a semi-autobiographical film, All That Jazz, which portrayed the life of a womanizing, drug-addicted choreographer-director in the midst of triumph and failure. All That Jazz won four Academy Awards, earning Fosse his third Oscar nomination for Best Director. It also won the Palme d'Or at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival.

On September 23, 1987, Fosse died from a heart attack at George Washington University Hospital, while the revival of Sweet Charity was opening at the nearby National Theatre.

Here, Fosse’s former wife, Gwen Verdon, narrates a film features various clips of Fosse dancing.

Dustin Hoffman and Bob Fosse, Miami, 1981

Photo by Steve Schapiro

Gower Champion was born 102 years ago today

Marge and Gower Champion sunbathing by the swimming pool at the Flamingo Hotel, Las Vegas, 1953

Photo by Maurice Terrell

Gower Champion was born 102 years ago today.

An actor, theatre director, choreographer and dancer, Champion was born in Geneva, Illinois. He studied dance from an early age and, at the age of fifteen, toured nightclubs with a friend, Jeanne Tyler. There were billed as "Gower and Jeanne, America's Youngest Dance Team."

In 1939, "Gower and Jeanne" danced to the music of Larry Clinton and his Orchestra in a Warner Brothers & Vitaphone film short-subject, "The Dipsy Doodler" (released in 1940).

During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Champion worked on Broadway as a solo dancer and choreographer. After serving in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II, Champion met Marjorie Belcher, who became his new partner. The two were married in 1947.

In the early 1950s, Marge and Gower Champion made seven film musicals: Mr. Music (1950, with Bing Crosby), the 1951 remake of Show Boat (with Howard Keel and Kathryn Grayson), 1952's Lovely to Look At (a remake of Roberta, also with Keel and Grayson), the autobiographical Everything I Have Is Yours (1952), Give a Girl a Break (1953, with Debbie Reynolds and Bob Fosse), Jupiter's Darling (1955, with Keel and Esther Williams) and Three for the Show (1955, with Betty Grable and Jack Lemmon).

All were made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer except Mr. Music (Paramount) and Three for the Show (Columbia). Throughout the 1950s, they performed on a number of television variety shows, and in 1957 they starred in their own short-lived CBS sitcom, The Marge and Gower Champion Show, which was based on their actual career experiences.

In 1948, Champion had begun to direct as well, and he won the first of eight Tony Awards for his staging of Lend An Ear, the show that introduced Carol Channing to New York theater audiences. During the 1950s, he only worked on two Broadway musicals — choreographing Make a Wish in 1951 and directing, staging and starring in 3 For Tonight in 1955.

Champion preferred to spend most of his time in Hollywood. However, in the 1960s, he directed a number of Broadway hits that put him at the top of his profession. He had a solid success in 1960 with Bye Bye Birdie, a show about an Elvis-like rock star about to be inducted into the Army. The show starred relative unknowns Chita Rivera and Dick Van Dyke along with a youthful cast.

It ran 607 performances and won four Tony awards, including Best Musical and two for Champion's direction and choreography.

Next came Carnival! in 1961, which ran 719 performances and garnered seven Tony nominations, including one for Champion's direction.

In 1964, he directed one of Broadway's biggest blockbusters, Hello, Dolly! It ran for 2844 performances — almost seven years. Starring Carol Channing, it's best remembered for the title number, where Dolly is greeted by the staff of a restaurant after having been away for years. The show won ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical, as well as two for Champion's direction and choreography.

Champion had his fourth consecutive hit musical with I Do! I Do! in 1966. It featured a cast of two — veterans Mary Martin and Robert Preston — playing a couple seen throughout the years of their marriage. The show ran for 560 performances and got seven Tony nominations, including one for Champion's direction.

In early 1979, Champion received from his doctors at the Scripps Institute a diagnosis of Waldenström macroglobulinemia, a rare form of blood cancer. He began treatment at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles and was advised not to take on work.

Champion died at age 61 on August 25, 1980 in New York City at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Champion's death came only ten hours before the opening-night curtain of “42nd Street,” the Broadway musical he directed. It would be his greatest success, running nine years. Producer David Merrick asked Champion's family to keep the news secret from everyone, including the show's cast.

During the enthusiastic curtain calls, he came onstage and melodramatically made the shocking announcement amidst the applause. “No, no. This is tragic. You don’t understand. Gower Champion died this morning.”

Here, Marge and Gower Champion dance in the final scene of “Lovely to Look At” in 1952

Judy Garland was born 99 years ago today

Judy Garland was born 99 years ago today.

An actress, singer and vaudevillian, Garland was described by Fred Astaire as "the greatest entertainer who ever lived" and renowned for her contralto voice. She attained international stardom throughout a career that spanned more than 40 years as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage.

Garland remains the youngest recipient (at 39 years of age) of the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement in the motion picture industry. After appearing in vaudeville with her two older sisters, Garland was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. There she made more than two dozen films, including nine with Mickey Rooney and the 1939 film with which she would be most identified, The Wizard of Oz.

After 15 years, she was released from the studio, but gained renewed success through record-breaking concert appearances. This included a return to acting beginning with critically acclaimed performances.

Despite her professional triumphs, Garland struggled in her personal life, starting when she was a child. Her self-image was strongly influenced by film executives, who said she was unattractive and constantly manipulated her onscreen physical appearance. She was plagued by financial instability, often owing hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes. She married five times, with her first four marriages ending in divorce.

Garland also had a long battle with drugs and alcohol, which ultimately led to her death at the age of 47 in 1969.

Here, Garland performs “Get Happy” from the film, Summer Stock, in 1950

The late Ronald Neame discusses directing Judy Garland on her last picture, "I Could Go On Singing," in 1963.

This excerpt is from the film "Ronald Neame: On the Director" by Frank Beacham and Carol Dickman. It was released in 1985.

The Zoot Suit riots shook Los Angeles 78 years ago this week

Cab Calloway, dressed in a zoot suit, in the 1943 film, Stormy Weather

Photo by Gilles Petard

The Zoot Suit riots shook Los Angeles 78 years ago this week.

American servicemen attacked Mexican-Americans, black men and others who had embraced the flamboyantly draped suits, padded at the shoulder and pegged at the ankle. Known first as “killer dillers,” zoot suits had become an expression of pride in minority communities.

The military barred personnel from leaving their barracks, and the City Council voted to ban zoot suits. A New York Times report that week traced the suit’s origins to Gainesville, Georgia.

In the years after, it came to be seen as a symbol of pride, swagger and resistance. The bandleader Cab Calloway once called it “the only totally and truly American civilian suit.”

“Zoot Suit” also became the title of a play and movie, based on the true story of a group of Latino youths unjustly convicted of murder.

Last year, The New York Times sent a photographer to shoot portraits of Angelenos at a staging of the play. Many had donned zoot suits or ’40s-style dresses.

“When I wear a zoot suit I feel empowered, kind of like it’s a suit of armor,” said Luis Guerrero, then 25. “It’s not only honoring those in the past, but it makes you look sharp.”

Thanks New York Times!

Josephine Baker was born 115 years ago today

Josephine Baker was born 115 years ago today.

An American-born dancer, singer and actress, Baker became known as the "Black Pearl," "Bronze Venus" and even the "Creole Goddess."

Born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Baker later became a citizen of France in 1937. She was fluent in both English and French. She was the first African-American woman to star in a major motion picture, Zouzou (1934), or to become a world-famous entertainer.

Baker, who refused to perform for segregated audiences in America, is also noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. She was once offered unofficial leadership in the movement in the United States by Coretta Scott King in 1968, following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination. Baker, however, 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.

A dancer, Baker traveled to Paris for a new venture and opened in "La Revue Nègre" on October 2, 1925 at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. She became an instant success for her erotic dancing and for appearing practically nude on stage.

After a successful tour of Europe, she broke her contract and returned to France to star at the Folies Bergère, setting the standard for her future acts. She performed the Danse sauvage, wearing a costume consisting of a skirt made of a string of artificial bananas.

Her success coincided (1925) with the Exposition des Arts Décoratifs that gave birth to the term "Art Deco," and also with a renewal of interest in non-western forms of art, including African.

Baker became the most successful American entertainer working in France. Ernest Hemingway called her "the most sensational woman anyone ever saw."

In addition to being a musical star, Baker also starred in three films that found success only in Europe: the silent film, Siren of the Tropics (1927), Zouzou (1934) and Princesse Tam Tam (1935). She also starred in Fausse Alerte in 1940.

At this time she also scored her most successful song, "J'ai deux amours" (1931), and became a muse for contemporary authors, painters, designers and sculptors, including Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso and Christian Dior.

Although based in France, Baker supported the American Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s. When she arrived in New York with her husband, Jo, they were refused reservations at 36 hotels because she was black. She was so upset by the treatment that she wrote articles on the segregation in the United States and began traveling farther south.

She gave a talk at the all-black Fisk University in Nashville, her subject being "France, North Africa and The Equality Of The Races In France." In addition, she refused to perform for segregated audiences in the United States even after she was offered $10,000 by a Miami club. (The club eventually met her demands.)

Her insistence on mixed audiences helped to integrate shows in Las Vegas, then one of the most segregated cities in America. After this incident, she began receiving threatening phone calls from the Ku Klux Klan but said that she was not afraid of them.

In 1951, Baker made charges of racism against Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club in Manhattan, where she alleged that she had been refused service.

Actress Grace Kelly, who was at the club at the time, rushed over to Baker, took her by the arm and stormed out with her entire party, vowing never to return (although she did in fact appear there on January 3, 1956 with Prince Rainier of Monaco). The two women became close friends after the incident.

In 1963, she spoke at the March on Washington at the side of Martin Luther King, Jr. Baker was the only official female speaker and while wearing her Free French uniform emblazoned with her medal of the Légion d'honneur she introduced the "Negro Women for Civil Rights."

Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates were among those she acknowledged and both gave brief speeches.

On April 8, 1975, Baker starred in a retrospective revue at the Bobino in Paris, Joséphine à Bobino 1975, celebrating her 50 years in show business. The revue, financed notably by Prince Rainier, Princess Grace and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, opened to rave reviews.

Demand for seating was such that fold-out chairs had to be added to accommodate spectators. The opening-night audience included Sophia Loren, Mick Jagger, Shirley Bassey, Diana Ross and Liza Minnelli.

Four days later, Baker was found lying peacefully in her bed surrounded by newspapers with glowing reviews of her performance. She was in a coma after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. She was taken to Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, where she died at age 68 on April 12, 1975.

Here, Baker is shown doing her Banana Dance in Paris, 1927

Josephine Baker, Paris, circa 1920s

In many of her shows, Baker performed naked, mimicking ‘savage’ animals in her act. In some performances, she was often accompanied on stage by her pet cheetah, Chiquita, who was adorned with a diamond collar.

The cheetah frequently escaped into the orchestra pit, where it terrorized the musicians, adding another element of excitement to the show.

Photo from Roger-Viollet