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Look Back: Josephine Baker returns to St. Louis, 1952
Date: 2/3/2012 Album ID: 1408175
Photos by Larry Coyne
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Josephine Baker's show on Feb. 3, 1952, in Kiel Auditorium was noteworthy mainly for occurring at all. Baker, who became a sensation for sultry dances wearing only a few feathers or a skirt of bananas, hadn’t performed in her native city since achieving worldwide fame in Paris in 1925. She had plenty of opportunities, but refused to play for racially segregated audiences.
Josephine Baker at St. Louis Union Station on Feb. 3, 1948, on a train bound for New York. She had been visiting her mother, Carrie Martin, who lived here. Baker was born in St. Louis, probably in 1906, and left as a teenager in 1919 or 1920. After playing for a traveling vaudeville show, she performed in New York, where she joined a black dance troupe headed for Paris. She became a sensation there in 1925 for her energetic and lightly clad dance routines. She refused to perform in St. Louis until 1952 because she wouldn't play before racially segregated audiences. (Post-Dispatch)
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Josephine Baker in St. Louis in October 1950, her third visit to her home town, this time with husband Jo Bouillon, a French orchestra leader. She still wouldn't perform here. (Post-Dispatch)
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Josephine Baker on stage at Kiel Auditorium on Feb. 3, 1952, the first time she had performed in her home town since becoming internationally famous. She sang and danced and changed her elaborate costumes several times. Then she read a speech she had prepared blasting St. Louis, and the United States, for racism and racial discrimination. (Buel White/Post-Dispatch)
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Josephine Baker singing at Kiel Auditorium on Feb. 3, 1962. (Buel White/Post-Dispatch)
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Josephine Baker in 1923, before she left for Europe. (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)
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A promotional poster of Josephine Baker from the 1920s.
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Some of Josephine Baker's dance steps. (New York Public Library)
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Josephine Baker in one of her trademark vaudeville poses. (H. Roger Viollet)
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Josephine Baker on stage in Berlin. (Naked at the Feast: A Biography of Josephine Baker, by Lynn Haney)
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Josephine Baker as a young woman. (Yale University)
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Josephine Baker with Pepito de Abatino, who helped Josephine Baker transform herself from exotic dancer to Continental lady. (Naked at the Feast)
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Josephine Baker at the Gare D'Orsay, a former train station in Paris, around 1940. With her are husband Jean Lyon and Baker's secretary. (Associated Press)
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Josephine Baker marries Jo Bouillon in a chateau near St. Cyprien, France, on June 3, 1947. Biographers disagree on how many times she was married, but they say it was at least three times. (Associated Press)
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Josephine Baker in New York during a tour of performances in the United States in 1951. She complained that waiters at the Stork Club, then a swank New York nightspot, ignored her and her companions. In October 1951, she announced that she would not include St. Louis on her tour because she refused to perform before racially segregated audiences. (Associated Press)
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Josephine Baker on Broadway in 1951, her first return to the New York stage in 15 years. (International News Photos)
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Josephine Baker at the Strand Theater in New York on March 6,1951, for the start of her American tour. She last had played New York with the Ziegfeld Follies in 1936. She became a French citizen the next year. (Associated Press)
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Josephine Baker in 1959 with some of the 11 children of different races she adopted. She called them her rainbow tribe. At right is husband Jo Bouillon. They lived for a time in a 15th Century castle outside of Parish.
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Josephine Baker at the steps of her Chateau des Milandes, a 15th century castle in the south of France, east of Bourdeaux, that she bought in 1949 for her family of adopted children. But she lost the castle in March 1969 to settle debts. (Associated Press)
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Josephine Baker sings in 1973, date and location not provided. She was to have performed at Kiel Opera House in October 1973, but cancelled the show. (Associated Press)
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Josephine Baker accepts birthday wishes in New York on June 3, 1973, shortly before she performed at Carnegie Hall. The photo caption says it was her 67th birthday. But after she died April 12, 1975, of a cerebral hemorrhage in Paris, her publicists said she was 68. She was buried in Monaco. Over the years, articles and books have listed different birth years, although the most agreed-upon birth date is 1906, which indeed would have made her 68 when she died. (United Press International)
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