Josephine Baker

Dead Funny History: Josephine Baker. Josephine Baker was a dazzling dancer, a fearless spy, and one of the world’s first Black superstars. In this episode of Dead Funny History, historian Greg Jenner tells her extraordinary story with wit, warmth and plenty of jazz hands. Born in 1906 in St Louis, Missouri, Josephine’s early life was tough. She worked as a maid from the age of eight and fled racial violence with dreams of stardom. By 15, she’d already been married twice and was making waves on Broadway with her unique comic dance style. But it was in Paris where she truly became a sensation by combining tap, ballet, and even kangaroo-inspired moves into her cabaret performances. Greg explores how Josephine used her fame to challenge racist stereotypes, famously performing in a skirt made of bananas to mock colonial attitudes. She became the highest-paid performer in Europe, starred in films, and even had her own line of dolls – all while living with a menagerie of exotic pets, including a cheetah named Chiquita. But Josephine wasn’t just a showbiz icon. During World War Two, she became a spy for the French Resistance, smuggling secrets in sheet music and using invisible ink. After the war, she was decorated for bravery and continued to fight for civil rights, speaking at the 1963 March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King Jr. Greg also reveals Josephine’s later life, including her adoption of twelve children from different backgrounds to promote unity, and her final triumphant performance before her death in 1975. With jokes, sound effects, and a quiz to test your memory, this episode is a joyful celebration of a truly remarkable woman. Perfect for families and fans of You're Dead To Me, this snappy history lesson brings Josephine Baker’s legacy to life. Writers: Jack Bernhardt, Gabby Hutchinson Crouch and Dr Emma Nagouse Host: Greg Jenner Performers: Mali Ann Rees and John-Luke Roberts Producer: Dr Emma Nagouse Associate Producer: Gabby Hutchinson Crouch Audio Producer: Emma Weatherill Script Consultant: Dr Michell Chresfield Production Coordinator: Liz Tuohy Production Manager: Jo Kyle Studio Managers: Keith Graham and Andrew Garratt Sound Designer: Peregrine Andrews A BBC Studios Production

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:08Greg Jenner?

  Welcome to Dead Funny History. I'm Greg Jenner. I'm a historian, and I want to tell you about someone cool. Now, imagine one of the most phenomenal performers in the world.

• 1:21Greg Jenner?

  Now imagine the world's coolest spy.

• 1:25Greg Jenner?

  What if I told you they were both the same person? Yep, I'm talking about Josephine Baker, celebrated by many as one of the world's first black superstars. Josephine was born in 1906 as Frida Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri in the USA. But she grew up in East St. Louis in Illinois. Her mother nicknamed her Tumpy because she thought she looked a bit like Humpty Dumpty. What are you going to call her?

• 1:54Speaker 05

  Tompey, 'cause she looks like an egg.

• 1:57Greg Jenner?

  I think you need more sleep. Josephine's family were poor, so when she was eight, she had to work as a maid for a horrible man who made her sleep in a box. There were also very scary race riots against black people where she lived. So Josephine left Illinois aged 11 with dreams of becoming a star. She got work with travelling shows, one time by hiding in the luggage.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  Time to unpack. Toothpaste, spare pants, child. Hiya. Ah!

• 2:31Greg Jenner?

  When she was just 15, Josephine moved to New York. She'd already been married twice. Her second husband was Willie Baker. The marriage didn't last, but she did keep his last name. Josephine Baker now performed in shows like Shuffle Along and The Chocolate Dandies, and she found ways to stand out in the crowd. She pulled funny faces and crossed her eyes and deliberately tripped over when other dancers were kicking, a bit like when a footballer goes on Strictly. Keep dancing! And yet, Josephine was really popular, a bit like when a footballer goes on Strictly. As one spectator put it, Josephine... ...stood out like an exclamation mark.

• 3:14Greg Jenner?

  Just as things were going great for Josephine amid the shining lights of Broadway, she... left. For Paris. Now, Paris was home to an exciting kind of new musical entertainment called cabaret, where performers had a lot more creative freedom.

• 3:34Greg Jenner?

  And a lot fewer clothes.

• 3:38Greg Jenner?

  People in Paris had seen nothing like Josephine before, and they loved her. She squished together loads of different kinds of dance, from Broadway...

• 3:51Greg Jenner?

  To tap.

• 3:53Greg Jenner?

  Bits of ballet.

• 3:58Greg Jenner?

  She was even inspired by kangaroos she'd seen hopping around in St Louis Zoo.

• 4:04Greg Jenner?

  The Parisian spectators loved her, even if they didn't express that in the nicest of ways.

• 4:10Speaker 00

  Josephine, the reviews are in.

• 4:13Speaker 05

  What do they say?

• 4:14Speaker 00

  It walks with bent knees.

• 4:17Speaker 05

  Did they call me a...

• 4:19Speaker 00

  It appears to be a moving saxophone.

• 4:23Speaker 05

  What does that even mean?

• 4:24Speaker 00

  She goes off on all fours like a very young giraffe.

• 4:29Speaker 05

  Is that... good?

• 4:31Speaker 00

  Five stars!

• 4:32Speaker 05

  Hooray!

• 4:34Greg Jenner?

  And Josephine was loving it too. She said:

• 4:37Speaker 05

  I would love to die breathless, exhausted, at the end of a dance.

• 4:43Greg Jenner?

  Josephine used dancing to fight back against racist ideas. Her most well-known dance was the dance Sauvage, or savage dance, which made fun of people who thought that black people weren't civilized, or even like animals. By performing this dance in a really over-the-top and very silly way, Josephine Baker made the audience see just how silly racist ideas about black people were. She famously danced wearing a skirt made of fake bananas, which is now an iconic symbol of her resistance, and Beyoncé even wore one in her honour.

• 5:18Greg Jenner?

  Josephine Baker was now the toast of Paris and became one of the most highly-paid performers in the world.

• 5:26Greg Jenner?

  As well as the first African-American woman to star in a movie. And action! There were even Josephine Baker dolls, long before Barbie.

• 5:36Speaker 05

  Hi Barbie! Hi Josephine! What are you doing today? Being glamorous and revolutionary. You? Sitting on a tower of Lego while my human felt tips my hair blue.

• 5:50Greg Jenner?

  The cash was rolling in, so Josephine bought a luxury hotel suite and filled it with exotic pets. She had a snake called Kiki, a chimp in a hat called Ethel.

• 6:05Greg Jenner?

  A horse called Tomato.

• 6:06Speaker 06

  Tomato?

• 6:08Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, Tomato. I suppose because when she took him for a run, she could never catch up.

• 6:13Speaker 06

  Boo!

• 6:14Greg Jenner?

  Sorry. There were also monkeys, parakeets, a tortoise, oh, and Albert, named after the maître d' of the hotel she stayed in.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  A pig? I forget to put sea chocolate on your pillow one time!

• 6:29Greg Jenner?

  Her most famous pet, though, was Chiquita, the cheetah, who wore a diamond-studded collar. Josephine even took Chiquita to the cinema. I wonder what Chiquita made of the movies?

• 6:41Speaker 05

  Despite some great performances, my review of Wicked is: too much singing and not enough great big slabs of meat. Three stars. Next: a tick-tock of a zebra with a hurty leg. Now this is cinema!

• 7:04Greg Jenner?

  Josephine Baker also sang and opened her own club called Chez Josephine. It was stuffed with VIPs, including her beloved pets.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  Mon Dieu! That pig again! He stinks!

• 7:17Speaker 05

  Hey, we fixed his stink.

• 7:20Speaker 00

  Well, you, you gave him a bath?

• 7:22Speaker 05

  No, I just doused him in perfume.

• 7:27Greg Jenner?

  Yep, she really did perfume her pig. Josephine also got married a third time in 1937 to Jean-Lion. But then...

• 7:38Greg Jenner?

  World War II broke out, and France was invaded by the Nazis. Josephine signed up for duty in the Women's Auxiliary of the French Air Force.

• 7:50Speaker 00

  Look out! The French Air Force is attacking! Huh! One of those planes is really flying like an saxophone!

• 7:59Greg Jenner?

  Now, she didn't fly planes, but Josephine became one of France's top spies.

• 8:05Speaker 05

  The name's Baker. Josephine Baker.

• 8:10Greg Jenner?

  How does one of the most flamboyant women in the world become a undercover spy?

• 8:15Speaker 00

  Okay, Baker. For this next mission, you'll need to infiltrate the enemy camp. Absolutely no one can detect you.

• 8:22Speaker 05

  Sure thing, boss!

• 8:31Speaker 00

  I wonder if James Bond is free?

• 8:33Greg Jenner?

  But because she was one of France's biggest stars, she thought nobody would search or suspect her, which I guess is fair enough. It would be like Taylor Swift working for MI5.

• 8:44Speaker 05

  It's me, spy. I'm the agent, it's me.

• 8:48Greg Jenner?

  Josephine was also able to meet lots of important people at fancy parties and learn all of their secrets.

• 8:57Greg Jenner?

  She would stash secret information under her clothes and write intel either on her own skin or on her sheet music. Very cool indeed, but not hugely helpful for the next singer using that sheet music.

• 9:10Speaker 05

  One, two, three, four, the Germans are deploying tanks to the south. Send reinforcements.

• 9:18Speaker 05

  Song is a lot more about tanks than I remembered.

• 9:21Greg Jenner?

  Sometimes Josephine even used invisible ink. After the war, France gave Josephine Baker special medals for her bravery, and she travelled the world. She even returned to America to perform. After all, she was an international superstar and a war hero, so they'd surely have to be nice to her now, right?

• 9:42Greg Jenner?

  Sadly, in the 1950s and 60s, the USA was still very racist and still had something called segregation, which made it legal to discriminate against black people. In 1951, Josephine accused the owner of a famous nightclub of racism because he refused to serve her. Surely everyone would have admired her taking such a courageous stand, right?

• 10:06Greg Jenner?

  A well-known journalist accused Josephine of being a communist, which was so serious that she was investigated by the American government. They monitored her closely for 10 years. One file even said:

• 10:20Speaker 00

  Let's watch who employs this troublemaker.

• 10:23Greg Jenner?

  In 1963, Josephine attended the famous March on Washington, all decked out in her French Air Force uniform and medals. This was the event where the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr made his iconic "I have a dream" speech. Josephine also made a passionate speech about her experiences as a black woman and entertainer. Now, in her late 50s, she was really busy. As a megastar, as an activist, and as a mother to 12 kids.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  12 kids?

• 10:55Greg Jenner?

  Yep, she adopted children from many different backgrounds to show how people could all get along together regardless of where they were from. Josephine raised them in a fancy chateau, which had its own pool, restaurant, cheetah cage, and, uh, viewing gallery.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  Viewing gallery?

• 11:15Greg Jenner?

  Yeah, she invited members of the public to come and see her kids for a small fee. Bit weird. How would you like it if your parents turned you into a tourist attraction?

• 11:25Speaker 05

  And over here, you can see my teenage son in his natural habitat. In his pants, playing Minecraft.

• 11:33Greg Jenner?

  To be fair to Josephine, she really wanted to show the world that it was possible for everyone to get along. Pretty soon, though, she ran out of money. Diamond-encrusted collars for cheetahs don't come cheap. Josephine and her family were evicted from their chateau, which is the sort of problem that only happens in fairy tales. And what was she expecting, anyway? Some beautiful princess to ride by and rescue her?

• 12:00Greg Jenner?

  Anyway, that's when a beautiful princess rode by and rescued her. Yeah, luckily, Josephine's friend, Grace Kelly, a movie star and literal princess of Monaco, put them up in one of her fancy French villas. I'm not sure they all would have fitted in the spare room, though.

• 12:15Speaker 00

  I'm sure we can find somewhere for you to stay.

• 12:19Speaker 05

  Thank you. It's just me and all my kids. And my menagerie.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  I'll shift to sofa bed.

• 12:34Greg Jenner?

  Remember when Josephine had said earlier that she would love to die breathless, exhausted, at the end of a dance? Well, I have some good news about Josephine's death. Yeah, on the 8th of April 1975, Baker starred in a show to celebrate her 50 years in show business. The guest list was more star-studded than Chiquita's collar, and the show was a huge hit. Josephine went back to her hotel room, so happy she could die. So she did.

• 13:06Greg Jenner?

  But if you have to go, you might as well do it surrounded by rave reviews of your show.

• 13:11Speaker 05

  My fans say that I died of a full heart.

• 13:14Greg Jenner?

  It was probably a cerebral hemorrhage, in fairness. Way to kill the mood, Greg. Sorry. The French still adore Josephine, which makes sense. With their tiny pastries, they do love a good baker.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  Boo!

• 13:27Greg Jenner?

  I'm not sorry. But it is true. In 2021, Josephine Baker was given a place at the Pantheon in Paris, where some of the most important people in French history are memorialised.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Pantheon of French Heroes. We've got them all. Marie Curie, scientist. Voltaire, philosopher.

• 13:50Speaker 05

  God, life!

• 13:52Speaker 00

  And give it up for the first black woman in the Pantheon and first American, Josephine Baker!

• 14:06Greg Jenner?

  What a hero! So, how much do you remember from today's speedy history lesson? Let's find out. Pencils at the ready. Question one: Josephine Baker's famous dancing skirt was made from which healthy snack? The answer, of course, was bananas! Question two: Josephine had loads of pets, but what was the name of her pet cheetah? The cheetah was, of course, Chiquita! And question three: As a spy during the war, how did Josephine Baker smuggle secrets about the enemy back to her colleagues in France? And the answer, of course, is with invisible ink, hiding notes in her clothes, and sheet music and writing it on her skin. Well done!

• 14:49Greg Jenner?

  Join us next time for another snappy history lesson. If you're a grown-up and you want to learn more about Josephine Baker, you can listen to our episode of You're Dead to Me with Dr Michelle Cressfield. Thank you for listening! Bye! This was a BBC Studios audio production for Radio 4. Dead Funny History was written by Jack Bernhardt, Gabby Hutchinson-Crouch and Dr Emma Nagouse. It was hosted by me, Greg Jenner, and performed by Malien Rees and John Luke Roberts. The script consultant was Dr Michelle Cressfield.

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