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40 Fascinating Facts About the Fabulous Josephine Baker

Khalid Elhassan July 2, 2019 24 min

Josephine Baker - Josephine Baker - Chanter L'amour

1. Her Influence Continued After Her Death

Angelina Jolie’s multiracial family. Getty Images

Dance historians credited Josephine Baker with being the Beyonce of her day, and with revolutionizing onstage performances. In her day, she was actually bigger than Beyonce, who paid Baker tribute in 2006 by performing her bana dance in the Radio City Music Hall. Baker’s legacy extends beyond her public career, and her private life seems to influence celebrities to this day. In 2003, Angelina Jolie cited Baker and The Rainbow Tribe as the model for the multiracial and multicultural family she was then beginning to create through adoption.

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Where Did We Find This Stuff? Some Sources and Further Reading

CMG Worldwide, Josephine Baker’s Official Site – Josephine Baker‘s Biography

Encyclopedia Britannica – Josephine Baker, French Entertainer

Factinate – 42 Extravagant Facts About Josephine Baker, the Black Pearl of Paris

Jones, Sherry – Josephine Baker‘s Last Dance (2018)

National Women’s History Museum – Josephine Baker

State Historical Society of Missouri – Josephine Baker

Wikipedia – Josephine Baker

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.