Josephine started her career in 1919, when she toured the U.S. with The Jones Family Band and The Dixie Steppers.
Josephine auditioned for a part in Sissle and Blake’s Shuffle Along, but was rejected for being “too skinny and dark”(Louck, Tracie, and Barbara Haberman) and too young for the show.
She worked backstage at Shuffle Along and learned all the dances so that she could go onstage if a dancer got sick.
Josephine was eventually given a real part in Shuffle Along.
In Shuffle Along Josephine acted comedically, purposely messing up dance steps and making funny faces– to the great pleasure of the audience.
She became known to theatre-goers as the “skinny little girl at the end of the line who made goofy faces.”
Josephine was also known for her abrupt improvisations, regardless of the careful “professionalism” training she received in Shuffle Along rehearsals.
In 1924 Josephine starred in Chocolate Dandies.
In Chocolate Dandies she received over four times as much money in salary as the other dancers, making her the best paid woman in show business at the time.
After finding success in Europe for many years, Josephine returned to America to star in The Ziegfeld Follies.
Her reception upon returning to America was terrible.
Americans refused to accept the idea that a woman of color could be sophisticated and powerful, and Time magazine referred to her as a “negro wench”.
Eventually Ziegfeld Follies dropped Josephine Baker and hired Gypsy Rose Lee instead.
Josephine was disgusted by American racism, and returned to her beloved France with a heavy heart.
This is great! Very informational. It’s hard to imagine that her flourishing career in America could have been completely destroyed by her ethnicity, though I’m glad our country has grown from those times. You seem very knowledgable!