Character Catalog

African-American music-hall show presented at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, which revealed Joséphine Baker to Europe and caused a major cultural shock by introducing jazz and African-American dances to Parisian audiences.

The flagship revue of the Folies Bergère in which Joséphine Baker created her iconic banana costume, establishing her status as an international star and symbol of the modernity of the Roaring Twenties.

Joséphine Baker triumphed in this operetta at the Théâtre Marigny, proving her artistic versatility beyond dance and establishing herself as a genuine actress and lyric singer.

French musical film in which Joséphine Baker plays the first female lead role for a Black woman in European cinema, a historic achievement that broke a racial taboo in the film industry.

Musical comedy in which Baker plays a young Tunisian woman transformed into a Parisian star, a film that ironically questions colonial prejudices and the social codes of interwar European society.

Full commitment as an agent of the Deuxième Bureau, transmitting vital military intelligence under artistic cover, which earned her the Resistance Medal and the Legion of Honor at the Liberation.

The only woman officially at the podium during the great civil rights rally where Martin Luther King spoke, Baker carried the voice of the experience of true freedom and challenged America on its racial contradictions.

I arrived in Paris with forty francs in my pocket. But I had something that money cannot buy: I had the will to succeed and to prove that the color of my skin was not an obstacle.

Josephine Baker placed herself entirely at the disposal of Free France. She transmitted intelligence of the utmost importance on enemy troop movements in Morocco, Spain and Portugal, at the risk of her life.

My friends and my brothers, when I come back to America, I suffer. You know what I mean. But when I return to France, I breathe. I am free. I am a complete human being.

I categorically refuse to perform before a segregated audience. If Black people cannot sit in the same seats as white people, I will not take the stage. That is my one and only condition.

The mythical Parisian music hall where Joséphine Baker became a world star from 1926. It was here that she created the "Banana Dance" and embodied the spirit of the Roaring Twenties.

Property acquired by Joséphine Baker in 1947, where she established her "Rainbow Tribe" of twelve adopted children. She made it a living symbol of universal brotherhood until its seizure in 1969.

Site of her 1925 Parisian triumph with the Revue Nègre, where Baker caused a resounding scandal and instantly won over all of artistic Paris, launching her European career.

Joséphine Baker's birthplace, marked by the poverty and racial violence of her childhood. It was the brutality of American segregation that drove her to flee to Europe.

During the Resistance, Joséphine Baker used her tours across North Africa as cover for her espionage missions, gathering intelligence on Axis troops in Morocco and the Mediterranean.

Iconic costume from the "Banana Dance" performed at the Folies Bergère in 1926, which became one of the most recognizable visual symbols of the Roaring Twenties and Joséphine Baker's artistic freedom.

Joséphine Baker proudly wore her French Air Force second lieutenant uniform at public appearances, including the March on Washington in 1963, symbolizing her dual commitment to France and civil rights.

During the Resistance, Joséphine Baker concealed secret military intelligence written in invisible ink inside her sheet music, which she transported during her tours through neutral territories.

Joséphine Baker would stroll through the streets of Paris accompanied by her tamed cheetah Chiquita, a symbol of her unapologetic eccentricity and refusal to conform to the social conventions of the time.

Decoration awarded to Joséphine Baker for her courage during the Resistance and her commitment to Free France, which she wore with pride to remind the world that patriotism and the fight against racism are inseparable.

An essential working tool for this singer and revue headliner, the microphone embodies a fifty-year career on the world's greatest stages, from Paris to New York, transforming Baker's voice into an instrument of freedom and resistance.