Josephine Baker

Paris, 1925. Over the course of a single evening, the Mississippi-born dancer Josephine Baker (1906–1975) becomes the darling of the Roaring Twenties. Some audience members in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées are scandalized by the African American’s performance in La Revue Nègre, but the city’s discerning cultural figures—among them Picasso and Cocteau—are enchanted by her exotic, bold, and uninhibited style. When her adopted country grants her citizenship in 1939, Baker sees her fame as a means of helping the French Resistance. She takes advantage of her globe-trotting lifestyle to pass on messages and gather information. A decade later, installed in a palatial 15th century château, she adopts 12 children from different ethnic backgrounds. Josephine Baker paints a glorious portrait of a spirited, principled, and thoroughly modern woman.