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BAKER, Jean-Claude [531] pp. Random House 1993 9 1/2" x 6 1/2" w/ postcard from Chez Josephine on Theater Row card laid-in Warmly inscribed sincerely J-Claude Baker dated 9/24/98 Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald, naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 12 April 1975) was an American-born French entertainer, French Resistance agent and civil rights activist. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted France. She was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, the 1927 silent film Siren of the Tropics, directed by Mario Nalpas and Henri Étiévant. During her early career, Baker was among the most celebrated performers to headline the revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in the revue Un vent de folie in 1927 caused a sensation in the city. Her costume, consisting of only a short skirt of artificial bananas and a beaded necklace, became an iconic image and a symbol both of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. Baker was celebrated by artists and intellectuals of the era, who variously dubbed her the "Black Venus", the "Black Pearl", the "Bronze Venus", and the "Creole Goddess".[citation needed] Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she renounced her U.S. citizenship and became a French national after her marriage to French industrialist Jean Lion in 1937. She raised her children in France. Seller Inventory # 19274
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