Josephine baker timeline dancers warehouse
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Harlem&#;s &#;Black Beauty&#; Mills; London&#;s Josephine Baker
Born in , Clemente Bassano (the family name originates from the Veneto region of Italy) settled in London and started his career as a fishmonger in Soho. By he ran a warehouse from Jermyn Street, St James’s, importing almonds, oil, capers, and macaroni.
His daughter Louise was an opera singer who toured with Franz Liszt on his London visit in /1. Her brother Alessandro became a high society photographer with a studio in Regent Street. His portrait of Horatio Kitchener was used during the First World War for an iconic recruitment poster.
When Bassano retired around , his studio was relaunched as Bassano Ltd, Royal Photographers. His successors were responsible for a delightful photograph of singer and dancer Florence Mills, appearing on August 1st, in Dover Street to Dixie at the London Pavilion on Shaftesbury Avenue.
Florence Mills
Producer Lew Leslie was born Lew Lessinsky in April in Orangeburg, in Rockland Cou
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Josephine Baker was born on June 3, , in St. Louis. Her family was so poor that a young Baker would search trash cans for headless dolls, which she would repair for her sisters. Less than 20 years later, she would be the toast of Paris—and little girls all over France would play with their very own Josephine Baker dolls.
In Josephine Baker: The Hungry Heart,Jean-Claude Baker (her unofficial adopted son) and Chris Chase track the action-packed life of the beloved dancer and singer, whose five (!) autobiographies managed to obscure her life story more than they illuminated it.
According to The Hungry Heart, the eccentric, brilliant, sensitive, and erratic Baker befriended politicians including Fidel Castro, Winston Churchill, and Juan Perón. She was less friendly with her fellow performers—Marlene Dietrich, she said more than once (per the book), was “that German cow.” Maurice Chevalier was “a great artist but a small man.” Years later, Diana Ross would recall her meeting with
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Josephine Baker&#;s extraordinary life and career can sound like a work of fiction. Growing up dirt-poor in Illinois, she became one of France&#;s most glamorous entertainers from the s.
Yet Josephine and I, Cush Jumbo&#;s new one-woman show about Baker at the Bush Theatre in London, sets out to be more than a mere biography.
Before discussing Josephine and I, its star and writer Cush Jumbo addresses her own memorable name. &#;It does intrigue people,&#; she says.
&#;The surname is from my Nigerian dad. And the Cush is because both my parents were really into Egyptology and Kush was an important kingdom in ancient times.&#;
At 27, Jumbo has already created a stir in plays at the Royal Exchange in Manchester such as Pygmalion and A Doll&#;s House. She was also nominated for an Olivier for playing Mark Antony in an all-female Julius Caesar at the Donmar Warehouse in London.
Josephine and I is the first piece she has written. Its origins, she says, lie in her childhood.
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