Black Magic Woman Trivia Quiz

Answer: St. Louis

Josephine's mother, Carrie McDonald, lived in a house shared by her parents and an aunt and uncle. When she fell pregnant out of wedlock at the age of nineteen, her domineering aunt ordered her to leave the family home. At that time Carrie was working in a laundry and her employer, Josephine Cooper, offered her accommodation at her house. Carrie accepted the offer and agreed to name her child after her employer if it were to be born a girl.

Carrie was admitted to the St. Louis female hospital on the 3rd of May 1906 and was discharged with her new daughter, Freda Josephine McDonald, on the 17th of June. The identity of Josephine's father is shrouded in mystery. City of St. Louis records show only "Edw." as being the father which leads to the popular assumption of jazz musician, and former boyfriend of Carrie, Eddie Carson as being the father. This seems unlikely however as neither he nor Carrie would have been able to afford to pay for the more than six weeks that Carrie was in hospital. Add to this the fact that the hospital itself was almost exclusively white and that Josephine's skin colour was much lighter than that of the three siblings who would follow her lends credence to the possibility that Josephine's father was white, a claim that she made many times throughout her life.

Answer: Thirteen

Josephine was beginning to show signs of promiscuity at a young age so her mother thought it best to organise a marriage for her. She was betrothed to a steel worker named Willie Wells on the 22nd of December 1919. Marriage laws in the state of Missouri insisted upon a minimum age of fifteen for a person to be wed, so Josephine and her mother both lied about her age.

Josephine and Willie moved into a furnished room but were soon forced out when they were unable to pay the $1.50 weekly rent. They moved back to Josephine's family home but this wasn't to last very long either. After about two weeks Josephine told Willie she was pregnant but when he discovered she was menstruating an argument ensued. When Josephine broke a bottle over Willie's head, he left and never returned.

Answer: Booker T. Washington Theatre

The Booker, as it was affectionately known, first opened in 1913 and had a capacity of just over 500 patrons. Its usual opening hour was 10:00 in the morning and would not close until well after midnight. Josephine spent many hours of many days at the theatre during her childhood, so many in fact that the school truant officer gave up looking for her at her home and went directly to the Booker instead.

Josephine's role in 'Twenty Minutes in Hell' was that of an angel with a large pair of wings swinging through the air attached to a wire. The owner/manager of the theatre company, Bob Russell, saw a natural ability as a comic actor in Josephine as her wings were continually getting caught in the stage set and her legs were dangling around uncontrollably. This led to her being given a spot in the troupe's chorus line.

After a nine week run, Bob Russell's theatre group, with Josephine on board, left St. Louis to perform their show in Memphis, New Orleans and Philadelphia.

Answer: Shuffle Along

Fifteen year old Josephine met William Baker, the man whose name she would use for the rest of her life, in Philadelphia and they soon eloped just over the border in Camden, New Jersey. Her new father-in-law was rather fond of Josephine and often took her and her friend on the train to New York where they would dine and attend theatre shows. On the occasion that they saw 'Shuffle Along', Josephine knew that she had to get herself a part in the production. Within time she did just that when, due to its popularity and success, a second troupe was formed to perform it.

Her first performance led to her being immediately fired by the stage manager. Josephine, rather than dancing with and following the chorus line, improvised her own dance routine. Eubie Blake, of the Sissle and Blake songwriting partnership, ordered her to be reinstated when he learnt that the audience loved Josephine's performance and the positive reviews it gained her.

Answer: La Revue Negre

The woman responsible for getting Josephine to Europe was one Caroline Reagan, an American living in Paris who had an admiration for black performers. She had booked the Theatre de Champs-Elysees without even having a show to perform. She toured the black music halls of the Harlem area and discovered Josephine and immediately offered her a contract.

Originally scheduled for a two week run, the success and popularity of 'La Revue Negre' resulted in an extension to its season which would last for ten weeks. They were eventually forced to move to another theatre when Russian ballerina, Anna Pavlova, expressed her displeasure at having to wait so long for the use of the Theatre de Champs-Elysees. In future performances Josephine would take a sarcastic swipe at Pavlova by doing a parody of her dancing as the Black Swan from 'Swan Lake'.

Answer: Banana skirt

Credit for the idea of the banana skirt has been attributed to various people but Josephine herself has been quoted as naming French writer/designer Jean Cocteau as coming up with the original idea. The skirt itself was designed by Paul Colin, a French artist who was also responsible for designing many of the Art-Deco posters advertising Josephine's stage shows.

The first banana skirt was seen in 1926 and was rather simple in design. It comprised a collection of realistic looking rubber bananas attached to a piece of string. Throughout the years it underwent a number of transformations and alternative styles. The skirt made its final appearance with Josephine in the 1936 'Ziegfeld Follies' in New York. Not so much a skirt but more like a two-piece bikini, this version was designed by Vincente Minelli and saw the bananas attached to the costume as a series of horizontal, perhaps phallic, spikes.

Answer: Wings

Josephine appeared in four feature films during her career. The first of these, 'La Sirene des Tropiques', ('Siren of the Tropics'), was filmed and released to a limited distribution in Europe in 1927. Josephine was never satisfied with the film or her performance. The script was written in French, a language that she had yet to conquer, and nobody bothered to translate it into English for her. Utilising the skills she had learned from her work in the theatre, Josephine improvised her way through all of her scenes with exaggerated and melodramatic routines. Although critical herself, her performance was praised by audiences.

'Zouzou' in 1934, 'Princess Tam-Tam' in 1935 and 'Fausse Alerte', also known as 'The French Way', in 1940 were the films that followed her debut. Each of these films followed a similar 'Cinderella' or even 'Pygmalion' theme with Josephine playing the role of a poor, uneducated savage who by the end of the film would be transformed into a refined and cultured lady.

In addition to these films, Josephine also featured in a series of short films produced and released by Les Folies-Bergere.

'Wings' was the title of the 1927 film, and inaugural winner of the Best Picture Oscar, starring Clara Bow.

Answer: Cheetah

Despite the feminine name, Chiquita was a male cheetah given to Josephine by theatre producer and songwriter Henri Varna as a celebratory opening night gift for the 1930 production 'Paris qui Remue'. Josephine treated Chiquita as if it were a pet dog. She let it live inside the house, took it for walks along the Champs-Elysee and, according to Josephine herself, took it to the cinema to watch 'jungle movies'. She also adorned Chiquita with a diamond studded collar and had him appear onstage with her where he would often leap into the orchestra pit and scare the heck out of the musicians.

Other animals that Josephine kept at one time or another include monkeys, parrots, cockatoos, geese, goldfish, snakes, numerous dogs and a pig named Albert. This was a very lucky pig indeed as he was allowed to roam freely around Josephine's nightclub, Chez Josephine, and eat whatever food scraps were available to him. When Albert got too fat to fit through the kitchen door, Josephine had the whole wall knocked down for him.

Answer: Ziegfeld Follies

Created by Florenz Ziegfeld, the 'Ziegfeld Follies' were a series of stage productions performed on Broadway between 1907 and 1931. Following his death in 1932, Ziegfeld's widow, Billie Burke, allowed for the use of the name 'Ziegfeld Follies' in further productions inspired by the originals.

The production that Josephine appeared in was simply called 'The Ziegfeld Follies of 1936' and was performed at the Winter Garden Theatre. The musical score was written by Vernon Duke and the lyrics by Ira Gershwin. Josephine was not the star of this show however, that honour went to Fanny Brice. Mixed reviews followed Josephine's performance, for the most part they were not very flattering. Josephine attributed the critical reviews as a judgement on her skin colour rather than her performances, claiming that she still wasn't accepted in her own country when the whole of Europe had fallen in love with her.

The show ran for a total of 115 performances between January and May of 1936 and only closed because of an illness suffered by Fanny Brice. It was revived in September of that same year when Brice had regained her health, but without Josephine in the cast. She was dismissed and was replaced by Gypsy Rose Lee.

Answer: Revealing the whereabouts of Jewish families

Josephine was recruited into spying for France by Jacques Abtey, an officer in the French military intelligence service. Her fame, (and no doubt her sex appeal), had earned her friends and admirers in high places and she was often a guest of the embassies of Italy and Japan during the German occupation of France. Having learnt to speak both French and Italian, she would eavesdrop on conversations and take notes of any information she thought was of importance to the French Resistance movement. Sometimes she would write this information on her sheet music using invisible ink and other times on slips of paper which she would pin inside her underwear. She believed that nobody would suspect her of being a spy and that her fame would keep her from being strip searched.

Josephine took on a nursing role with the French Red Cross and attended to many wounded French soldiers. As a sublieutenant in the Free French forces, she entertained troops throughout Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. An estimated 3,000,000 francs was raised for the Free French movement through these performances.

Answer: False

The Iron Cross was actually a German military decoration, but Josephine's efforts did not go unrewarded. In 1946 she was awarded the Rosetta de la Resistance, a medal given to all verified members of the French Resistance and Free French movements for "remarkable acts of faith and courage".

In 1961 she was awarded the Croix de Guerre, (Cross of War), for "acts of heroism", the first American born female to receive this honour. On the very same day she was made a Chevalier de la Legion D'Honneur, France's highest honour, for "excellent civil or military conduct".

Answer: Rainbow Tribe

Throughout her life Josephine fell pregnant many times. With the exception of one stillborn child, all of these pregnancies resulted in miscarriages. Whilst carrying out her war efforts in 1941, Josephine underwent an emergency hysterectomy operation in Morocco thus eliminating any chances of bearing children of her own.

Josephine and husband number four, Jo Bouillon, originally intended to adopt four orphaned boys, but between the years 1954 and 1959 adopted a total of twelve young orphans. The Rainbow Tribe, as Josephine dubbed them, consisted of ten boys and two girls from Europe, Asia, Africa and both North and South America. Home for the Bakers/Bouillons was the small castle in the Dordogne department in south-west France known as Chateau des Milandes. Josephine liked to refer to it as the "capital of universal brotherhood."

Although Josephine's adoption of these children was probably full of good intention, she was often criticised for exploiting them for her own cause. It was not uncommon for her to dress the children in their finest clothes on the weekends and have them stand in the garden of Chateau des Milandes where tourists and sightseers would gather for a glimpse of the Rainbow Tribe and take photos of them.

Answer: She was the only woman to give a speech

There were a few hurdles to be cleared in order to be able to have Josephine appear at the March on Washington. In an incident in 1951 at New York's Stork Club, Josephine was refused service due to the colour of her skin. The following day she informed an NAACP official of what had happened and a picket line was set up outside the club. But for Josephine, this lead to a file being opened up on her by the FBI in which they claimed she was a communist and fascist sympathiser as well as an anti-Semite. Subsequent visa restrictions were placed on her. In 1963 the then U.S. Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, himself an admirer of Josephine, lifted all restrictions that had previously been imposed upon her.

Although not the only woman to take to the stage, Josephine, resplendent in her French military uniform, was the only female to give a speech. Lasting for around twenty minutes, (by her own account), her life's story speech, in parts, resembled the Cinderella theme that was prevalent in the films she had appeared in decades earlier. But she also spoke passionately about the differences in the way she was treated in her home country and how readily she was accepted in her adoptive France.

"...I do not lie to you when I tell you I have walked into the palaces of Kings and Queens and into the houses of Presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad."

Answer: Carnegie Hall

Josephine had not toured the U.S. for around ten years but her 1973 shows turned out to be the most successful and highly acclaimed that Josephine had ever had in her homeland. Although it was clear that she was aging and her health was deteriorating, she was buoyed by the reception she received into planning further tours throughout the world for the remainder of that year and well into the next. Whilst touring Denmark, Josephine suffered a stroke and a heart attack which put her tour on hold. She made an amazingly speedy recovery however and was back on stage within two months.

Josephine's performance at Carnegie Hall was recorded and released on the album titled 'The Incredible Return of Josephine Baker'.

Answer: Monaco

On the 8th and 9th of April 1975, Josephine performed her latest show, a life's retrospective simply titled 'Josephine', at the Bobino Theatre in Paris. On the 10th of April she could not be woken from her sleep and was rushed to a hospital. Attempts were made to revive her from her comatose state but these were unsuccessful. She was pronounced dead on the 12th of April with a cerebral hemorrhage being diagnosed as the cause of death.

With tens of thousands of people lining the streets of Paris, Josephine's funeral procession left the hospital and traveled past the Bobino Theatre where, as a tribute to the deceased star, her name was still up in lights. It then traveled on to the church where the service was held and, as a Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur, she was given a twenty-one gun salute.

Princess Grace of Monaco, a long time friend of Josephine, organised for her body to be taken to Monaco for a private service for the adopted children of Josephine. She was finally laid to rest in the Monaco cemetery.

For the most part in compiling this quiz, I have used the following books:

'Josephine Baker in Art and Life' - by Bennetta Jules-Rosette.

'Josephine. The Hungry Heart' - by Jean-Claude Baker and Chris Chase. (Jean-Claude was one of Josephine's adopted children).