Josephine Baker's Last Dance

by Sherry Jones

“And it hates Negroes.” She told him about her experience at the St. Moritz and the other hotels. She wanted to write a series on racism in America—well, actually, she would do the research, and he would write it. Riess leaned toward her, running a hand through his thick hair, saying her idea was brilliant. As his knee grazed hers, Josephine had another idea.

  “Say, I still need a place to stay. Do you think this hotel would let me in?”

  They inquired at the front desk, Curt translating Josephine’s French to the ruddy-cheeked concierge whose eyes took in her emerald necklace and earrings and her silk Dior dress before booking her in the hotel’s penthouse, the “honeymoon suite,” he said.

  “What a coincidence,” she said, slipping her hand into the crook of Curt’s elbow. “We are on our honeymoon.”

  She paid in cash and, the elevator being out of order, led Curt up the stairs to her room. Why, he asked her as they climbed to the third floor, did Josephine speak only in French? Had she forgotten her English in the years she’d been away from the States?

  “Oh, Curt, I know it seems foolish, but my English is so bad, I’m embarrassed to speak it. At least if I mangle French, no one here will know.”

  The following day, after spending the morning with Curt in her penthouse—with a terrace, take that, St. Moritz!—Josephine dressed in a blue Chanel suit and matching hat and went to meet Pepito at the Ziegfeld offices. Pepito, who’d remained at the St. Moritz, looked haggard, like he hadn’t slept since she’d seen him last. He only had a bit of indigestion, he said, pressing his hand to his stomach. Had she found a place to stay? She was still at Miki’s, she lied, but would send someone for her trunks of clothing and her maid.

  “You have not found a hotel? You are not in Harlem?”

  “Harlem,” she said with a snort. “You know me better than that.”

  A phone rang, and the receptionist led them into an office, where a red-faced man with a paunch walked around his ship of a desk to greet them, shaking Pepito’s hand and bending over Josephine’s, but not touching his lips to her skin. He introduced himself: Lee Shubert. She saw ruthlessness in those eyes.

  When his phone jangled, he picked up the heavy black receiver and talked excitedly into it, leaning back in his leather chair and waving a fat, fragrant cigar, spilling ash on the polished wood desk. Shubert gestured toward the carved wooden chairs upholstered in dark green leather, and she and Pepito sat, their seats so low that she felt like a child peering over the top of the gargantuan desk. Mahogany shelves filled with books covered the wall behind him. Josephine breathed in the scents of furniture polish, tobacco, and leather.

  He slammed down the phone with a final ring, opened the manila file on his desk, and rifled through its pages, then began reading aloud from her contract: first-class passage on an ocean liner (Had her journey been pleasant? Josephine assured him that it had); $1,500 per week in pay, increasing to $1,750 if the show ran beyond June of next year; her name featured on its own line on the marquee. Josephine imagined her name in lights on Broadway, her dream all those years ago when she’d first come to New York, sleeping on benches in Central Park, praying it didn’t rain.

  “About my dressing room,” she said. “There seems to be a mistake.” She’d gone yesterday with a decorator to take measurements—she wanted everything in blue—but the space was too small. How would she do interviews and entertain her visitors? She would need a dressing table and mirror, a divan for resting, a small bar, tables and chairs for entertaining, and a sofa to hold any overflow. She expected a lot of visitors, some very big names. She’d already heard from Cole Porter, who’d promised to attend on opening night, and Paul Robeson, did he know the famous Negro singer? And her old friend Lily Pons from La Revue Nègre, now a well-known soprano, and many others, she assured him: the first Negro star of the Follies would draw lots of attention.

  Confusion shadowed his face. He leafed through the contract and shook his head. There was no mistake—at least, not on his end. Her contract stipulated the number two dressing room for Josephine.

  “Number two?” She laughed. “But I am the star. Who gets number one? You?”

  He cleared his throat. “Fanny Brice is the star of the Ziegfield Follies.”

  Josephine’s throat constricted. She glared at Pepito, who pressed a hand to his stomach again.

  “Mr. Shubert, are you telling me that I’m not the lead in this show?”

  “We have many stars,” he said. “Ms. Brice, Eve Arden, the Nicholas Brothers—”

  “The who brothers?”

  “I thought you would know them. Negro dancers. You ought to see them; it’s incredible what they do. Very popular. And then we’ve just signed Bob Hope, a real up-and-coming showman; he’s the leading man.”

  “Up-and-coming?” Josephine stared at him, agape. “I’m the most highly paid performer in Europe, Mr. Shubert, the biggest Negro star in the world. I’ve headlined Paris and Berlin and Vienna and Rio de Janeiro, Rome and London and—”

  “I am sorry, Miss Baker,” he said, looking anything but. “We are not in Paris or Brazil. Most Americans do not know Josephine Baker. On the other hand, they adore Fanny Brice.”

  Josephine reached over and snatched the contract off his desk. Everything he said was right there. She flipped to the last page, her pulse racing. Pepito would never have signed this—but there was his name, written in his hand.

  She turned to Pepito, his yellowish face rimmed with sweat like a cheese left out on a warm day. Quickly, in French, she told him what was going on.

  “America does not know Josephine Baker, but they will soon,” Pepito said, his voice ragged. “On the stage of the Ziegfeld Follies, you will sweep New York like a storm. Fanny Brice will be forgotten, the same as Mistinguett.”

  How could he have signed that contract? Josephine Baker always got top billing—he knew that; it was his damned policy. Pepito’s explanation annoyed her more. The manager had barely negotiated, saying he was not authorized to alter the terms. His only concession was to insert a paragraph allowing her to perform after hours—but even then, he had stipulated that she must appear in a “smart east-side cabaret.” Keeping it white. She ought to sign up at the Cotton Club; it would serve them right.

  She didn’t let Shubert see her temper over that sorry contract, though, but saved it for Pepito once they’d left the office and the elevator operator had taken them down to the first floor. How could he have brought her all the way across the ocean to a place she’d dreaded returning to, for this? She wanted to pummel him. Pepi had known she wouldn’t be the star but had lied so she would make the trip.

  “It is for your benefit,” he said, herding her quickly into a cab lest she erupt in a full-blown tantrum on the street. Tucking himself in after her, he began peppering her with news, trying to distract her, she knew. He had now heard from two American film producers, a radio show, and a playwright, all interested in working with her. She had already captured the imaginations of important people.

  “You will take them by tornado,” Pepito said. “You will break their windows. You will shatter their glass.” America waited to be seduced, he said; it wanted novelty. It wanted Josephine Baker. She might not have entered New York a star, but she would leave as one.

  Josephine turned her head to stare out the window at New York, her past and present and, if she played her cards right, her future. The Paramount. Loews. The Palace. Norma Shearer, Dean Martin, Judy Garland. And now, at the Shubert, Josephine Baker.

  Pepito was right: America was her nut to crack. She’d gotten too big for Paris; after starring in an opera and making three films, what more could she achieve there? She needed a challenge, and New York was it. Without realizing it, Shubert had spelled out exactly what she must do. Second best? Like hell she was. The Ziegfeld Follies were in for a big surprise.

  CHAPTER 21

  Billy looked just the way she’d remembered him, slender and boyish, high cheekbones, eyes so pale they looked almost green, skin so li
ght he looked almost white. His black porter’s uniform, starched to stiffness, crackled when he stood to greet her, his face hopeful as he stepped forward for an embrace that she averted by offering her hand. Disappointment moved in, then, as they took their seats at the table in this inconspicuous Harlem diner where she’d proposed to meet. She’d dressed down: a dark suit, sunglasses. Avoiding notice.

  “You’re a big star,” he said. “Just like you always wanted. I’ve got every newspaper story ever written about you, baby, a big box of them. I’m so proud of you.”

  She ordered coffee, glancing around at the red linoleum, the pictures of prizefighters on the walls, the man sitting across from her whom she barely knew any more. A stranger to her now, looking at her with a face as open and full of hope as a child’s.

  I couldn’t stand to be “Mr. Josephine Baker.” I’m sorry, but I can’t come to Paris without a job.

  “What are you so proud of? I did it all without your help,” she said, the chill in her tone surprising her.

  His hand trembled as he sipped from his Coke. “I wanted to come.”

  “Then why didn’t you?” Two men sitting at the bar turned their heads at the sound of her rising voice.

  “I should have.” He set the drink down quickly to wipe a tear from his eye, nearly upsetting the bottle. She watched in disdain. She’d cried her heart out when she’d gotten that letter: Now it was his turn.

  “I should have gone to Paris,” he said, weeping in earnest now. “I’ve never stopped loving you, Josephine, and I’ve never loved anyone else. I’ve kept every article I could find about you, bought a dozen papers every day. It broke my heart when I read that you were married”—he smiled, blinking—“but of course it was all a joke, you couldn’t have married that count because you’re still married to me.”

  “That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about.”

  “I’m ready now,” he said. “I’ve learned to play the drums. I’m pretty good, too. I can come to Paris and be a real husband to you. Maybe I can play in your band.” He reached across the table for her hand, which she moved to the dossier on the seat beside her.

  “I know you’ll make more money than I can,” he said. “I’ll never be a star like you, but I don’t care about that now. I just want to be with you, Josephine. No more foolish pride, I promise.”

  “It’s been ten years!” she cried. “You think you can just—” She stopped and closed her eyes, blocking out his face, which, she told herself, was not as handsome as she’d remembered.

  “It’s all over with us, Billy.” She pulled a sheaf of papers from the file and laid them on the table before him. “I want a divorce, and I’ve come to ask you to sign.”

  His crumpling face almost made her cry, as well, until she remembered sobbing into her pillow those years ago, his letter in her fist.

  “You’re going to marry him, aren’t you?” he said. “That Italian. The count.”

  Josephine closed her eyes again, thinking of Pepito, how sadly he, too, would someday look at her. Someday soon.

  “No,” Josephine said. “I am not.”

  “LET’S TRY IT again, Josephine.”

  She had to bite her tongue every time. She’d heard this man address Fanny Brice as Miss Brice, Eve Arden as Miss Arden, Bob Hope as Mr. Hope. The only performers he called by their first names were the chorus dancers and her. She wondered what names he used for the Nicholas Brothers, the dance team—every bit as remarkable as Shubert had said—she’d seen perform at the Cotton Club. A revue this vast rehearsed in three groups, each in a different theater, and without the special effort she might never have seen their gravity-defying act: leaping from the floor onto tabletops without their hands, tap-dancing on every surface in the club except the ceiling.

  Josephine might have liked working with the Nicholas Brothers. Instead, she had the snotty Fanny Brice and the dismissive Bob Hope to endure in frenzied, grueling rehearsals that went from two in the afternoon until midnight with nary a whit of levity, lightheartedness, or fun. Performing was supposed to be enjoyable—didn’t these people know that? If the players onstage weren’t having a good time, the audience sure as hell wouldn’t. In Paris, rehearsing meant time singing and dancing half the time and laughing the rest. Her Follies sessions left Josephine stiff with inaction and boredom. She had just three scenes, which she’d quickly learned, but she had to lead the chorus through the numbers many times, their parts more complicated because, while she sang, they never stopped moving. When she’d danced in the chorus, she’d made up her own moves. In the Ziegfeld Follies, steeped in tradition, the longest-running revue in New York—just about as old as Josephine—people didn’t improvise. They followed the steps.

  As she pushed herself through the punishing routine, she reminded herself of the rewards she sought. Fanny Brice lived in a Central Park high-rise and had a Long Island summer home as big as a palace; Josephine wanted that for herself, and more. Why shouldn’t she have it? She possessed more talent in her pinky than Fanny Brice had in her entire body. She could do anything—even be a Hollywood film star. She had three French movies to her credit now: in addition to La Sirène des Tropiques she’d made Zou Zou, her favorite, in which a colored girl working in a laundry becomes a famous theater star, and Princesse Tam-Tam, Josephine playing an Arab urchin whom a wealthy Frenchman transforms into a socialite. Her films were big hits in France. Why shouldn’t Hollywood give her a chance?

  “What the hell is going on? These scenes won’t work. She’s Josephine Baker, not a frigging mannequin, for Christ’s sake.” John Murray Anderson, the producer, came into the theater in an Italian dove-gray suit and purple tie, a stylish look that she admired even as he destroyed her costumes, her dances, and her songs. She would need to start over again. Her smile froze in place, so that she felt like a fucking mannequin.

  But she reminded herself of her goals. Money, yes. Also: to show America that a colored woman could do anything a white woman could do. She had proven it in Paris; she had proven it all over Europe. She could outdance Fanny Brice on one leg.

  She would never be able to demonstrate her talents with the dull routines originally given her. They wouldn’t let her do the Charleston: the choreographer had called it passé. And when she’d tried to spice things up by making faces, the director had asked what in the hell she was doing. Fanny Brice was the clown in this revue.

  Josephine had some ideas for dance steps, but the choreographer had struck them down, too: “I won’t tell you how to sing, okay?”

  So while the chorus grumbled about the producer’s changes, Josephine thanked her stars that someone was finally paying attention. She got a conga dance, much more exciting, in which Gertrude Niesen sang, “There’s an Island in the West Indies” and Josephine knocked over a line of chorus boys with a swivel and thrust of her hips. This suited Josephine well except for the costume: a variation on her banana skirt but with spikes instead of bananas jutting from her breasts and bottom. She looked dangerous, not sexy, like she might gore someone if they got too close.

  Ira Gershwin and Vernon Duke, the songwriters, penned a new number for her: she’d sing “Maharanee” while wearing a bright, printed-silk sari. Mr. Anderson brought in her old friend George Balanchine to choreograph “5 A.M.,” her favorite number, in which she would wear a shimmering gown of real gold mesh that weighed a hundred pounds. It would take all the dancers’ strength—six white men—to lift her into the air. Let Fanny top that!

  “You will conquer America,” Pepito said every time she saw him, and Josephine had started to believe it. New York offered opportunities that, in Europe, she could only dream about—such as starring in Porgy and Bess, the first Negro Broadway musical, not an off-Broadway revue as Shuffle Along had been. Josephine, there on opening night, wondered if she’d been wrong about her home country. Almost turned away from the Cotton Club until one of the Nicholas Brothers had recognized her; refused entry to the whites-only Stork Club restaurant late one night; not ev
en allowed to use the toilet or take a drink from the water fountain in many places, she’d found that America treated colored people worse now than when she’d left. But Porgy and Bess gave her hope. Anne Brown came into “Summertime” on a note so high it made Josephine’s ears ring, and her acting conveyed a dignity and grace that made her seem natural for the role. She was Bess—but Josephine could be her, too. She’d sung more challenging arias in La Créole.

  After the show she and Pepito went backstage to meet the star, who did not speak French, unfortunately, since Josephine dared not use her poor, pidgin English around all these highfalutin white folks. She might as well speak French, hell, and a good thing she did, because the magazine publisher Condé Nast, a tall, white-haired man wearing little round spectacles, stepped in to translate. When they discovered that they’d both lived in Saint Louis, he invited Josephine to the cast party at his home that night.

  At her hotel, the excited Josephine tried on six different outfits with the help of Yvette, who smoothed her spit curls and touched up her makeup, and chose jewelry and a white fur to accompany her yellow silk gown. Pepito picked her up in a cab and they rode to 1040 Park Avenue, a limestone building with a tortoise-and-hare frieze encircling the third floor and an awning over the entrance where, at first, Josephine expected the doorman to turn her away. They rode the elevator to the penthouse suite, Pepito murmuring, “Make them notice you, chérie.” She stepped into the drawing room, all pale blue and green and with a fire in a green marble mantel at the far end. Over the fireplace hung a large mirror in a gilt frame, reflecting a large floral rug and furniture that Josephine recognized, from decorating Le Beau Chêne, as Louis XV. She spied Mr. Nast on an embroidered canapé chatting with George Gershwin, and, letting her fur drop into a maid’s waiting hands, went to them immediately, leaving Pepito to his own devices.

  “Bonsoir, Mr. Nast,” and then he was introducing her to “the great George Gershwin,” and Josephine said, “Oui, très genial.” Mr. Nast interpreted and sneaked glances down her cleavage. She told Mr. Gershwin that she had loved his “folk opera” more than anything she’d ever seen, that it had made her cry, that she felt as though the role of Bess had been written for her, that she hoped to have the honor of singing it someday, having already been the first Negro to star in an opera, Offenbach’s La Créole, had he heard of it? He had not, he was sorry, would she please excuse him? And he stepped away to greet his Bess, Anne Brown, who had arrived not in fur but in a stunning blue silk dress with an emerald wrap and matching shoes. Her skin looked even lighter without her stage makeup, fairer than Josephine’s. Why cast a Negro opera with a diva who could pass for white?