“I was getting sick of the whole mess,” Richard, Jr., says. “I finally just left California and never saw Aunt Tumpy again.”
Back home on the Riviera, Josephine went to Joseph Bessone and said she wanted to buy a large property in Monaco. “I told her,” he says, “the princess has been very generous with you, and I know she doesn’t expect you to pay off the mortgage on the Villa Maryvonne, but if I were you, to show my gratitude, I would take care of that.
“Josephine paid off the mortgage. The princess was once again generous, she refused to take any interest.”
In June, Sammy Davis, Jr., who was to headline the opening show at Monaco’s new Sporting Club, withdrew in a fit of pique. He was replaced by Burt Bacharach, Desi Arnaz, Jr., Bill Cosby, and Josephine. The princess could always count on Josephine.
Her nephew, Richard, Jr., could not. At that time, she thought of him as an enemy who was planning to write a scurrilous book about her. “He told me he had frightful things to say about me and my sister,” she confided to Florence Dixon. “He threatened to unveil the true Josephine Baker. The lack of family feeling among some of the young is deplorable . . . that boy is only thirsty for money and glory.”
It was a thirst with which she was familiar. By mid-July, she and Dany Revel were back from a tour of Japan, and she was planning for the 1974 Red Cross gala. Again, in that act of cannibalism practiced by aging stars who feed on their own legends, the spectacular was to be a retelling of Josephine’s life story.
Jean-Claude Brialy had agreed to act as master of ceremonies on opening night, and Josephine wove dreams. If the show were a hit, why not move it to Paris?
Marie Spiers came to spend her vacation in Roquebrune. “As soon as I arrived, Josephine said, ‘Give me all your money, I need it,’ and she took me and Christina Scotto (who was also staying with her) to Italy to buy beauty products. She claimed they were less expensive than in France.
“The Red Cross show was an absolute triumph. Afterward, again with my money, she went to Israel to cry at the Wailing Wall, and to comfort Golda Meir, who was no longer prime minister. She took Stellina.”
Of all the children, Stellina, being the baby, was now closest to Josephine. “I was lucky,” she says, “I think I had a wonderful mother, I never tried to judge her. I had ten years with her, and after she died, ten years with my father in Argentina, but for me he was a stranger.
“Once I said to him, ‘You know something? You never wanted me, but be careful, because life is going to fool you. You love Marianne and all your other children, you think I’m the bad one, but the day you’re alone, the one who will stay with you will be me.’
“When he was dying, he was hallucinating one time, he wanted to kill me, and afterward, he said, ‘Stellina, it’s not you, it’s your mother.’ And he cried. And he said all those things he never told my mother, things he thought and felt and never said. He had lived twenty years with all that inside. He died loving her.”
Excited by the success of the latest Monte Carlo gala, Josephine got in touch with Gerard Oestreicher, an American producer. She said she would like to bring the production over “as soon as you arrange it with James Nederlander.”
It didn’t happen. Still, she didn’t sit on her hands waiting. She was appearing at the Berns Theatre in Stockholm when she ran into Jack Jordan, who was convinced they were being led by forces they didn’t understand. “I had to leave America because I lost everything, and I came to Stockholm to start again. We met. . . . There must be a reason.”
“How strange life is,” said Josephine. “Think! I was crossing the street . . . and you came down another road.”
Then she accused him of lying, stealing, and leaving her stranded in San Francisco. As for the lawsuit, not only did she not owe him money, he owed her money!
She was on her way to South Africa, where she would tour for a month; after that, she would be appearing at the Palladium in London.
She had asked Dany Revel to accompany her on the South African tour, but Mrs. Revel said no. “My wife is a respected medium in France, and she said, ‘I don’t want you to go, c’est tout noir.’ She didn’t see death, just darkness. I felt like an idiot, but I didn’t go.”
Josephine shouldn’t have gone either. The tour was a flop, houses a quarter full. The star criticized the apartheid laws but, said Variety, “she was willing to accept South African money.”
She must have been glad to get back to London, where Dany was playing piano for her, the queen mother was in the audience—it was a command performance to help needy actors—and Josephine was a hit. She wore a new jumpsuit, and told old stories. “I started in 1924, and we were all beginners together—Pablo, Matisse, Hemingway. I used to look after them, picking up their clothes, getting them organized.” As for the bananas, “I wasn’t really naked, I simply didn’t have any clothes on.”
Two weeks before Christmas, Moïse got married. Josephine did not attend.
“He was the first of us to get married,” Jean-Claude says, “and he wanted his mother at the wedding. It was touching. I remember she was in the kitchen doing the dishes, like a poor old woman with that plastic cap on her head, and Moïse said, ‘Mother, why don’t you want to come?’ and she told him some kind of story—she had not been introduced to the girl, rules of etiquette had not been respected, whatever. She used any excuses she could think of.
“Moïse was very tense, hyper, and he said, ‘For the last time, will you come to the wedding?’ and she answered calmly, ‘No, Moïse.’ So he said, ‘From this day forward, I will never set foot in your house.’
“It was so hard, but she preferred that, she preferred putting up a wall to talking, and there was no going over that wall.”
“Moïse is marrying a chambermaid at the hotel where he’s a waiter,” Josephine complained to Jean-Claude Brialy. “It is a mistake to get married at nineteen with no experience in life.” (The estrangement from Moïse had its bright side, she wouldn’t have to part with any of the jewels she had been keeping “for my future daughters-in-law.”)
“I wonder,” Brahim says, “if she was not jealous of the women my brothers chose. Moïse’s wife, Monique, was good-looking, a lovely girl, but Mother was furious.”
Margaret had been planning to fix Christmas dinner, but Josephine protested. “No, Sister, you have worked enough, I’m going to take all of you to a restaurant.” She also bought new clothes for all the children, spending one and a half million francs in a fancy store in Nice. “It was as though she had a presentiment that it would be her last Christmas,” says Joseph Bessone. “Since she came back from America, she had gone nonstop. I told her she had to take more care of herself.”
She didn’t, she couldn’t. Since America had not responded with a new offer, she turned her sights back home. No nibbles. Paris managers did not have faith in yet another Josephine Baker comeback.
And then, with her good fairy in attendance, her baraka working, whatever it was that always supplied her with a fresh chance, she met Jean Bodson, a patron of the arts. He took her to lunch and confessed that as a young man, he had been madly in love with her. “I own a little theater, not worthy of your talent, but it would be an honor to give it to you.”
They went to check out his theater, Bobino, in Montparnasse, on rue de la Gaîté, and she was satisfied. “Oh! It will be perfect for my farewell. We could maybe move that column, build a staircase . . .”
Monsieur Bodson said he would redo the theater. By the time it was done, it had cost him a million dollars.
Now, every day, in Marie Spiers’s apartment, Josephine rehearsed with Dany Revel at the grand piano. He had to go to play at the Hôtel Méridien at 6 P.M., but he gave Josephine his afternoons. He had written an opening number for her, a song with lyrics that began, “Here I am, back again, Paris, tell me, how do you find me?”
“For three months they were rehearsing,” Marie says, “and while Josephine sang, she rearranged all my shelves. Pierre would come at ni
ght to see what she had learned.” (Once again, Pierre was going to be her conductor.)
“She was beginning,” Marie says, “to behave like someone reborn. She even found time to try writing her own life story [no Sauvage or Rivollet to help her this time], dictating a little bit every day to a secretary at Bobino. And she wanted to receive a lot of people again. She told me, ‘It’s too small here.’ I found her an apartment two doors from mine, and she liked it, except for the bedroom. ‘It smells of death,’ she said. I signed the lease, and my son was upset. ‘You are crazy,’ he said.”
Despite her bravado, Dany Revel knew that Josephine was worried. “It was her last chance to reconquer Paris. Then one day, we were rehearsing the opening, she was sitting on a chair, and she started to sing, and it was like a phonograph winding down, ‘Heeere IIIII aaammm . . .’ I looked over at her, and she had fallen asleep.
“I let her sleep, but wondered about her strength.”
Still nervous that she wasn’t quite ready to face the public, Josephine had asked to have the opening pushed back a week. Mr. Bodson was willing, but André Levasseur, who had designed the sets and costumes, said no, Dany Revel recalls. “She needed a few more days, even forty-eight hours would have given her some time to rest.”
On March 24, the first preview took place. Her doctor had tried to prevent all extracurricular activities, but Josephine could never say no to the press. She permitted a TV news crew to come backstage. She was dressed for the finale of the first act in her army uniform with all her medals and ribbons. “The decorations you are wearing—” the interviewer began. Josephine never let him finish the question. “Won on the battlefields,” she said.
She was asked about her family, and she laughed. “They are growing up. One of my sons, Luis, is getting married.”
Had they been to the show?
No, they were studying. “At this moment, it is good they are not here, because when I’m with them, I forget everything, tout, tout, tout. Only my children count. And right now it is necessary that I have peace and tranquillity so I can give myself entirely to the public of Paris.”
How did it feel to be back on a Paris stage?
“Good. Agreeable to find again my family. For me, family is everybody, but mostly the public who made me.”
Heavily made up, without her big glasses, the bags under her eyes no longer hidden behind spangles, Josephine looked straight into the camera. “It is agreeable, because at least I can see what they think of me while I’m still alive.”
Chapter 45
GOING OUT IN A BLAZE OF GLORY
“We always believed she was immortal”
The phone rang. Good news can generally wait till morning; at 2 A.M., it’s always something else. “Jean-Claude, you must be strong,” said the voice. “Josephine is dead.”
It was April 12, 1975. I was thirty-one and I’d been living in New York, calling my Swiss bank when I needed money, taking voice lessons, tap lessons, and, like now, vacationing in Miami. I was giving myself the youth I’d never had.
In that room of the Pink Flamingo Hotel, I hung up and like a madman began to sing “J’ai Deux Amours” over and over in a loud, hoarse voice that sounded like somebody else’s. Scenes from my life with her rushed through my head backwards, fuzzy and fast, as when you hit the rewind button on a VCR. It was 5 A.M., not yet light, by the time I had cried myself out and went downstairs to find someone to talk to. A night porter got me a cup of coffee.
I had seen the pictures of her in French newspapers, and reading about her projected comeback, I had stewed. Maybe she’ll take Paris again, I had thought, but it’s going to kill her. She had never apologized to me, but my fears for her had proved stronger than my pride. I had taken to phoning again. At first, she would pretend she didn’t recognize my voice. “Who is this?” she would say. We would talk for twenty minutes, I would fill her in on Broadway and Hollywood gossip, the latest trend, the newest star, and then, suddenly, she would hand the phone to whichever child was passing by. “Here, it’s your brother.”
I wasn’t the only one with a premonition of disaster. Marie went to all the previews at Bobino, and was alarmed. “She was very tired. Her doctor said, ‘The heart is sick, but the children are the ones who are killing her.’ That’s why they weren’t allowed to come to the show.”
Josephine was missing her animals, but the management of Bobino was firm. “No dogs; who will take them out?” She asked Marianne to come and bring her a cat, but did not allow Marianne to stay. “She just did an allez et retour,” says Marie. Stellina was the only one of the children who spent a few days with Josephine before the opening. “I would go to eat with her in a little Italian restaurant across the street from Bobino,” she remembers. “Maman was working very hard; she was tired, but very satisfied.”
Josephine had convinced doctors, friends, even herself, that the children sapped her strength. “At the end, I think she wondered if she had done the right thing in adopting us,” Jean-Claude says. “She had an illogical life, and she refused to admit it.”
A year earlier, revelation—and with it, compassion—had come to Jean-Claude. “I went to see all her performances for the Red Cross gala. One night, after the show, we went to have dinner, and there were a dozen of us in the restaurant. That is when I finally realized what her life had been, through people like Maurice Bataille, whom she had wanted to marry. He would say, ‘Josephine, do you remember?’ and she would say, ‘Oh, stop it, you silly!’
“She bloomed, she became a young girl again, and I was in tears. I thought, ‘This is my mother, she made people happy before I knew her, in another life.’
“We did not go to see her perform at Bobino, because she did not want us there. In Paris, she did not belong to us, she belonged to her audience.”
And to her company. Jean Pierre Reggiori, the youngest chorus boy—he wasn’t yet eighteen—remembers her coming in every day with oranges. “She would say, ‘My children, it’s vitamins, eat them.’ We adopted her, watched over her on the staircase. She would sometimes stumble, but we never let her fall.”
Once again, the streets of Paris were covered with large colored posters of Josephine, the face retouched, smooth, ageless, the glittering body stocking, the plumes of feathers sprouting from a white turban.
AVEC LE CONCOURS DE LA S.B.M. MONTE CARLO . . . JEAN-CLAUDE DAUZONNE PRESENTE JOSEPHINE, said the posters. Her first name was enough. For the French, there had been only two Josephines, the wife of Napoléon, and this one.
She had told reporters they would discover four Josephines at Bobino. “One of four years, one of twelve, one of twenty, and of course me. They don’t look very much alike, but in the theater, illusion is what counts.”
And she was still sweating to create that illusion. “She astonished me,” says Alexandre, who was doing her hair and wigs. “She would come offstage dripping with sweat, and go to the stagehands. ‘You must be tired, you have worked very hard, have a drink on me.’ She was using a lot of perfume, telling me, ‘You know, a woman must always smell good. I have had rains of perfume on my body.’
“She talked about the Revue Nègre and how Antoine had saved her opening night with his paper helmet. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I work only with wigs. You can put pins in my scalp, even if the blood is running, it doesn’t hurt me.’ ”
But it did hurt her. She confessed as much to Liliane Montevecchi, then starring at the Folies-Bergère. “I went to see Josephine on a Sunday afternoon. Everybody in the house was crying, and we didn’t know why, it was not a sad show.
“Afterward, in her dressing room, she took off her wig and said, ‘I have such a headache. They pull my hair up under the wig to erase my wrinkles.’ The few tufts of fuzz she had left had been pitilessly wound around pins, the skin pulled up tight with the hair, but she was willing to pay the price to present herself the way her public remembered her. She had a way to touch people’s hearts, this woman. I don’t know what it was, I never saw anything like it.”
Olivier Echaudemaison, who was doing her makeup, says she was so tired she would fall asleep while he was working on her. “And when she woke up, she was totally surprised to see how beautiful she was. ‘I don’t recognize myself,’ she told me.”
“We had expanded the fifty-minute Monte Carlo show into a two-hour-long spectacle,” says Jean-Claude Dauzonne, the director of Bobino. “We had enlarged the stage by covering the orchestra pit, and putting the musicians in the balcony. Mr. Bodson not only transformed the theater for Josephine, he paid her most pressing debts. (Even though no insurance company would touch her, he was willing to take the risk with her.) She was also receiving a substantial salary, plus a percentage of the take, and half the money was sent to her Swiss bank account.”
Dauzonne had known Josephine since he was three years old. (His family had been friendly with Jo Bouillon’s family.) “She liked me to come to her dressing room and talk while she got ready,” he says. “Dany Revel had written her opening song, ‘Me Revoila Paris,’ and it gave me cold shivers. One of the lyrics was, ‘And maybe, who knows, I will end my life on the stage.’ I said, ‘Josephine, I do not like that song.’ I found it morbid, looking for sympathy. ‘But no,’ she insisted, ‘it’s wonderful!’
“Altogether, she played fourteen performances, including previews. On the night of March 29, she stopped the show to announce with tears in her eyes that her son Luis had just got married, but because of her duty to her audience, she had not been able to be with him and his bride.
Luis had indeed made her a mother-in-law for the second time, but she was nicer to him than she had been to Moïse. “A few months before the wedding, I told her that she was going to be a grandmother,” he says. “I think it gave her a certain joy, a certain sense of revenge against her own father; this time the roles would be reversed, this child would be born of a white mother and a black father.”
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