WASHINGTON - July 15, 2008
The time is 1935, and the St. Louis native who transfixed France
and much of Europe with song and dance stares out from a poster
advertising the film "Princess Tam-Tam."
Baker starred as a simple African woman presented to Paris society as royalty.
Baker's movie is one of five recalled on a set of U.S. postage
stamps being released Wednesday to honor vintage black cinema.
Ceremonies marking the sale of the stamps will be held at the
Newark Museum in New Jersey, which is holding a black film
festival.
"So many things happened in her life that she had never
expected," her son Jean-Claude Baker said Tuesday.
"I guess that if she was with us today she would be very
honored. At her death she was a French citizen, but she never
forgot she was born in America," he said in a telephone interview.
"She would be delighted and very moved." "Despite all the difficulty of colored people in her time, she triumphed over all the adversity that she and her people had to endure," he added.
Another poster, for a 1921 release, provides a taste of the
racial divide that sent the young Baker to Europe to pursue her
career.
"The Sport of the Gods," the poster proclaims, is based on a
book by Paul Laurence Dunbar, "America's greatest race poet," and
it adds that the film has "an all-star cast of colored artists."
Other posters in the set of 42-cent stamps are:
- "Black and Tan," a 19-minute film released in 1929 featuring
Duke Ellington and his Cotton Club Orchestra.
- "Caldonia," another short at 18 minutes, which was released
in 1945. It showcased singer, saxophonist and bandleader Louis
Jordan.
- "Hallelujah," a 1929 movie released by MGM. It was one of
the first films from a major studio to feature an all-black cast.
Producer-director King Vidor was nominated for an Academy Award for
his attempt to portray rural African-American life, especially
religious experience.
In addition to Jean-Claude Baker and his brother, Jarry, the
ceremony was scheduled to include Louis Jordan's widow, Martha
Jordan; Paul Ellington, grandson of Duke Ellington; Newark Mayor
Cory A. Booker; and Gloria Hopkins Buck, chairwoman of the film
festival.
Josephine Baker may be best remembered in the United States for
her singing and dancing in Europe, but she also earned military
honors as an undercover agent for the French resistance in World
War II. Later, she was active in civil rights work and appeared
with Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington in 1963.
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On the Net:
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New Stamps honor early black cinema
By 6abc
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