Josephine Baker

Paris, 1925. Over the course of a single evening, the Mississippi-born dancer Josephine Baker (1906-1975) becomes the darling of the Roaring Twenties. Some audience members in the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées are scandalized by the African American's performance in La Revue Nègre, but the city's discerning cultural figures--among them Picasso and Cocteau--are enchanted by her exotic, bold, and uninhibited style. When her adopted country grants her citizenship in 1939, Baker sees her fame as a means of helping the French Resistance. She takes advantage of her globe-trotting lifestyle to pass on messages and gather information. A decade later, installed in a palatial 15th century château, she adopts 12 children from different ethnic backgrounds. Josephine Baker paints a glorious portrait of a spirited, principled, and thoroughly modern woman.