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Sarah Bernhardt, professional name of Rosine Bernhard (1844-1923), French actress, was the best-known stage figure of her time. Bernhardt was born in Paris on Oct. 22, 1844, the daughter of a courtesan. She was educated in a convent and at the Paris Conservatoire. In 1862 she made her debut at the Comédie Française but attracted so little notice that she soon left the company. She appeared briefly and unsuccessfully in burlesque.
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What a compelling work! Sometimes the reader will forget it is not fiction. Josephine is the account of a remarkable black woman's journey from her birth in a 1906 St. Louis, Missouri, ghetto to her death in the 1975 Paris stage lights. It is the story of a woman as comfortable in the barnyard as on the stage, as happy with a leopard on a leash as a man on her arm. Josephine spans the timeline of music and theater, of war and espionage, of racism and injustice, and of family and home that punctuated this unique woman's life. It was a life concisely summed up
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by her sister. "Josephine was born one Sunday morning at eleven o'clock in a St. Louis hospital. She had barely emerged into the world when she slipped from the doctor's hands. He caught her just before she hit the floor. Josephine's entire life was like that. Ups and downs." (Josephine p.5)
Josephine Baker kept extensive journals of her personal pilgrimage. These writings comprise the core of this book. Since she died before publishing an autobiography, her words have been collected and added to by Jo Bouillon, her husband, with included ac
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