Josephine Baker

JOSEPHINE BAKER d1975. American-born French dancer singer and actress remembered for her iconic performance style. Nicknamed the "Bronze Venus", the "Black Pearl" and even the "Créole Goddess" in anglophone nations. Ernest Hemingway described her as "the most sensational woman anyone ever saw ...". The first African-American female to star in a major motion picture (Princess Tam Tam 1935), to integrate an American concert hall and to become a world-famous entertainer. She is also noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. She was offered the unofficial leadership of the movement by Coretta Scott King in 1968 following Martin Luther King's assassination, but turned it down. She assisted The French Resistance during World War 2 and became the first American-born woman to receive the Croix De Querre and receive a full French military funeral in Paris following her death aged 68 from a celebral hemorrhage