The vaudeville drummer Eddie Carson is listed as her father on her birth certificate but Baker always felt her real father was the German man her mother Carrie was working for in St. Louis at the time she became pregnant. By the age of 8 Baker was working cleaning house and babysitting for wealthy white families to help support her mother, stepfather and three younger siblings. In 1917, Baker witnessed the aftermath of the East St. Louis Riots as thousands of displaced blacks sought refuge in her neighborhood after their homes had been burned by white rioters. The experience would leave a lasting impression and later fuel her involvement with the Civil Rights Movement.
At 13 she married Willie Wells and found work waiting tables in clubs. The marriage lasted two weeks but Baker continued working in the clubs, moving on from waitress to dancer. At 15 she married Willie Baker, taking his name and leaving him shortly after for a chance at dancing in New York. Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle were hiring for their groundbreaking show "Shuffle Along" and although she auditioned well, the company would not hire her because she was underage. They took her on as a dresser backstage which gave her the opportunity to learn the routines. She joined the touring company and then the Broadway cast at the age of 16. Her part was of the "caboose", the last dancer in a chorus line which was usually a comic role. She used her long arms and legs and expressive face to great effect and soon was being billed as "the highest paid chorus girl in vaudeville".
In 1925 she joined a new show, "La Revue Negre", which brought jazz and black American performing artists to Paris. Baker performed in the chorus line of "Charleston Babies" and in a partnered dance with Joe Alex called "Danse Sauvage". Baker appeared in nothing but a feathered skirt and her uninhibited, erotic dancing sent the audiences into a frenzy.
After closing in Paris the show went on to tour Europe but Baker, who had thrived in the integrated
Paris society, soon reneged on her contract and joined the Folies Bergeres instead. It was there she unveiled her iconic dance wearing nothing but a skirt made of strung together bananas. Her emergence on the Paris scene coincided with an interest in African art and culture within the artistic and designer community there . Baker's exotic appearance on and off stage made her one of the most photographed women in the world and by 1927 she earned more than any entertainer in Europe. In 1930 she appeared in two films, "Zou-Zou" and "Princess Tam-tam".
In 1936 she returned to the United States to star in the Zeigfeld Follies. The American audience was not receptive, the reviews were cruel (the New York Times called her a negro wench) and she left the show and returned to Paris deeply disappointed by the experience. She married Jean Lion in 1937 and became a French citizen and when WW2 broke out, Baker volunteered to spy for her adopted country. While attending parties and traveling to entertain the troupes, Baker collected information she heard for the French Resistance, smuggling the notes and secret messages written in invisible ink on her music sheets or pinning them under her clothing. After the war, her underground activity earned her the Medal of Resistance with Rosette and she was named a Chevalier of the Legend of Honor by the French Government.
During the 50's Baker took a strong interest in the budding American Civil Rights Movement. She returned to the States to perform, insisting on integrated audiences. When she was refused service at the Stork Club in New York she went on a full-on media blitz denouncing the club and segregation. With her fourth husband she adopted 12 children of different ethnicities, calling her children "The Rainbow Tribe". Baker wanted to prove that "children of different ethnicities and religions could still be brothers". She often traveled with her entire family and would invite visitors to her chateau to walk the grounds so they could see for themselves how happy and natural the children were.
In the 60's Baker worked with the NAACP and was the only female speaker with Martin Luther King, Jr. on the March on Washington. After King's assassination, Coretta Scott King asked Baker to take her husband's place as leader of the American Civil Rights Movement but she refused, saying her children were "too young to lose their mother".
On April 8, 1975 Baker starred in a retrospective review of her 50 years as a performer at the Bobino in Paris. The show was a stunning success filled with a celebrity star studded audience. Four days later she was found in a coma in her bed surrounded by newspapers filled with glowing reviews of her performance. She died in the hospital on April 12 at the age of 68. Thousands lined the streets to watch her funeral procession. She was the first American-born woman to receive full French military honors at her funeral.
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