On stage, Josephine Baker epitomized the flamboyant and risqué entertainment of the Jazz Age. Her overtly erotic danse sauvage, her exotic costumes of feathers and bananas, and her ability to replicate the rhythms of jazz through contortions of her body made the young African American dancer one of the most original and controversial performers of the 1920s. From her Parisian debut in 1925, Baker rocked middle-class sensibilities and helped usher in a new era in popular culture. In the words of newspaperwoman and cultural critic Janet Flanner, Baker's "magnificent dark body, a new model to the French, proved for the first time that black was beautiful." Off stage, Baker's decadent antics and uncanny ability to market herself helped to transform her into one of the first popular celebrities to build an international, mass appeal which cut across classes and cultures.

For a woman who would...