Singer, dancer, pilot, spy: Josephine Baker’s wartime career

Josephine Baker was one of the most famous women of her time, so it might seem incongruous that the glamorous diva was also a valuable spy for the Allies during World War II. In the compelling “Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy,” Damien Lewis sheds light on the performer’s remarkable espionage work, demonstrating that Baker’s global fame often provided the perfect cover for her perilous clandestine activities.

Baker, whose grandmother was born into slavery in Arkansas, grew up impoverished in St. Louis. She began her show business career in New York City, but realizing that a Black woman in America could only go so far, she sailed for France in 1925 at the age of 19. She fell in love with the country, and the feeling was mutual. Baker quickly became celebrated in Paris’ cabaret scene for her sensuous singing and dancing. She rubbed shoulders with Ernest Hemingway and Pablo Picasso and was known to walk the city streets with her pet cheetah at the end of a diamond-studded leash. 

Lewis, a journalist and World War II historian, focuses “Agent Josephine” on the war years. In fast-paced, cinematic prose, he describes Baker’s recruitment by Jacques Abtey, a French intelligence officer who was at first skeptical that the star could be useful to the cause. After all, she was a woman in a male-dominated milieu, she was famous where secrecy was paramount, and she wasn’t even French. But Baker quickly won him over, convincing Abtey of her love for France and her antipathy toward the Nazis.

In addition to performing, Baker also earned her pilot's license in 1936. As Lewis writes, from 1939-40, she flew her own airplane to deliver humanitarian supplies to desperate refugees flowing into the Low Countries.

Abtey, and Baker’s other handlers, quickly realized that her connections and fame could work in their favor. Baker had toured Italy and befriended several Italian diplomats. Her first assignment, before the fall of France in 1940, involved helping to determine whether Italian dictator Benito Mussolini planned to form a pact with Adolf Hitler. Next, she was tasked with using her close friendship with the wife of Japan’s ambassador to France to confirm that Japan also intended to ally with Germany. 

After the Nazis occupied Paris, Baker decamped to her country chateau, Milandes, where she gathered Resistance fighters, cached weapons, and hid a number of Jewish refugees. In October 1940 she left France on the pretense of going on tour. With Abtey assuming the identity of her tour manager, the two smuggled valuable documents and photographs out of the country and into neutral Portugal. As Lewis writes, a performer “of her standing would travel with voluminous luggage, which would be stuffed full of tour costumes, make-up and her musical scores – perfect for concealing secret intelligence.” From there the information was sent to Britain's Secret Intelligence Service in London. Baker would repeatedly make use of this pipeline. 

Eventually, however, her outspoken anti-Fascist views aroused suspicion, and she was no longer safe in Vichy France. In early 1941 she and Abtey, along with her large menagerie of animals, fled to Algiers. They continued their intelligence gathering from French North Africa, providing information on the area’s tides, beaches, and enemy defenses in advance of November 1942’s Operation Torch, the successful Allied landing in Morocco and Algeria. Baker was gravely ill for months and her hospital room in Casablanca became a safe place for operatives to meet and trade intelligence under pretense of visiting the ailing star. 

After she recovered, Baker maintained a relentless touring schedule entertaining Allied troops. When she performed for Americans, her only stipulation was that Black and white GIs sit together. She was acutely aware of the contradictions inherent in Americans fighting for freedom with a segregated military.

In 1944, she joined the French Air Force as a second lieutenant.  

Baker’s courage and commitment are indisputable, but in Lewis’ hands she comes off too saintly, making for a somewhat one-dimensional portrayal. (Previous biographers have sketched a more complex portrait of the star.) In addition, the author’s language can be overwrought.

These shortcomings are perhaps related to the fact that Baker’s own feelings about her wartime service remain inscrutable; she didn’t publicly reveal much about this period before her death in 1975. Even so, the facts alone make for an extraordinary tale. Just last year, Baker was inducted into the Panthéon, France’s tomb of heroes, the first American, first Black woman, and first pilot to receive the country’s highest honor. Clearly her story continues to inspire.