France

Singer and Actor

b. June 3, 1906
d. April 12, 1975

“People … can learn to live together in peace if they are not brought up in prejudice.”

Josephine Baker was an American-born entertainer who found fame as a dancer, singer and actress in Paris. Sometimes called the “Jazz Cleopatra,” Baker was born Freda Josephine McDonald in a poor neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri. After facing abuse and racial discrimination in America, she moved to France in the 1920s where she became a celebrated performer and the first black woman to star in a major motion picture. Her exotic beauty inspired Ernest Hemingway to describe her as “the most sensational woman anyone ever saw.” 

Baker’s landmark cabaret show, “La Revue Nègre,” became the toast of Paris thanks to her on-stage antics. She exuded sexuality, wearing next to nothing and performing tribal-inspired dances with comic touches and cultural commentary. 

When she returned to the United States as a major star a decade later, the reception was quite different. American audiences rejected her, and The New York Times called her a “negro wench.” She went back to Europe brokenhearted.

During World War II, Baker earned recognition performing for troops and smuggling secret messages on music sheets for the French Resistance. She also served as a sub-lieutenant in the Women’s Auxiliary Army. She was honored with the Croix de Guerre and named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French government. 

In the 1950s and ’60s, Baker again faced racial discrimination in America, where the most popular clubs prohibited her from performing. She publicly criticized the Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation and refused to perform in segregated clubs. In 1951 Baker was honored for her activism by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which declared May 20th Josephine Baker Day. 

Baker talked publicly about racial equality in France and segregation at home. She spoke at the March on Washington in 1963 alongside Dr. Martin Luther King. 

Baker married and divorced four times and adopted 12 children of varying ethnic backgrounds, which she called “The Rainbow Tribe.” One son later described his mother as a bisexual, noting a relationship she had with the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. 

Baker also has been linked romantically to the novelist Colette, fellow expatriate performer Bricktop and other women.  

Baker became a citizen of France, where she remains an icon. In 1991 HBO released “The Josephine Baker Story,” which earned five Emmys and a Golden Globe. 

Writer

b. July 5, 1889, Maisons-Laffitte, France

d. October 11, 1963, Milly-la-Forêt, France

“What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.”

For Jean Cocteau, life was art. This writer, illustrator, poet and filmmaker knew no boundaries in his creative endeavors. A prolific catalog of genre-spanning work makes Cocteau one of the most influential figures of the 20th century French art world.  

Cocteau was born to a well-to-do family in a small French town. His father committed suicide when Cocteau was 10. A troubled child, he was expelled from a host of private schools. Seeking an escape, he took off to the red-light district in Marseilles. At age 19, he published his first book of poetry, “Aladdin’s Lamp.”

Celebrated in Paris’s bohemian circles as “The Frivolous Prince,” Cocteau secured a spot at the epicenter of French culture, collaborating with celebrities of the era like Pablo Picasso, Marcel Proust and Edith Piaf. Looking to advance his career, he arranged a meeting with Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev, which resulted in their collaboration on the ballet “Parade.” He also wrote librettos, plays, novels, poems, and film scripts, and dabbled in art and illustration.

In his personal life, Cocteau mostly sought the companionship of men, although he did sporadically pursue women, including Princess Natalie Paley, a member of the Romanov family. His most notable relationship was with fellow poet Raymond Radiguet. Although Cocteau denied that the relationship was romantic, he developed an opium addiction when Radiguet died suddenly.

Cocteau was a key player in France’s emerging avant-garde movement. He found a new muse and lover in actor Jean Marais, who he cast in films such as “Beauty and the Beast” and “Orpheus.” Their 20-year relationship continued until Cocteau’s death.

Cocteau was a multidisciplinary artist with ceaseless creativity. By blurring the line between the reality of his life and the fiction of his work, his existence itself became a work of art.

Author

b. October 31, 1876, Dayton, Ohio

d. February 3, 1972, Paris, France

“Your life is your most beautiful poem; you are your own immortal masterpiece.”

Natalie Clifford Barney, a leading pioneer of feminist literature, was a free spirit whose eccentricity and insatiable desire for life, love and art make her one of the most fascinating women of the 20th century.

Barney’s life in Paris was a far cry from what her wealthy Midwestern parents expected. They assumed she would marry an aristocrat and generally “behave.”

Barney had no interest in marriage or behaving. She studied for 18 months at a boarding school in Fontainebleau, France, that encouraged girls to think for themselves. Her time there began her passion for the French bohemian lifestyle.

Barney took up residency on the Left Bank, in Paris. France gave her the artistic and sexual freedom she craved. She started a famous salon that served as a gathering place for leading artists and intellectuals. In addition to her weekly salon, Barney founded the Académie des Femmes to mentor women writers.

Her expansive catalog of work, written from a lesbian perspective, includes poetry, novels, epigrams and plays.

Paris served as the epicenter of Barney’s irrepressible love life, where her charisma earned her the reputation as a female Casanova. Her many romantic liaisons became the subject not only of her own literary work, but also of the work of other prominent French artists and intellectuals.

At age 24, Barney began an affair with Anglo-American writer Renee Vivien. From a new and feminist perspective, the two wrote prolifically about sex and gender. But Barney’s most notable romance was her 50-year nonmonogamous partnership with painter Romaine Brooks. Barney was Brooks’s muse for some of her famous works.

Natalie Barney vitalized the lesbian literary tradition and served as an inspiration for free spirits by being unapologetically herself.

Hero

b.  August 16, 1923

d.  November 25, 2005

“I became aware that in spite of all that I had imagined, the true liberation was for other people.”

Pierre Seel was deported for being gay from France to a German concentration camp during World War II. He is known for speaking out about his Holocaust experience.

Seel was born to an affluent Catholic family in northern France, near the German border. In 1939, while in a public garden known for gay cruising, his pocket was picked. Seel reported the theft to police and was placed on a list of homosexuals, even though being gay was legal.

In 1941, during the German occupation, Seel was deported along with other French gays to the Schirmeck-Vorbruck concentration camp. He was tortured, starved and raped. He witnessed his boyfriend mauled to death by German shepherds. On his prison uniform, Seel was required to wear blue fabric that denoted clergymen, prostitutes and homosexuals.

After six months, Seel was removed from the camp and forced to enlist in the German army. After four years, he deserted and surrendered to the Allies, who returned him to France. Unlike others, gays did not receive compensation or acknowledgment from France for their concentration camp hardship.

In 1950, Seel entered into a marriage of convenience and never told his wife of 28 years that he was gay. They had three children.

In 1982, Seel responded to Bishop Leon Elchinger’s anti-gay remarks in a letter published in a French gay magazine. He advocated for France to honor gays persecuted by Nazis. In 1994, his memoir “I, Pierre Seel, Deported Homosexual” was published. Seel’s story was featured in the documentary “Paragraph 175” (2000). In 2003, he received recognition as a victim of the Holocaust by the International Organization for Migration.

Seel spent his last 12 years with his partner, Eric Feliu, in France.

Designer

b. April 24, 1952

"What is masculine and what is feminine, anyway? Why should men not show that they can be fragile or seductive?”

Jean Paul Gaultier is a world-renowned French fashion designer best known for his avant-garde and haute couture designs. He redefined traditional Parisian elegance.

Gaultier grew up in Arcueil, France. “I was a lonely child,” he says. “One day I decided my teddy looked forlorn and ugly so I made him a corset.” At 13, he designed a collection for his mother and grandmother. As a teen, Gaultier sent sketches to Paris designer Pierre Cardin and was hired as his design assistant. Gaultier worked for many French design houses, including the House of Patou.

After his designs were published in Mode Internationale, Gaultier started his own company and became the second designer in three decades to create couture under his own label. In his late 20’s, he became famous for his fusion of classic fashion and unconventional elements. He earned the name “enfant terrible” for his provocative designs.

After noticing that couture designers hid female curves, Gaultier reinvented the corset as an outerwear piece presenting breasts as an object of feminine power. On her Blonde Ambition tour, Madonna exclusively wore Gaultier designs, including the iconic torpedo bra.

In the 1980’s, Gaultier broke fashion stereotypes by featuring transgender, pierced and tattooed models. “There are different kinds of beauty,” he said, “and I always try to show that.” He challenged traditional gender roles by creating skirts, corsets and tutus for men. For one controversial show, female models smoked pipes while men wore transparent lace skirts.

He worked as creative director for Hermès and designed costumes for films such as “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover” (1989), “Kika” (1993) and “The Fifth Element” (1997). In 1995, Gaultier received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Stockholm Film Festival.

In 1987, Gaultier won the French Designer of the Year award and earned the title of Chevalier, one of France’s highest honors. In 2011, he received the Globe de Cristal for Best Fashion Designer.

Gaultier lives in Paris, where he continues to design his collections.

Actor

b. December 27,1901

d. May 6, 1992

“Glamour is what I sell, it's my stock in trade.”

Marlene Dietrich was a movie star and cabaret singer who appeared in dozens of films during Hollywood’s Golden Age. She was one of the highest paid actors of her time.

Born Marie Magdalene Dietrich in Berlin, Germany, she was the younger of two daughters in a well-to-do family. In her mid-teens, Dietrich studied acting. In the early 1920’s, she began her career in cinema and met her future husband Rudolf Sieber. Dietrich remained married to Sieber for more than 50 years. During the marriage she had a series of affairs with famous men and women.

Her breakout role was as sultry cabaret singer Lola Lola in the German film “The Blue Angel” (1930), directed by Josef von Sternberg. Dietrich and von Sternberg moved to Hollywood, where he directed her in six films. For their first collaboration, “Morocco” (1930), Dietrich earned an Oscar nomination. She played a singer dressed in a man’s tuxedo and top hat who kisses a female audience member on the lips.

Among Dietrich’s most memorable films are “Desire” (1936), co-starring Gary Copper; “Destry Rides Again” (1939), which showcased her comedic talent; “Witness for the Prosecution (1957), her top box office hit; and “Judgment at Nuremberg” (1961), her final motion picture.

Dietrich became an American citizen in 1937 and performed for Allied troops during World War II. In 1947, she was awarded the U.S. Medal of Freedom, which she called her proudest accomplishment. As her film career waned, she found success for nearly 20 years as a cabaret singer. Collaborating with musical arranger Burt Bacharach, Dietrich turned her nightclub act into a theatrical one-woman show. Dietrich and Bacharach recorded four albums and several singles.

In 1967, she performed her show on Broadway and received a Special Tony Award. In 1975, after a series of on-stage falls and injuries, Dietrich retired from show business. She spent the final decade of her life in Paris, secluded and bedridden.

In 2002, Dietrich was posthumously proclaimed an honorary citizen of Berlin with a plaque describing her as “one of the few German actresses that attained international significance.”

Songwriter

b. June 9, 1891
d. October 15, 1964

"In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking but now, God knows, anything goes." 
    
Cole Porter grew up wealthy - his grandfather, James Omar Cole, was a prosperous coal and timber speculator. Porter began musical training during his early childhood. Despite his musical talents, however, Porter's grandfather envisioned an attorney's career for him and sent him to Yale University.

At Yale, Porter expanded his musical repertoire and composed 300 songs, including two football fight songs, "Yale Bulldog" and "Bingo Eli Yale", which are still played today. After one year at Harvard Law School, Porter chose to follow his true passion and transferred to Harvard's School of Music.

Porter enjoyed brief success in 1915 with his first song in a Broadway musical. A year later, his first full production, "See America First," closed after only two weeks.

After several other failures, Porter moved to Paris. The songs he wrote there, including "You Don't Know Paree" and "I Love Paris", reflect his affection for the city. In 1928, his first big hit, "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love," appeared in the musical "Paris."

Porter lived in an era of strict homosexuality taboos. Public knowledge of his sexuality, Porter feared, could compromise his success. Like many gay public figures, Porter married a woman for convenience. His wife, Linda Lee Thomas, may have been bisexual. The arrangement helped both Thomas and Porter. Thomas remained a socialite with a high-profile husband, while Porter hid his sexuality under the guise of a marriage.

Porter had relationships with talented men, including Boston socialite Howard Sturgess, architect Ed Tauch and choreographer Nelson Barclift, the inspiration for "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home to."

A horse riding accident in 1937 badly crippled Porter's legs. His condition left him in constant pain and required more than 30 surgeries. He continued to write songs, though his prominence waned until 1948, when he wrote "Kiss Me, Kate," one of his most famous works. The production earned the Tony Award for Best Musical, and Porter won the Tony for Best Composer and Lyricist.

His physical and emotional condition quickly deteriorated with the loss of his mother in 1952, his wife in 1954, and his amputated right leg in 1958. Porter never wrote again, and remained in relative seclusion until his own death, at age 73, in 1964.

Author

b. February 3, 1874
d. July 27, 1946

"A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears." 
    
Known as an influential American writer who focused on character depth, Gertrude Stein spent most of her life in Paris. While in France she met her life partner, befriended famous artists and developed into an influential literary figure and feminist.

Born into a wealthy family in Pennsylvania, Gertrude Stein grew up in Oakland, California. As an undergraduate she attended Radcliffe College, now incorporated into Harvard University, and studied under psychologist William James. She spent much of 1899-1901 at Johns Hopkins University Medical School but did not earn her degree.

Stein moved to Paris in 1902 and became an avid art collector. She turned her house into an informal salon. It soon became a hotspot for famous artists and writers - including Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Henri Matisse and Thornton Wilder. Hemingway viewed Stein as his mentor and Picasso became her close friend. Stein later called Paris a city of "The Lost Generation."

In 1907, Stein met life partner Alice B. Toklas. Together during WWI, Toklas and Stein drove supplies to French hospitals. After the war, Stein received a medal for her contributions.

Stein wrote her first book, "Q.E.D.," in 1903, but did not publish a novel until "Three Lives" (1909), a work heavily influenced by former professor James and writer William Henry. Unique because of its similarity to the art form of cubism, Stein's writing delved into a literary area previously unexplored.

"Tender Buttons," a short collection of feminist poems published in 1914, resembled Pablo Picasso's artwork, albeit in different form. In 1926, Stein explained the connection during lectures at the University of Oxford and Cambridge University. She published her lectures as a book, "Composition and Explanation" (1926).

In 1932, "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas," a book that told Stein's life story, excited the American public. It was her first bestseller. Composers adapted several of her works, including Virgil Thomson's "Four Saints in Three Acts" and "The Mother of Us All."

Complex and progressive, Stein's writing transformed American literature and contributed to the feminist movement. A monument on the upper terrace of Bryant Park in New York City honors her memory.

Fashion Designer

One of the most noteworthy fashion designers of the 20th century, Yves St. Laurent is renowned for creating innovative trends that continue to influence style. 

Born in Oran, Algeria, St. Laurent first discovered fashion through the theater section of Vogue magazine, taking special interest in costume descriptions. 

St. Laurent was a target of bullying at school. He privately countered the taunts by saying to himself, “One day I’ll be famous,” and persisted in his exploration of the world of design.

In 1950, his first great opportunity arrived at age 21 when Christian Dior hired him after viewing his design sketches. St. Laurent spent the first year performing administrative tasks for Dior. His talent allowed him to quickly rise through the ranks, and he became the head designer of the company following Dior’s death in 1957. 

In 1958, St. Laurent garnered international attention with his first collection, which introduced the legendary trapeze dress. He achieved popularity experimenting with design motifs such as beatnik wear and ethnic patterns, becoming the first designer to introduce elements of pop culture into haute couture. 

In 1960, St. Laurent split with Dior to establish his own fashion house with lover and business partner Pierre Bergé. Under his own label, he set new standards for the fashion industry. He was the first high fashion designer to release a ready-to-wear line, and was among the first designers to hire black and Pacific Islander models. 

One of St. Laurent’s trademarks was to create feminized versions of menswear, such as tuxedoes, safari jackets and trousers, blurring traditional gender roles.  His work is widely credited with encouraging unique ways of self-expression. 

In 1991, St. Laurent came out to the French magazine Le Figaro. In 2008, he exchanged vows with Bergé in a civil union. St. Laurent died a few days later of brain cancer. A number of women attending his funeral wore trouser suits as a tribute to the designer’s legacy.