Josphine Baker 1906-75

African-American-French entertainer

Baker (the surname of her second husband) was born Josephine Carson to an unmarried couple in the slums of St. Louis, Missouri.

Her father abandoned the family before she was a year old, and at 16 months she was sent to live temporarily with her grandmother, while her mother began a new relationship and had three more children.

She returned home but the family was so poor that the children scavenged in garbage cans for food and coal. Her formal education ended by the time she was 11.

On the streets she learned to dance, and at 13 she left home for good, to be a waitress. She married twice before she was 15. She had also joined the Jones Family Band, which was to be her entry into the professional stage.

She was soon "discovered" in New York and appeared there in the Folies-Bergères, Ziegfeld Follies, and the famed Le Revue Nègre in Paris, all before she was 19.

She found the stardom in France that was denied to her as a Black woman in the USA, and in the mid-1930s she settled in there permanently, married a wealthy French citizen and became naturalised.

During World War II she entertained Allied troops and worked in intelligence for the French Resistance which earned her the Légion d'Honneur and the Rosette de la Résistance.

She was married for the fourth time in 1947, to band leader Jo Bouillon, although she also had a number lesbian relationships.

She and Bouillon adopted 12 or 13 children of different ethnic backgrounds: their Rainbow Tribe.

Her final years saw considerable financial problems, including bankruptcy, and she continued to work until only a few days before her death, to earn the money to support her large family (her husband had left her years before for Argentina because of her inability to control her spending).
[Last updated: 26 March 1999]

References:
Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia, 1993-97
Dictionary of American Biography
Baker, Jean-Claude, and Chase, Chris. Josephine: The Hungry Heart. (New York: Random House, 1993)
Schroeder, Alan. Josephine Baker. (New York: Chelsea House, 1991) (Black Americans of Achievement)
Haney, Lynn. Naked at the Feast: A Biography of Josephine Baker. (New York: Parkwest Publications, 1997)
"Josephine Baker: The Life She Lived and the Legend She Became." [Includes portraits]. Available at: http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/jasmith/index.html [Last visited: 4 September 1999]
Josephine Baker Estate. "Josephine Baker: Biography." Available at: http://www.cmgww.com/stars/baker/bio.html [Last visited: 4 September 1999]

Freddie Bartholomew 1924-92

Irish-American actor, television producer and advertising executive aka Frederick Llewellen

Bartholomew was born in Dublin but abandoned by his parents to the care of an aunt, Millicent Mary Bartholomew.

In 1930 he began his film career as a child star with Fascination, and another 23 films followed, including David Copperfield, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Anna Karenina, Kidnapped, Swiss Family Robinson, Tom Brown's Schooldays, A Yank at Eton, Captains Courageous and St. Benny the Dip.

At one time he was the highest-paid child star in Hollywood, after Shirley Temple. When he became famous his birth parents surfaced and tried to regain custody (and control of his income), and the legal fees used up a large part of his fortune.

But his aunt won the court case and formally adopted him. The acting parts dried up when he became an adolescent, and he returned to a more normal life, avoiding the despair and psychological traumas that afflicted many other child stars.

He joined the US Air Force during the Second World War, and afterwards did try to return to show business as a performer and director, but was unsuccessful. He did, however, produce the CBS soap opera As the World Turns in the 1970s.

Instead, he went into advertising and eventually became vice-president of the large Benton and Bowles agency in New York.
[Last updated: 15 May 1998]

References:
"Freddie Bartholomew [Obituary]," The Times [London], 25 January 1992, p. 14
Macmillan International Film Encyclopedia. New edition, edited by Ephraim Katz. (London: Macmillan, 1994)

Jamie Baulch 1973-

African-British athlete and model

Baulch was adopted at six months of age by a white family from a South Wales valley village.

He was not an academic child at school but loved athletics so his parents took him to the Newport Harriers when he was in his early teens where he began to run.

He began to be successful almost immediately, and in 1996 was a member of the British Olympic 4 X 400 meter relay team which won the silver medal.

His coaches are Linford Christie and Colin Jackson. Although he had very little contact with other black people before he began to run and was the only black child in his schools, he experienced very little racial harassment.
[Last updated: 20 March 1998]

References:
Next of Kin. BBC2, 14 March 1998
International Amateur Athletic Federation. "Jamie Baulch: A Young Man in a Hurry [Interview]." [Includes photos]. Available at: http://www.iaaf.org/wic97/news/baulch.html [Last visited: 9 November 1999]
"Jamie Baulch." [Includes photos]. Available at: http://www.nuff-respect.co.uk/athletes/baulch.html [Last visited: 23 August 2000]

Ingrid Bergman 1915/17-82

Swedish-American actress

Bergman's mother died when she was two and her father when she was 12. She then lived with an aunt, who died six months later, and then with an uncle.

Her first film was Munkbrogreven in 1934. Other films in her long career included Intermezzo, Casablanca, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gaslight, Stromboli, Anastasia, Murder on the Orient Express, Autumn Sonata, and A Woman Called Golda.

She received three Oscars.
[Last updated: 20 December 1997]

References:
Dever, Maria, and Dever, Aileen. Relative Origins: Famous Foster and Adopted People. (Portland: National Book Company, 1992)
Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia, 1993-97
Spoto, Donald. Notorious: The Life of Ingrid Bergman. (London: HarperCollins, 1997)
Bergman, Ingrid, and Burgess, Alan. Ingrid Bergman: My Story. (London: Sphere, 1981)
"Ingrid Bergman's Biography." [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://diva.eecs.berkeley.edu/~tito/ingridbio.html [Last visited: 9 November 1999]
"Ingrid Bergman Biography." Available at: http://www.cmgww.com/stars/bergman/ibbio.html [Last visited: 9 November 1999]

Compiled by and copyright of Roger Fenton. Details of how to buy the compilation are available on Roger's website. Also available is Roger's e-book Adopting a Child in Britain

Roger is always on the lookout for new entries so if you come across them e-mail them to him.

See also