The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People Read Free

to lose all her hair (she wore wigs from then on).
    Her courage won her the Croix de Guerre, the Rosette of the Resistance, and the Legion of Honor. In the decades following the war, Baker returned to the stage. Also, to prove universal brotherhood was possible, she adopted 11 children of different races and religions from places as diverse as Korea, Algeria, and Israel.
    SEX LIFE: Baker’s serious affairs began when she moved to Paris at the age of 19. She fell in love with a fair-haired, handsome Frenchman named Marcel, who set her up in a luxurious apartment on the Champs Élysées which she called her “marble palace.” Marcel appeared every evening and brought live gifts with him—white mice, a parrot, a miniature monkey. At last Baker asked him when they would be married. He said marriage was impossible because she was black and a public dancer. The next day she walked out on her palace and her menagerie.
    Baker’s first distinguished admirer was a Moroccan she called “the Sheik of Araby.” He sent her a tame panther wearing a diamond necklace, and took both Baker and the panther to dinner. However, she decided that having sex with him was impossible. He was short and chubby, and she was tall. “The problem,” she said, “was that when I was young I used to like to do it standing up, and if I had ever done it with him, he would have been jabbing me in the knees.”
    In 1929 Crown Prince Adolf (future King Gustavus VI) of Sweden, entranced by Baker, visited her dressing room and invited her to his country.
    Although Baker knew the prince was married, she sent him a one-word telegram later that night: “When?” The following morning she had his reply:
    “Tonight.” That evening Baker boarded the prince’s private railroad car with its gold interior and Aubusson carpets. In her sleeping quarters was a swan-shaped
    bed covered with satin sheets to highlight the shapely contours of her dusky body. After she had settled into bed, the Prince arrived. When she complained of being cold, he warmed her heart by fastening a three-strand diamond bracelet on her arm. While grateful, she told him that her other arm was still cold. He roared with laughter and gave her another bracelet. Undressing, he pulled down the sheets and joined her, kissing her softly. They maneuvered their bodies together and allowed the undulating movements of the railroad car to set the tempo of their lovemaking. “He was a real fox,” Baker said afterward. “He was my cream and I was his coffee, and when you poured us together, it was something!”
    They spent a warm winter month together in his isolated summer palace, making love when indoors and playing like children in the snow outdoors.
    The last night of their idyll he draped a floor-length sable coat around her, took her in his arms, and they danced a silent waltz. They never met again.
    At a cabaret, Josephine Baker was introduced to Count “Pepito” Abatino, an Italian administrator. They danced a tango, which led to a night of lovemaking. Before long Abatino had become her lover and manager. They never married, but Baker always presented him as her husband. He was a jealous lover as well as a tough manager, sometimes locking her in her room to force her to work on dance routines. The affair lasted 10 years and ended in New York when Baker decided she wanted to be free of his domination.
    On Nov. 30, 1937, Baker married French industrialist Jean Leon. He wanted children and a home in the country. Together they leased Les Milandes, a château that became her dream house. When Baker became pregnant but miscarried, she lost not only the baby but Leon as well. The judge who dissolved their marriage in 1939 said, “They were two strangers who never really met.”
    It was five years before Baker fell in love again. In 1933 she had met Jo Bouillon, a French orchestra leader, when he came backstage at the Folies to ask her for an autographed picture. They met again in October of 1944 when