Dance
Joséphine Baker
Joséphine Baker (1906-1975), a dancer and revue star born in the United States who became a French icon, was the queen of the Paris music halls, a Resistance heroine and a civil-rights campaigner, laid to rest in the Panthéon in 2021. In 1967 she stopped in Montreux for a show on the stage of the Casino.
Joséphine Baker in Montreux
The queen of music hall
Arriving from the United States in 1925, Joséphine Baker set Paris alight with the Revue nègre, then the Folies Bergère and her famous banana skirt. She became the first Black star of worldwide stature, a film actress and singer (“J’ai deux amours”). Active in the Resistance during the war, then in the civil-rights struggle alongside Martin Luther King, she entered the Panthéon in 2021, the first Black woman to be honoured there.
1967: a show at the Casino de Montreux
In 1967, Joséphine Baker stayed at the Montreux Palace for her show on the stage of the Casino de Montreux. True to her flair, she made herself talked about even in her restaurant orders. On the Riviera as everywhere, she remained, to the very end, one of the greatest figures of 20th-century live performance.