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About Jean-Claude Baker
Jean-Claude Baker (April 18, 1943 – January 15, 2015) was a French-American restaurateur.
His baroque life was fodder for countless writers. He was born 'Jean-Claude Julien Léon Tronville to unwed parents in Dijon in 1943 and at 14, working as a bellhop, set out for Paris, encountering Josephine Baker, an entertainer, activist, and French Resistance agent.
Baker mothered the young man as an unofficial addition to the 12 adopted children of her orphan "rainbow tribe".
He, in turn, as a budding showman of his own, fostered her twilight career, took her name and wrote, with Chris Chase, a biography, Josephine: the Hungry Heart. Baker promised his vast archive on early African-American entertainment to the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.
In 1993, he co-authored with Chris Chase a biography of Josephine Baker, Josephine: The Hungry Heart, described as a "shocking look into the star's seriously whitewashed past".
Baker died at his home in East Hampton, New York on January 15, 2015, aged 71.
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Jean-Claude Baker's Timeline
| 1943 |
April 18, 1943
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Dijon, Côte-d'Or, Bourgogne Franche-Comté, France
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| 2015 |
January 15, 2015
Age 71
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East Hampton, Suffolk County, New York, United States
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