Joséphine Baker: a stoner in the Pantheon

Joséphine Baker, a free-spirited woman of a thousand faces, will be inducted into the Panthéon today in recognition of her rich life as a vaudeville artist, a member of the Resistance, an anti-racism activist, and the adoptive mother of 12 children from around the world.

One of the pleasures of her life, however, is usually kept secret: she used to smoke marijuana.

In « Joséphine: The Hungry Heart«, authors Jean-Claude Baker and Chris Chase recount a conversation with Phillip Leshing, who was then the bassist in Buddy Rich's band: «I remember that once, Joséphine invited several of us to come to her dressing room to try out some really good reefer [Editor’s note: joints]. I went there with Harry ‘Sweets’ Edison, the trumpeter, and Buddy Rich, and we smoked weed with Josephine Baker… but the marijuana didn’t affect her performance. Not once.»

According to Phillip Leshing, Josephine Baker «had this magnificent golden cup of love made for Buddy and the group—a trophy, like a Academy Award, with our names engraved on it. And it was filled with marijuana. She gave it to us after the last show at the Strand [the New York club where they were performing in March 1951].».

The authors speculate that Baker may have smoked cannabis for the first time with his lover Georges Simenon, who used to mix hashish with tobacco in his pipe, or with the Prince of Wales in Paris, back when he used to go to the Rat Mort and would leave «with his feet first every night—dead drunk and high,» according to another lover, Claude Hopkins.

A California dispensary also pays tribute to a part of its history: Joséphine and Billie’s, a throwback to the «Teapads» of Black communities in the 1920s and 1930s—cannabis clubs where people gathered to enjoy jazz and cannabis «while feeling connected, relaxed, valued, and safe.».

The interior of the speakeasy «Josephine & Billie’s,» which requires a password to enter

According to Whitney Beatty, co-founder of the speakeasy, Josephine Baker and Billie Holiday «were two women of color who were persecuted for their cannabis use. But what I think is really important is that they were persecuted and yet used their art to fight against this injustice. They rejected the mainstream. They wrote their own rules and paved the way for those who came after them.»

To the stoners, a grateful nation!