Famous Friendships: Josephine Baker and Grace Kelly

Josephine Baker and Grace Kelly: two American women born into two different versions of the 20th century American story. Josephine Baker was born into poverty but became a tremendously successful dancer and singer, now most remembered as the woman who danced the “Danse Sauvage”, wearing nothing but a skirt of bananas in Paris during the 1920s. Grace Kelly had been born into a wealthy family, raised in convent schools, became a Hollywood star, eventually marrying Prince Rainier III, and becoming Her Serene Highness Princess Grace of Monaco. Their childhoods and early experiences could not have been more different, and show two starkly different realities of the American 20th century.

Despite coming from starkly different origins, fate brought them together one night in 1951 at