Josephine Baker
Born: 3 June 1906
Birthplace: St. Louis, Missouri
Death: 12 April 1975
Best Known As: African-American expatriate singer and dancer
Josephine Baker grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, but left home at an early age and began performing on stage. She appeared in the chorus lines of all-black revues on vaudeville, and travelled to Paris in 1925 as part of La Revue Negre. Her lithe body and clowning around on stage caused a sensation, and by the 1930s she was so successful she had her own nightclub. Baker was famous for her exotic outfits and uninhibited sexuality, her trademarks being a leopard on a leash, a skirt made of feathers and a dance in which she wore bananas on her head and not much else. In 1937 she became a citizen of France, and during World War II she worked with the Resistance against the Nazis. After the war she fought for civil rights in the United States, returned to France and retired in 1956 to look after her 12 adopted children. In the late '60s Baker was rescued from destitution by Princess Grace, who helped Baker put on another stage show, Josephine. She died in 1975 and was given a state funeral in Paris.
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Category: Fire Horse - Ping Wu
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John Huston
Born: 5 August 1906
Birthplace: Nevada, Missouri
Death: 28 August 1987
Best Known As: Director of The Man Who Would Be King
John Huston directed some of the most famous movies of the 20th century, including the Humphrey Bogart classics The Maltese Falcon (1941), Key Largo (1948), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and The African Queen (1951). A writer, painter, big-game hunter, actor, director and larger-than-life character off-screen, Huston was the son of actor Walter Huston and grew up around vaudeville until he was a teenager. As a young man John was an amateur boxing champion and an officer in the Mexican cavalry before being hired on as a studio screenwriter in Hollywood in the early 1930s. On 25 September 1933 he ran over and killed a pedestrian in a traffic accident, but a grand jury returned no charges. Huston left the United States and drifted around Europe until 1937, when he returned to write scripts for Warner Brothers. He made his directorial debut with The Maltese Falcon (based on the Dashiell Hammett novel), which established him as a talented writer and director. During World War II Huston filmed documentaries for the U.S. military, and after the war he directed a string of box office successes and films now considered classics, including The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and The Misfits (1951), the last film for both Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. As an actor he had several memorable roles, from The Lawgiver in Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) to Faye Dunaway's wicked dad in Roman Polanski's Chinatown (1974). Known for tackling a variety of genres as a director, Huston's films later in his career were hit-and-miss, from The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and The Dead (1987) to Victory (1981) and Annie! (1982).
Huston directed his father to an Oscar (Best Supporting Actor) in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and he directed his daughter Angelica to an Oscar (Best Supporting Actress) in 1985's Prizzi's Honor... His wartime documentary about the traumatic effects of combat, Let There Be Light, was confiscated by the U.S. Army in 1946 and not shown publicly until 1981.
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Janet Jackson
Born: 16 May 1966
Birthplace: Gary, Indiana
Best Known As: Pop singer who bared her breast at Super Bowl 2004
Jackson is the younger sister of the singing Jackson brothers, including "King of Pop" Michael Jackson. She released her first album in 1982; her career really took off with the 1986 album Control, which included the hit single "What Have You Done For Me Lately?" She quickly became a regular fixture in pop music and on MTV, known for her smartly sexy songs and high-energy dancing (the choreography in her videos was done by Paula Abdul). In 1999 she was a guest artist with Busta Rhymes on his hit "What's It Gonna Be." She also ventured into the movies, starring with Tupac Shakur and Maya Angelou in the 1993 film Poetic Justice.
Jackson caused a hubbub while performing in the halftime show of the 2004 Super Bowl, when her co-star Justin Timberlake pulled off a piece of Jackson's costume, exposing her right breast. Timberlake claimed the incident was unplanned and blamed a "wardrobe malfunction," but Jackson later issued a formal apology, admitting that the "costume reveal" was intentional... A month after the Super Bowl incident, singing legend Lena Horne blocked Jackson from playing her in a planned TV movie.
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