爵士乐时代约瑟芬

年轻约瑟芬出生于1906年在圣路易斯长大非常贫穷,“唱啊”一文不值,但蓝军。”When kids are cruel to her, she makes funny faces with her eyes bugging out or crossed. She is a great dancer and figures out she can get paid for dancing and pretending to be a fool. After whites burn down her black neighborhood, she leaves and joins a traveling show that takes her all over the United States. She makes her Broadway debut at 15, but, like other African-American performers in that era, is forced to wear black face makeup to exaggerate her features for comic effect. "Each night she wore those baggy pants, / she wore what people called 'blackface.' / As much as all those white folks loved her, / it was an insult to her race." In 1925, at age 19, she heads to Paris, where she finds fame and fortune, dancing, singing, and making funny faces -- finally treated with the kind of respect she could never attain in the U.S., where, as the Author's Note explains, "she had been offered only humiliating roles."