Smooth operator

SECOND WORLD WAR | KATE VIGURS acclaims a vibrant account of the life and wartime travails of American-French cabaret artist - and covert resistance operative - Josephine Baker

- KATE VIGURS

Front stage Josephine Baker performs for Allied troops in Paris, May 1940. The popular performer's war effort involved much more than just singing: joining the resistance, she undertook dangerous spy missions

Josephine Baker was "a chameleon, a rebel, a warrior, a rule-breaker at heart", according to biographer Damien Lewis. "She was undeniably at her best when she had a cause to fight for. For that... she could prove tireless, resolute, unbreakable."

Baker, an American-born dancer and singer, worked as a spy in the Second World War. In his new book, Lewis takes the reader on an epic journey of discovery, from Baker's early life in the slums of St Louis, with its brutal poverty and segregation, to the lights of the Parisian nightclubs and cabaret where she danced "until her shins bled". We are also transported to the cultural and political melting pot of Casablanca and the bleak clinic where Baker, confined to her hospital bed for months, continued her vital resistance work.