A presentation for the 2013 "Shaw at Home" conference at Ayot St. Lawrence. In 1935 Baker starred in a Pygmalion-themed French movie, Princesse Tam Tam, a year before Shaw's Hollywood film.

1. Josephine Baker…
Pygmalion in Africa
The most sensational woman anyone ever saw. Or ever will.
- Ernest Hemingway

2. She was the talk of
Paris, dancing wildly on the
stage wearing bunches of
bananas around her
waist…and little else.

3. She was a French Resistance
worker who transported
secrets during WorldWar II…

4. … and was awarded the
Croix de Guerre, Légion
d'Honneur, and Rosette of
the Résistance.

5. She was the only woman who
spoke at the March on
Washington in 1963…

6. …the mother of twelve adopted children of various races, whom
she called “the Rainbow Tribe…”

7. …and the only American woman to receive full French military
honors at her funeral.

8. Baker was the first black female to star in a major motion
picture, integrate an American concert hall, and become a
world-famous entertainer.

9. She was born to a single
mother in St.
Louis, Missouri in 1906 and
escaped poverty by
dancing on the stage.
On a trip to France she
discovered that she could
sit and eat dinner with her
white friends in public.
France became her home.

10. There were four marriages, countless lovers, and a
lifetime affair with Belgian novelist Georges Simenon.

11. In 1935 Baker starred in
PrincesseTamTam, a
French film with a
Pygmalion theme.The
Hollywood version of
Shaw’s play was not filmed
until a year later.
PrincesseTamTam was
banned in the US because
it featured an interracial
couple.

12. The Pygmalion story was already familiar to French theater
audiences: It was Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s most influential
dramatic work (1762).
Shaw’s Pygmalion had a run in Paris in 1923—and flopped.

13. PrincesseTamTam
Alwina (played by Josephine
Baker) is a young African
woman who lives by her wits.
She meets a French
novelist, Max de Mirecourt
(Albert Préjean), who’s
traveling inTunisia.

14. Max finds her fascinating
and makes two plans: He
will put her into his next
novel—and he will use her
to make his wife jealous.

15. Max becomes Alwina’s teacher.The training goes well, and he
brings Alwina to Paris, where he passes her off as a princess
from India.

16. Max’s jealous wife, Lucie, asks
a maharajah to devise a plot
against Alwina.

17. The maharajah hosts a
grand ball and arranges for
exotic music to be played.
Alwina can’t resist the wild
beat of the drums. She
throws off her shoes, tears
off her skirt, and dances
provocatively, revealing
she isn’t a princess from
India after all.

18. But there’s a surprise in
store for the movie
audience.
Alwina never came to Paris
at all:What we we’ve been
seeing is the plot for Max’s
new novel.

19. Max goes back to his wife. His
novel is a success.
He gives hisTunisian estate to
Alwina, who lives there with
her husband and infant.
In the last scene, Alwina’s goat
is inside their house, eating
the novel Max wrote about
her: Civilization.

20. Some similarities between PrincesseTamTam and Shaw’s
Pygmalion are worth noting.

21. Both Alwina and Eliza…
 have learned to live by
their wits
 are regarded as less than
human at first
 are taught by men who
make their living through
words (Max as a
novelist, Higgins as a
phonetician)
 pretend to be members of
high society
 are caught up in practical
jokes they don’t
understand
 eventually defy their
teachers
 choose other men as their
husbands

22. There are shared themes. One of them is freedom…
Eliza: “Oh! if I only could go
back to my flower basket! I
should be independent of
both you and father and all
the world! Why did you take
my independence from me?
Why did I give it up? I'm a
slave now, for all my fine
clothes.”

23. Dar (Alwina’s lover): “If the birds of the sky eat from the hands
of man, they lose their freedom.”

24. Another theme is the problem of which is better: natural or
artificial.
Higgins: “I tell you I have
created this thing out of
the squashed cabbage
leaves of Covent Garden;
and now she pretends to
play the fine lady with
me.”

25. Alwina: “There are so many fake things here.”
Max: “Some fakes are prettier than the real ones.”

26. Both Pygmalion and PrincesseTamTam have problematic
endings.
Eliza marries the
unimpressive Freddy
Eynsford-Hill.
Alwina’s exciting story
was just the plot for Max’s
next novel and never
happened at all.

27. Perhaps both Shaw and filmmaker Pepito Abatino were
exploring an important psychological truth:

28. The combination of creativity
and romantic love doesn’t
work as well with living men
and women as it does in
mythology.

29. PrincesseTamTam is one of
many Pygmalion movies
that have appeared over
the years. It deserves
attention because…
•It was produced a year
before the Shaw film
•Its star helped integrate
the entertainment industry

30. •It shares so many features
with Shaw’s play
•It spotlights the problems
inherent in a romance
between a creator and his
creation

31. PrincesseTamTam