40 Fascinating Facts About the Fabulous Josephine Baker

40 Fascinating Facts About the Fabulous Josephine Baker

Khalid Elhassan - July 2, 2019

40 Fascinating Facts About the Fabulous Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker and Chiquita the Cheetah. ThoughtCo

19. She Was a Big Time Animal Lover

Baker loved animals, and when a club owner gave her a pet cheetah named Chiquita to use in her dance show, she was ecstatic. She kept the big cat after the act ended, and travelled around the world with Chiquita the Cheetah by her side, riding in her car, and sleeping in her bed. She also had a pet goat named Toutoute that lived in her nightclub’s dressing room, as well as a pet pig named Albert, upon whom she doted, grooming and gussying him up with expensive perfumes. Albert lived in the nightclub’s kitchen, where he got so fat from feeding on scraps, that at one point he became too big to make it out the door, so the door frame had to be broken down.

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