32. Her Career Took Off in Harlem
Baker’s rise coincided with the Harlem Renaissance – an artistic, social, and intellectual explosion centered in Harlem, NY, during the 1920s. Unfortunately, Baker’s early comic career revolved around blackface performances in NY clubs – a demeaning form of entertainment of which her mother disapproved, and which further soured the mother-daughter relationship. Her comic dance routines in those days typically called for her to bumble and stumble through her act, as if she was a ditz who didn’t know what she was doing. Then, during the encore, she would close out by performing the routine correctly, and with added layers of complexity exceeding those of all other dancers. It was such a hit, that Baker was billed as “The Highest Paid Chorus Girl in Vaudeville!”