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Dietrich Icon, Eds. Gerd Gemünden and Mary Desjardins. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007, 420 pp., $89.95 hardcover, $24.95 paper.
Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image by Benetta Jules-Rosette. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007, 368 pp., $60.00 hardcover, $25.00 paper.
MARILYN HODER-SALMON
The use of the word "icon" in the titles of both of these absorbing new books of cultural anthropology alludes to the familiarity and recognition commonly associated with that rare celebrity, recognized even by just one name. To this day, the names of both Marlene Dietrich and Josephine Baker evoke images they made famous over decades as performers and celebrities. So much so that one might wonder: when a considerable number of biographical publications already exist, including memoir and documentary films on the lives and art of each of these two stars, is more work, including scholarly studies, useful? The answer is an unequivocal "yes." Benetta Jules-Rosette's Josephine Baker in Art and Life: The Icon and the Image is a thoroughly researched and thoughtfully, expertly written study that merits attention. It offers new ways of thinking about a woman in our history whose identity and life as a uniquely talented female beauty with a lasting public career led to her becoming a cultural icon. Germünden and Desjardins's book is a collection of essays presented at the international conference, "Dietrich at 100," held at Dartmouth College in 2001. Including multiple authors and themes and encompassing memoir, theory, and cultural studies, the essays in the Dietrich anthology cohere in their analysis of constructs of femaleness and femininity adjutant to women's history via their examination of Dietrich's thoroughly captivating personal and professional story.
One of the surprising revelations that comes from reading these two books together is the extent to which the career trajectories of these two icons resemble each other. Both were enormously accomplished in building and maintaining their success. Each reflects a combination of innate talent and beauty, personal wisdom, unyielding perseverance tethered to good luck, and a highly structured ability to control her individual destiny. That each succeeded, in spite of numerous obstacles that came her way, is remarkable.
Both women were born in the first decade of the twentieth century, Dietrich in 1901 and Baker in...