Jean-Claude Baker of Chez Josephine Fame
Jean-Claude Baker, a charismatic maitre d’hotel and restaurateur who owned Chez Josephine in New York and found sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of his working life at his house in East Hampton’s Northwest Woods, died last Thursday outside of his house here. The cause was suicide, according to Steven Gaines, a friend. Mr. Baker was 71.
He was born Jean-Claude Julien Leon Tronville on April 18, 1943, in Dijon, France, to Constance Luce Tronville and Julien Rouzaud. His father left his mother and his three sisters when Mr. Baker was in his early teens, and he searched for him in Paris, where they were briefly reunited, before Mr. Rouzaud again abandoned him.
Only 14, he struggled to survive in Paris, working in bistros and hotels, learning the hospitality trade that would carry him through his life. It was there, at the age of 15, that he met the famed African-American performer and expatriate Josephine Baker, who had adopted 12 other children and referred to him as her 13th. He took her surname, though he was never officially adopted by her. Their complex relationship was central to both, off and on, until Ms. Baker’s death in 1975. He had worked as her assistant, manager, and even toured with her as a singer.
“I’ve never been her lover. . . . I’ve never even been her fan. . . . I loved her, hated her, and wanted desperately to understand her,” Mr. Baker wrote in the introduction to his 1993 biography of her, “Josephine: The Hungry Heart,” written with Chris Chase.
The book received a glowing review in The New York Times, where Mindy Aloff praised “the prodigious research that buttresses it.” She called it “mesmerizing,” “irresistible,” and “a killer achievement.”
Mr. Baker worked as a bellhop at the Hotel Scribe in Paris and an attendant at the Hotel Adelphi in Liverpool, where he learned English. He later opened the Pimm’s Club in the mid-1960s in West Berlin. The club became a magnet for both gay and straight performing artists and celebrities, Mick Jagger and Rudolf Nureyev among them. At the same time, Mr. Baker designed clothing for a boutique he opened next to the club, and performed as a singer under the name Jean-Claude Rousseau.
It was at the Pimm’s Club that he reunited with Ms. Baker, bringing her in to perform. Eventually, the two of them came to the United States on a tour in 1972. He settled in New York, where he sang in nightclubs and had a cable TV show, “Tele-France USA.” His relationship with Ms. Baker fell apart shortly before her death.
In 1985, he opened Chez Josephine, next to Playwright’s Horizons, on 42nd Street near Dyer Avenue, which became known as Theater Row. “I loved it then,” he said of the neighborhood in a 2012 interview with the Daily News. “It was alive. I miss that. It had soul, and, of course, people like me need soul. We live for it.”
In New York, “He was a host, and he always found himself in the middle,” a friend, Andy Semons, said yesterday. His house in Northwest Woods was where he “came to live his real life,” Mr. Semons said.
Mr. Baker was incredibly generous, Mr. Semons said. “He was a champion of the downtrodden.”
Mr. Baker is survived by his three sisters in France, Marie-Josephe Lottier, Marie-Annick Rouzaud, and Martine Viellard.
A requiem Mass will be said at Holy Cross Church on West 42nd Street, just a block east of Chez Josephine, in late January. A memorial service will be held this spring, on a date to be announced. Donations in Mr. Baker’s memory have been suggested to Autism Speaks, 1060 State Road, 2nd Floor, Princeton, N.J. 08540 or autismspeaks.org.