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I agree.Part of an interview with Katherine Joseph, October 25, 2004. In this clip, Joseph describes her dancing career, including a stint in Cuba, and her interactions with Josephine Baker and Pearl Bailey at the Cotton Club in Las Vegas in the 1950s.
An Interview with Katherine M. Joseph, 2004 October 25, 2007 September 05. OH-00979. [Audio recording] Oral History Research Center, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Ve
English
I taught them because adagio is the lifts and all that. You had to have two people. And the way that we lost Jimmy is he got drafted into service. So he had to go. Josephine Baker came. You know, all the entertainers were over there with us. And Josephine Baker came, and she saw the little show that we were doing. So she said, "Well, you know what? You guys are never going to get anywhere here. I'm going to buy you tickets, and I want you to come to Paris." And we said, "Okay, we're coming." But in the meantime, Jimmy got drafted. So Tony and I, we talked about going. And I might still have that ticket. She wanted us to go over there. We did leave from here -- oh, I remember -- in the early 50s, and we were gone a couple of years. We danced in a show called Leon Claxton's Harlem in Havana, and we worked in Havana in Cuba. We danced over there. At that time Castro wasn't over there. Cuba then was like the Strip. That's right. And we worked over there. And the little town that really was just all the clubs was called Camaguey, Cuba, and it was right outside of Havana. But we lived in Miami because it was like $12 to fly over there or get on the boat or something like that. And we would go. So we stayed there about a year, and then we came back to Las Vegas. Oh, that's exciting. Uh-huh. When I came back to Las Vegas, I worked in the Cotton Club, and I started out as a barmaid in the Cotton Club. And I remember waiting on Pearl Bailey. And Pearl Bailey would have on her jeans and tie up her head, and she drank nothing but champagne. And when she'd come in, I'd ice the glass and stuff and get it all ready the first time. And I'd take it over to the table. And she'd say, "Oh, baby, I don't want that. Bring me a water glass and bring me the bottle." I said okay. But we made a lot of money then because you could not spend your money anywhere but over there. So the money stayed in the community. And really, we had a lot of businesses over there that were really flourishing.