On October 2, 1925, La Revue Nègre opened at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, a house its managers, Rolf de Maré and André Daven, hoped a real African American show might rescue from postwar money troubles. The troupe, assembled in New York by the Chicago-born socialite Caroline Dudley Reagan, came with a band led from the piano by Claude Hopkins, Sidney Bechet on clarinet, and a show built around the blues singer Maud de Forest. In rehearsal the French side decided it was too noisy, too long, inelegant and — their verdict — not black enough. Jacques Charles of the Moulin Rouge was brought in to rearrange it; de Forest’s part was reportedly trimmed days before the premiere, and a chorus dancer named Josephine Baker was moved to the end of the bill for a “Danse sauvage.” Baker soon replaced de Forest as the lead. By February 1926 she had broken her contract to headline at the Folies Bergère.
Maud de Forest, the blues singer the revue was originally built around, in a photograph published during its Paris run. (Photo: Trampus agency, from Dansons no. 66, December 1925; Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Sources: La Revue nègre — Wikipedia (opened October 2, 1925, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées; organized by Caroline Dudley Reagan; Bechet, Hopkins and Maud de Forest in the troupe; de Forest’s part cut four days before opening; Jacques Charles took over direction; Baker moved to the finale; Baker left for the Folies Bergère in February 1926) , Baker Dances in La Revue nègre — EBSCO Research Starters (de Maré and Daven hoping a Black show would save the theater; directors found the original “too noisy, too long, inelegant, and not black enough”; Jacques Charles rearranged it around Baker; Maud de Forrest originally the lead, replaced by Baker) , Claude Hopkins — Wikipedia (musical director of La Revue nègre in 1925, with Sidney Bechet in the band) , Remembering Sidney Bechet — Entrée to Black Paris (the revue opened October 2nd at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées; Bechet the show’s star musician) , Marie Woods in La Revue Negre, Paris, 1925 — Jazz Age Club (staged at the Champs Elysees Theatre on 2nd October 1925, presented by Caroline Dudley Reagan)
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