A Tribute to Jean-Claude Baker of Chez Josephine

I religiously read obituaries in The New York Times, not, as the saying goes, to find out if I’m still alive. Friday night I was startled to read about the passing of Jean-Claude Baker, apparently by his own hand. He was found Thursday in his car at his East Hampton, NY, home.

I doubt most of you knew Jean-Claude. I can’t say I had more than a passing awareness of him, either, until about a year ago. I didn’t know him as a friend. Rather, he was the co-owner and maitre d of Chez Josephine, a French bistro on West 42nd Street off 9th Avenue in Manhattan, a few doors down from Playwrights Horizon, a theatre group Gilda and I and our friends Jane and Ken have been members of for more than 10 years, enjoying four to six plays a year, several of which have gone on to win Pulitzer prizes.  

We used to attend weekend matinees then visit a museum before dining at restaurants all over the city. A few years ago we switched to evening productions with dinner at nearby restaurants, including Chez Josephine. In truth we dined there at first because of its proximity to the theatre. We kept going back because the food, the service, the piano-bar ambiance, the decor and the convenience made each meal memorable and delectable. If you’re anything like me, you grew up hating liver. But the pan-seared calf’s liver at Chez Josephine is to die for. And its shrimp cocktail is among the plumpest I’ve enjoyed.

Jean-Claude often would be standing directly inside the front door, cheerfully dressed in a high collared tunic. About a year ago when Ken and Jane had to miss our night at the theatre, Linda and Jacob took their places. Intrigued by all the pictures of Josephine Baker, the American chanteuse Parisians adored, decorating the walls, Linda asked Jean-Claude about them.

He enthusiastically joined our table recounting a quick summary of his life while bringing over a copy of a book he had written about Josephine, the woman who had taken him in as a struggling teenager in Paris and for all intents and purposes adopted him, one of about a dozen waifs she mothered in the City of Lights.

The last time we ate in Chez Josephine was in early December. Jean-Claude was not in his usual spot greeting patrons. I asked if he was in but was told he was taking some time off at his East Hampton home. Reports of his death said he had been depressed for several years. How sad that a man who had given so much joy to friends and strangers would succumb to demons inside his mind (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/nyregion/jean-claude-baker-a-restaurateur-dies-at-71.html?ref=obituaries). 

Reading List

Over a delicious dinner at friends’ house Friday night, politics and international relations dominated conversation that at times grew loud. One of the more contentious issues was the role of elected officials. Should they legislate according to the campaign promises they made to their constituents, or should they feel free to vote their conscience if they discover a more judicious and patriotic path?

For Gilda and me the choice was clear—we choose leaders to lead, not to stay stagnant when the world around them is evolving. Should Southern representatives have remained anti-civil rights even as the voters who sent them to Washington and their state capitols continued their bigoted beliefs, Gilda asked?

It’s commonplace today for not just Democrats but Republicans as well to co-opt the legacy of John F. Kennedy. But in doing so they must embrace one of his sentinel works. Profiles in Courage is JFK’s 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning account of eight U.S. senators who acted on their conscience rather than succumb to political pressure to conform to party politics or the majority of their constituents. They did so at great risk to their careers, in the interest of serving country first.

We find ourselves today in need of such statesmen. Instead of country first, it’s party first for too many of our chosen representatives. Instead of compromise, they are determined to humble their opposition, sowing conflict and animus not seen for generations, perhaps not since the great debates over slavery in the early decades of the 19th century. But even those debates yielded compromises. Today, compromise seems not to be part of the political lexicon.

Perhaps Profiles of Courage should be made mandatory reading for everyone in Washington and our 50 state capitols. Perhaps some who read it and take its lessons to heart will not win re-election because they have put country before their re-election effort. They will earn eternal gratitude. It’s a pipedream, I know, but it’s a worthy pipedream.


Here’s another must read for all—Since Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen. You might not have time to read this 1940 book about life during the Great Depression and how our government tried to help its citizens survive it, but surely you have a few minutes to read Joe Nocera’s column on it from Saturday’s NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/opinion/nocera-the-1930s-sure-sound-familiar.html?_r=1&hp

If Nocera is right about the lessons to be gleaned from Since Yesterday, we are in for rougher times given the mood in Washington to cut, cut, cut and not invest in our future.