heritage. Baker's official website identifies vaudeville drummer Eddie Carson as her biological father; both Carson and Carrie McDonald were vaudeville performers. However, in his 1993 biography entitled Josephine: The Hungry Heart, Baker's foster son, Jean-Claude Baker, stated otherwise. Following decades of exhaustive research into Baker's life and career, Jean-Claude Baker's book described the circumstances of Baker's birth as follows:

Jean-Claude Baker went on to state that he had failed