Singer FKA Twigs to play Josephine Baker in biopic of anti-racist legend

British music star FKA Twigs is to play Josephine Baker in a new biopic of the Roaring Twenties icon who became a hero of the French Resistance and the American civil rights movement.

The movie will tell the "incredible story of the magnificent, incomparable" dancer and singer, its producers said at the Cannes Film Festival, which starts Tuesday.

Born into grinding poverty in St. Louis, Missouri, Baker became one of the first global superstars. But she refused to perform before segregated audiences in the United States and spent much of her life in France.

She was the first black woman to be given a place in the Pantheon, where France's national heroes are buried, after helping the French Resistance during World War II and also spying on the Nazis for the British and US intelligence services.

FKA Twigs, who is also a singer and choreographer, said Baker's "extraordinary legacy is such an inspiration to me and to so many people".

"I cannot wait" to bring "her fight, her love, her losses, her talent and her heroism to the big screen," the Grammy winner added.

As well as aiding the Allied fight against fascism, Baker was a leading voice against racial discrimination in her homeland, and spoke alongside Martin Luther King Jr. at the 1963 march on Washington.

The movie, by rising French director Maimouna Doucoure of "Cuties" fame, will start shooting later this year.

Producers StudioCanal said they had worked with Baker's sons, Jean-Claude Bouillon Baker and Brian Bouillon Baker, on the script.

Agence France-Presse