Resident of Portland, Oregon, who sued Republic Pictures for defamation of character and invasion of privacy, when they released Frankie and Johnny in 1936. Baker claimed the film, and the song on which it was based, was stolen from her own life. In October of 1899, in St. Louis, Missouri, Ms. Baker, a prostitute at the time, shot and killed a sixteen-year-old boy named Al Britt. She insisted it was self-defense, and newspaper accounts of the time document this. She suspected a man named Dooley had written the song about her, but she took no legal action until the song and story were popularized by actress Mae West, cartoonist John Held, Jr., and writer Jack Kirkland. The song is documented to pre-date her shooting, and all her claims were dismissed.