Harlem in Hungary

HBO Pictures veep Ilene Kahn, just back from Budapest, where HBO’s $8-million “Josephine Baker” is being filmed, tells us that title star Lynn Whitfield shot two versions of the acts that propelled Baker to fame in the 1920s: one in which the actress faithfully re-creates Baker’s semi-nudity, the other covered up for future syndication and some foreign markets.

Whitfield, who portrays the legendary singer from age 18 to 68, lost 20 pounds while training for her role (she’s doing all her own dancing), Kahn says. But when the actress reported for work in Budapest, director Brian Gibson decided she was too streamlined for the period--and asked her to gain back 12 pounds.

Gibson’s biggest challenge has been finding enough black extras. “For the past two weeks, we’ve needed several hundred extras for scenes re-creating a Harlem nightclub of the ‘30s and a segregated theater in Paris,” Kahn explains. “We had to import black students from universities in Vienna to become our audiences. Africans, French, Cubans . . . They all spoke different languages.

“And any dark-skinned persons we saw on the streets, we approached.”

SI Stacy Jenel Smith