Brigitte Bardot, actress and icon of French cinema, dies at the age of 91
Legendary French actress and animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot has died at the age of 91.
Actress Brigitte Bardot shot to international fame when she danced the mambo barefoot in “And God Created Woman.” Her tousled hair and ferocious energy radiate a sexual magnetism rarely seen in mainstream cinema.
A global icon was born.
At just 21 years old, she scandalized censors and captivated audiences. Her free-spirited performance in the 1956 film, shot by her husband Roger Vadim, marked a decisive break from the reserved heroines of the previous era.
Bardot, who was often referred to simply as “BB” in France and whose later years were notable for her sympathies with animal rights movements and far-right politics, has died at the age of 91, her foundation announced on December 28. The cause of death was not immediately known.
“She follows her own preferences.”
Bardot was born in Paris on September 28, 1934, and grew up in an upper-middle-class family. She described herself as “a shy, self-conscious kid with glasses and thin hair.”
However, by the age of 15 she was on the cover of Elle magazine and began a career as a model, which soon led to movies.
The character of Bardot in And God Created Woman was the embodiment of liberated femininity. The controversy further fueled her appeal. The Bardot became a symbol of France in the 1950s and 60s.
Her appeal went far beyond French cinema. Bob Dylan is said to have written his first song about her, the unreleased “Song for Bridget,” while Andy Warhol was painting her portrait when he was 15 years old.
Bardot’s ability to subvert traditional gender roles made her more than just a sex symbol, she became a pop culture icon and a touchstone for changing social attitudes.
In 1959, Simone de Beauvoir wrote an article for Esquire magazine praising Bardot’s remarkable sense of freedom. “BB is not trying to cause a scandal,” the feminist philosopher wrote. “She follows her inclinations: she eats when she is hungry, and has sex with the same unapologetic simplicity.
“Moral wrongs can be corrected, but how can BB’s dazzling virtue, her integrity, be cured? It’s her very essence.”
De Beauvoir concluded, “I hope she grows, but I hope she doesn’t change.”
“There are too many things that let me down.”
Despite her influence, Bardot found the lives of celebrities to be isolating. She often spoke of how addicted she was to her fame and unable to enjoy life’s simple pleasures.
“No one can imagine how terrifying and difficult an ordeal it was,” she recalled decades later. “I couldn’t continue living like that.”
Her personal life was shaped by four marriages, a widely publicized affair, and a well-documented struggle with depression.
On her 26th birthday, she attempted suicide and was found unconscious in her Cote Riviera home. Years later, rumors of another suicide attempt surfaced when she mysteriously canceled her 49th birthday party and subsequently showed up at the hospital.
In addition to acting, Bardot also had a successful music career. His collaboration with singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg also includes erotic pieces. “I love you…I don’t love you either.” (“I Love You…Neither Do I”) caused both praise and controversy.
In the late 1960s, she modeled for a bust of Marianne, the personification of the French Republic.
However, she was little satisfied with the praise she garnered.
“I was very happy, very rich, very beautiful, very admired, very famous, and very unhappy,” she told Paris Match magazine around the time of her 50th birthday. “I’ve been let down too often. I’ve had some really bad disappointments in my life. That’s why I chose to withdraw and live alone.”
“This is my only fight.”
Bardot made the last of his 42 films in 1973. Disillusioned with the film industry, she declared it “rotten” and withdrew from public life.
“I’ve given 20 years of my life to movies, and that’s enough,” she said in a TV interview at the time.
She settled in France’s fashionable resort town of Saint-Tropez, finding solace in the animals and Mediterranean landscape.
There she began to passionately advocate for animal welfare. “This is my only fight and the only direction I want to give my life,” Bardot said in 2013.
Her dedication to animals became legendary. In 1986 she founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for Animal Welfare and Conservation, and the following year she auctioned off her personal memorabilia to raise money for her cause.
Bardot supported prominent activists such as anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson, campaigned vigorously against animal cruelty, and at one time threatened to leave France over disputes over animal welfare.
In 2013, when actor Gerard Depardieu accepted Russian citizenship after a public spat with French authorities, Bardot threatened to comply if France euthanized two sick circus elephants.
Bardot spent most of the latter half of his life living alone behind the high walls of Saint-Tropez, surrounded by herds of cats, dogs, and horses.
She often said that this passion was the antidote to disappointing relationships. “I gave my beauty and youth to men,” she once said. “I’m going to give my wisdom and experience to the animals.”
“Feminism is not my thing”
As her advocacy efforts intensified, so did the backlash against her political statements.
Bardot’s public statements about immigration, Islam, and homosexuality led to a series of convictions for inciting racial hatred.
Between 1997 and 2008, she was fined six times by French courts for her comments, particularly those targeting France’s Muslim community.
In one case, a Paris court fined her $17,000 for describing Muslims as “this people who are destroying us and destroying our country by imposing their acts on us.”
In 1992, she married Bernard Dormal, a former adviser to the far-right National Front, and went on to publicly support the party’s former leader Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter Marine Le Pen. Bardot called the latter “the Joan of Arc of the 21st century.”
But despite her polarizing opinions, Bardot’s influence endured, whether in the fashion arena, in the media noting the regular revival of her trademark hairstyle, or through regular documentaries and coffee table books celebrating her rare influence on French cinema.
Asked on French broadcaster BFM TV in May if she considered herself a symbol of the sexual revolution, she replied: “No, because so many outrageous things had already happened before me. They weren’t waiting for me. Feminism is not my thing. I like men.”
In the same interview, she was asked how often she looks back on her film career. “I don’t think about it,” she said. “But I don’t refuse it, because because of it I’m known all over the world as a protector of animals.”
