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Brigitte Bardot, the French actress who set the standard for a generation of female sex symbols in the 1960s and who dedicated her life to defending animal rights, has died. She was 91 years old.
His death was announced Sunday in a statement by his foundation, affirming that Bardot had chosen to abandon “his prestigious cinematographic career to devote his life and his energy” to the defense of animal welfare. He did not provide further details about his death.
The beauty archetype for millions of men, Bardot spawned an era of curvy, pouty, carefree actresses with her role as a self-confident small-town sexpot. And God created woman (1956). Throughout the 1970s, she was the model for “Marianne” the female incarnation of the French republic whose profile adorns stamps and coins.
But Bardot stopped making films at age 39, and she sparked controversy with comments about marginalized members of society.
A Paris court fined him €5,000 (about $6,100 at the time) in 2004 for expressing “disgust” with France’s tolerance of Muslim immigrants in his 2003 autobiography, A cry in the silence. The book also calls homosexuals “monsters” and claims that unemployed people don’t want to work.
In an interview with Paris Match in 2018, she criticized the #MeToo movement against men who abuse positions of power, saying that many actresses claiming they were victims of sexual harassment had willingly offered their bodies to advance their careers. Unlike Catherine Deneuve, who also spoke out against the movement, Bardot did not back down or apologize.
Her life was as tumultuous as that of the women she represented. She was married four times and once said, “It is better to be unfaithful than to be faithful and not want to be.” »
Playboy magazine ranked her No. 4 on its 1999 list of the 100 sexiest stars of the 20th century, behind Raquel Welch, Jayne Mansfield and, at No. 1, Marilyn Monroe.
In 1986, she created a company based in Paris foundation which supports animal shelters, sterilizes stray cats and dogs and funds projects including a veterinary center for horses in Tunisia and a leprosarium in India. The organization also lobbied for restrictions on bullfighting, whaling and the wearing of fur.
“I gave my youth and my beauty to men,” she said in a 1999 interview. “I now pass on my wisdom and my experience to animals.”
Model at 13
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was born on September 28, 1934 in Paris and was already a dancer and model at 13 years old. She appeared on the cover of Elle magazine at 15 and made her first film at 18.
The liberation of And God created woman made Bardot an international star and Saint-Tropez a major seaside resort. While the film – about a woman torn between two brothers – contained nothing that could today be described as nudity, its scenes of Bardot stripping and dancing barefoot to African music scandalized audiences in France and the United States. Bardot was then married to the film’s director, Roger Vadim.
Bardot went on to work with some of the greatest French directors of his generation, including Henri-Georges Clouzot in The truth (“The Truth”) in 1960, Louis Malle in Privacy (“A Very Private Affair”) in 1962, and Jean-Luc Godard in Contempt (“Contempt”) in 1963. She made her last film in 1973. She also released French pop songs in the 1960s and 1970s, including hits with the late singer and composer Serge Gainsbourg.
Bardot wanted to marry Vadim when she was 16, but her parents forced her to wait until she was 18. They were together for five years before divorcing. He later married actress Jane Fonda.
Bardot’s second husband was actor Jacques Charrier, whom she married in 1959 after they met on the set of Babette goes to war. They divorced after three years, during which time they had Bardot’s only child, Nicolas-Jacques. In 1966, her marriage to Gunter Sachs, a German photographer and art collector, lasted three years. Sachs committed suicide in 2011, seeking relief from an incurable degenerative disease, according to his family.
Her marriage in 1992 to Bernard d’Ormale, a member of the anti-immigrant National Front party, linked her to the far right in France.
Bardot has said in interviews that she wanted to be buried at her villa in Saint-Tropez on the French Riviera. She told Paris Match in 2018 that between the villa and a neighboring farm, she owned around fifty dogs, cats, donkeys, pigs, sheep, goats, geese and turtles.
“Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a message on X. “She touched us. We mourn a legend of the century.”
