The 91-year-old French singer and actor Brigitte Bardot, who rose to prominence as a sex icon before abandoning the movie business to become an animal rights advocate, passed away.
In a statement sent to Agence France-Presse on Sunday, the Brigitte Bardot foundation said,
“The Brigitte Bardot foundation announces with immense sadness the death of its founder and president, Madame Brigitte Bardot, a world-renowned actress and singer, who chose to abandon her prestigious career to dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare and her foundation.”
The statement did not specify the time or location of the death.
How did Brigitte Bardot rise to global fame?
Bardot gained worldwide recognition through her performance in the 1956 film And God Created Woman, which her then-husband Roger Vadim both wrote and directed. For the next twenty years, she personified the stereotypical “sex kitten.” She stopped acting during the early 1970s to focus her time on political work.
The singer used her public platform to fight for animal rights, but she also expressed controversial opinions about ethnic minorities and backed the far-right Front National political party in France. This resulted in multiple racial hatred convictions.
How did Bardot influence artists, intellectuals, and pop culture worldwide?
Bardot, who was born in Paris in 1934, was raised in a wealthy, traditional Catholic home but was gifted enough as a dancer to be admitted to the esteemed Conservatoire de Paris to study ballet. She found employment as a model at the same time, and in 1950, at the age of 15, she appeared on the cover of Elle.
She was given movie roles as a result of her modeling career; during one audition, she met Vadim, whom she would marry in 1952 after turning eighteen. As her fame grew, Bardot was cast in minor parts. In the 1955 UK hit Doctor at Sea, she portrayed Dirk Bogarde’s love interest.
Which films defined Bardot’s cinematic career in France and Hollywood?
Vadim’s And God Created Woman, in which Bardot portrayed an unrestrained adolescent in Saint-Tropez, solidified her reputation and made her a global celebrity. The movie was a huge hit both domestically and abroad, propelling Bardot to the top of the French film industry.
As well as for cinema audiences, Bardot swiftly became an inspiration for intellectuals and artists; not least the young John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who demanded their then-girlfriends dye their hair blond in imitation of her.
Columnist Raymond Cartier wrote a lengthy article about “le cas Bardot” in Paris-Match in 1958, while Simone de Beauvoir published her famous essay Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome in 1959, framing the actor as France’s most liberated woman. In 1969, Bardot was chosen as the first real-life model for Marianne, the symbol of the French republic.
Bardot starred in several high-profile French films in the early 1960s, such as Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, Louis Malle’s Very Private Affair (starring Marcello Mastroianni), and Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Oscar-nominated drama The Truth.
Bardot accepted several Hollywood offers in the latter half of the decade, including Shalako, a western starring Sean Connery, and Viva Maria!, a period comedy set in Mexico starring Jeanne Moreau.
How did Bardot balance her music career alongside acting?
Bardot recorded the original version of Serge Gainsbourg’s Je T’Aime… Moi Non Plus, which Gainsbourg had composed for her during their extramarital affair, as part of her concurrent music career. (Bardot asked Gainsbourg not to release it out of fear of scandal after her then-husband Gunter Sachs found out; he later re-recorded it with Jane Birkin to enormous commercial success.)
Why did Bardot retire from acting at the height of her fame?
However, Bardot found the pressure of stardom increasingly irksome, telling the Guardian in 1996:
“The madness which surrounded me always seemed unreal. I was never really prepared for the life of a star.”
She retired from acting in 1973, aged 39, after making the historical romance The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot.
How did Bardot transition into animal rights activism?
Her main focus shifted to animal protection activism; in 1977, she joined demonstrations against seal hunts, and in 1986, she founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation.
Later, Bardot protested in letters to world leaders about things like the slaughter of cats in Australia, the killing of dolphins in the Faroe Islands, and the extermination of dogs in Romania. She also frequently expressed strong opinions about the killing of religious animals.
How did Bardot’s political views spark controversy and legal issues?
She was found guilty of inciting racial hatred in her 2003 book A Cry in the Silence, which promoted right-wing politics and attacked gay men and lesbians, educators, and the alleged “Islamization of French society.”
“On the terrifying surge of immigration, I share [Jean-Marie Le Pen’s] views completely,” Bardot, a longtime supporter of France’s Front National (now known as the National Rally), told the Guardian. French Muslims were “destroying our country by imposing its acts,” according to a 2006 letter to Nicolas Sarkozy, the country’s interior minister at the time.
What were the major personal relationships and marriages in Bardot’s life?
Bardot had four marriages: to Vadim from 1952 to 1957; to Jacques Charrier from 1959 to 1962 (with whom she had a son, Nicholas, in 1960); to Sachs from 1966 to 1969; and to Bernard d’Ormale, a former Le Pen advisor, whom she wed in 1992. She also started several well-known relationships, such as those with Gainsbourg and Jean-Louis Trintignant.
