French actress, 1960s sex symbol and militant animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot has died. She was 91.
The Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals announced that the actress had died at her home in Saint Tropez in the South of France on Sunday.
Bardot first leapt to fame in then husband Roger Vadim’s controversial 1956 Saint Tropez–set movie And God Created Woman, in the role of a free-spirited 18-year-old whose natural sensuality stirred up passions and jealousies in the then simple fishing village.
The film sparked scandal at the time for its portrayal of female sexuality and was banned in a number of countries, and parts of the U.S.
Bardot had first met Vadim when she was 16 years old, marrying him in 1952 when she was 18 years old. Their marriage began to unravel on the set of And God Created Woman, when Bardot had an affair with co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant.
They divorced amicably in 1957, but Vadim would forever be part and parcel of the Bardot myth, while And God Created Woman would mark the beginning of Saint Tropez as a jet set destination.
Bardot made 28 movies across her career with other highlights including Christian Jaque’s Babette’s War and Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, but for France she was more than an actress.
With her “sex kitten” moniker, voluptuous figure and overt sensuality, she came to symbolize a moment in French history as the country emerged from World War Two and society loosened its ties with the Catholic church and political conservatism.
Her career and image was very much at odds with her childhood.
Born Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot on 28 September 1934 in Paris to wealthy engineer and factory owner Louis Bardot and Anne-Marie Mucel, the daughter of an insurance company director, the actress had a conservative Catholic upbringing.
She grew up in a luxury apartment in Paris’s 16th arrondissement, alongside younger sister Mijanou Bardot, with her life and friendships closely controlled by her parents.
As a child and teenager, she seemed destined for a ballet career, attending the Conservatoire de Paris, where she studied under Russian choreographer Boris Knyazev for the three years.
Her life took a turn in another direction after she began modelling for magazines, and her appearance on the cover of Elle at age 15 led to a request for her to attend an audition for Marc Allégret’s Les Lauriers sont coupés, where she met Vadim.
In a move that would also define her later myth, Bardot announced her retirement in 1973 at the age of 39 years old to devote herself to animal rights. She launched the Brigitte Bardot Foundation in 1986, which has since save hundreds of thousands of animals.
“I gave my youth and beauty to men, I give my wisdom and experience to animals,” she would say later.
French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Bardot in a post on X, saying “We mourn a legend of the century.”
“Her films, her voice, her dazzling glory, her initials, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, her face that became Marianne,” he wrote, referring to the fact Bardot became the first first real-life model for Marianne, the symbol of the French republic in 1969. “She embodied a life of freedom.”
