PARIS (AP) — Brigitte Bardot, the French sex symbol of the 1960s who became one of the 20th century’s biggest screen sirens and later a militant animal rights activist and far-right supporter, has died. She was 91.
Bardot died Sunday at her home in southern France, according to Bruno Jacquelin of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Protection of Animals. In an interview with The Associated Press, he gave no cause of death and said no arrangements had yet been made for a funeral or memorial services. She was hospitalized last month.
Bardot became an international celebrity as a sexualized teenage bride in the 1956 film And God Made Woman. Directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim, it triggered a scandal with scenes of a leggy beauty dancing naked on tables.
At the height of a film career that spanned some 28 films and three marriages, Bardot became a symbol of a nation emerging from bourgeois respectability. Her tousled blonde hair, voluptuous figure and pouty irreverence made her one of France’s most recognizable stars.
Her appeal was so widespread that in 1969 her features were chosen as the model for “Marianne”, the national emblem of France and the official Gallic seal. Bardot’s face has appeared on statues, postage stamps and even coins.
“We mourn a legend,” wrote French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday
Bardot’s second career as an animal rights activist was equally sensational. She traveled to the Arctic to blow the whistle on the killing of baby seals; condemned the use of animals in laboratory experiments; and opposed Muslim ritual killings.
“Man is a voracious predator,” Bardot told The Associated Press on her 73rd birthday in 2007. “I don’t care about my past glory. That means nothing in the face of an animal that is suffering because it has no power, no words to defend itself.”
Her activism earned her the respect of her countrymen, and in 1985 she was awarded the Legion of Honor, the nation’s highest honor.
Turn on the far right
However, she later fell from public grace as her statements about animal protection took on a decidedly extremist tone. She often described the influx of immigrants to France, especially Muslims.
She has been convicted five times and ended up in French courts for inciting racial hatred in incidents inspired by her opposition to the Muslim practice of killing sheep during annual religious holidays.
Bardot’s 1992 marriage to her fourth husband, Bernard d’Ormale, a former adviser to National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, contributed to her political shift. She described Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist with many racist beliefs of his own, as “a beautiful, intelligent man”.
In 2012, she wrote a letter in support of the presidential candidacy of Marine Le Pen, who now leads her father’s renamed National Assembly party. Le Pen paid tribute on Sunday to an “extraordinary woman” who was “incredibly French”.
In 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Bardot said in an interview that most of the actors protesting sexual harassment in the film industry were “hypocritical” and “ridiculous” because many played “teasers” with producers to get parts.
She said she had never been sexually harassed and found it “glamorous to be told I’m beautiful or that I have a nice little butt”.
A privileged but “difficult” upbringing
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was born on September 28, 1934 to a wealthy industrialist. A shy, secretive child, she studied classical ballet and was discovered by a family friend who put her on the cover of Elle magazine at age 14.
Bardot once described her childhood as “difficult” and said her father was a strict disciplinarian who sometimes punished her with a horse whip.
But it was French film producer Vadim, whom she married in 1952, who saw her potential and wrote “And God Created Woman” to showcase her provocative sensuality, an explosive cocktail of childlike innocence and raw sexuality.
The film, which portrayed Bardot as a bored newlywed who sleeps with her brother-in-law, was a decisive influence on New Wave directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, and became the epitome of 1960s hedonism and sexual freedom.
The film was a box office hit and Bardot became a superstar. Her girlish pout, slim waist, and generous bosom were often valued more than her talent.
“It’s a shame she behaved so badly,” Bardot said of her early films. “I suffered a lot in the beginning. I was really treated like someone less than nothing.”
Bardot’s shameless off-screen love affair with co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant further shocked the nation. It erased the lines between her public and private life and turned her into a hot prize for the paparazzi.
Bardot never adjusted to the spotlight. She blamed the constant press attention for the suicide attempt that followed 10 months after the birth of her only child, Nicolas. Photographers broke into her home two weeks before she gave birth to take pictures of her pregnant.
Nicolas’ father was Jacques Charrier, a French actor whom she married in 1959, but he was never comfortable in his role as Monsieur Bardot. Bardot soon gave up her son to his father and later said she was chronically depressed and unprepared for the responsibilities of motherhood.
“That’s when I was looking for roots,” she said in an interview. “I had nothing to offer.
In her 1996 autobiography “Initiales BB”, she called her pregnancy “a tumor growing inside me” and described Charrier as “temperamental and abusive”.
Bardot married her third husband, West German millionaire playboy Gunther Sachs, in 1966, but the relationship again ended in divorce three years later.
Her films included “A Parisian” (1957); “In Case of Misfortune,” in which she co-starred with film legend Jean Gabin in 1958; “The Truth” (1960); “A Private Life” (1962); “The Astounding Idiot” (1964); “Shalako” (1968); “Women” (1969); “The Bear and the Doll” (1970); “Rum Boulevard” (1971); and “Don Juan” (1973).
With the exception of Godard’s critically acclaimed 1963 “Contempt,” Bardot’s films were rarely complicated by plot. These were often vehicles that showed Bardot in skimpy dresses or frolicking naked in the sun.
“It was never a big passion of mine,” she said of filmmaking. “And sometimes it can be fatal. Marilyn (Monroe) died because of it.”
Bardot retired to her Riviera villa in St. Tropez aged 39 in 1973 after The Woman Grabber.
Reinventing yourself in middle age
Ten years later, she emerged with a new persona: an animal rights lobbyist, her face wrinkled and her voice deep from years of heavy smoking. She left her jet-set life and sold off movie memorabilia and jewelry to create a foundation dedicated solely to the prevention of animal cruelty.
Her activism knew no bounds. She urged South Korea to ban the sale of dog meat and once wrote to US President Bill Clinton asking why the US Navy had recaptured two dolphins it had released into the wild.
She attacked centuries-old French and Italian sporting traditions including the Palio, a race for all, and campaigned in favor of wolves, rabbits, kittens and lovebirds.
“It’s true that sometimes I get carried away, but when I see things slowly moving forward … my suffering prevails,” Bardot told the AP when asked about her beliefs about racial hatred and opposition to Muslim ritual killings.
In 1997, several cities removed statues of Marianne inspired by Bardot after the actress expressed anti-immigrant sentiments. Also that year, she received death threats after calling for a ban on the sale of horse meat.
Bardot once said that she identified with the animals she was trying to save.
“I can understand hunted animals because of how they treated me,” Bardot said. “What happened to me was inhuman. I was constantly surrounded by the world’s press.”
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