Legendary French Actress, Sex Symbol Brigitte Bardot Dies at 91
GoLocalProv News Team
Legendary French Actress, Sex Symbol Brigitte Bardot Dies at 91
Early life and rise to fame
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTBorn Sept. 28, 1934, in Paris to a comfortable bourgeois family, Brigitte Anne‑Marie Bardot trained first as a dancer before turning to modeling as a teenager. Her appearance on the cover of Elle magazine led to a screen test and, soon after, film roles that quickly made her one of France’s most recognizable young stars.
Her international breakthrough came with the 1956 film “And God Created Woman,” directed by her first husband, Roger Vadim, in which she played a sexually liberated young woman in Saint‑Tropez. The film’s commercial success and the controversy it stirred propelled Bardot to global celebrity and cemented her image as a symbol of modern female freedom and desire.
Screen icon and cultural phenomenon
Through the late 1950s and 1960s, Bardot appeared in more than 40 films, working with prominent directors including Jean‑Luc Godard on “Contempt” and Louis Malle on “Vie privée.” With her tousled blond hair, smoky eyes and apparently unstudied sensuality, she became one of the world’s most photographed women, inspiring fashion trends from ballerina flats to the off‑the‑shoulder “Bardot neckline.”
Bardot’s persona transcended cinema: she was celebrated in songs, paintings and countless magazine covers, and was often described as the embodiment of the era’s sexual revolution. Yet she frequently expressed discomfort with the ferocity of public attention, saying that fame had exacted a profound personal cost.
Retreat from cinema and animal activism
At the height of her fame, Bardot made the unexpected decision to retire from acting in the early 1970s, leaving the screen after the 1973 film “The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot.” She soon redirected her public energy to animal protection, a cause she had supported privately for years.
In 1986 she created the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, funding it in part by auctioning personal possessions, to campaign against cruelty in industrial farming, fashion, hunting and the use of animals for entertainment. From her home in southern France, she became an outspoken, sometimes confrontational advocate, lobbying governments, denouncing seal hunts and fur trades, and turning her name into a powerful, if polarizing, force in animal‑rights debates.
Controversies and public battles
Beginning in the 1990s, Bardot’s public standing became increasingly complicated as she issued statements about immigration and Islam that led to several convictions in France for inciting racial hatred. These comments drew sharp criticism from anti‑racism organizations and political leaders, contrasting starkly with the affection many continued to feel for the luminous star of her early films.
While she largely withdrew from social life, Bardot continued to publish books and letters that mixed reflections on her career, her political views and her devotion to animals. Until her final years, she remained, in France and abroad, a figure who provoked both deep nostalgia and intense debate.
Personal life and final years
Bardot married four times, including to director Roger Vadim and, later, to Bernard d’Ormale, an adviser to the far‑right National Front leader Jean‑Marie Le Pen, whom she wed in 1992. She had one son, Nicolas, from her marriage to actor Jacques Charrier, and spoke candidly of her struggles with motherhood and depression in later writings.
She died at her home in southern France, according to the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, which announced her death but did not specify a cause. In its statement, the foundation hailed her as a “globally celebrated actress and singer” who renounced a brilliant career to devote herself to animal protection, a decision that defined the second half of her life.
Written by GoLocalProv News Team with content from Perplexity