Brigitte Bardot, French cinema icon turned animal rights activist, dies at 91
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Brigitte Bardot, the 1960s French actress who became one of the 20th century’s biggest screen stars and later became an animal rights activist and far-right activist, has died. He was 91 years old.
Bardot died on Sunday at her home in southern France, according to Bruno Jacquelin, of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals.
Speaking to the Associated Press, he did not give a cause of death and said no arrangements had been made for a funeral or memorial services. He was admitted to the hospital last month.
Bardot became an international celebrity as a sexy young bride in the 1956 film And God Created Woman. Directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim, it sparked scandal with scenes of leggy beauties dancing on nude tables.
At the height of her cinematic career that included 28 films and three marriages, Bardot came to symbolize a nation overflowing with bourgeois respectability. His flowing, white hair, strong body and irreverent attitude made him one of France’s most popular stars.
Such was her widespread appeal that in 1969, her features were chosen to be the model for Marianne, the national emblem of France and the official Gallic emblem. Bardot’s face appears on statues, postage stamps and even coins.
“We cry for a legend,” French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on Sunday on social media platform X.
Bardot’s second career as an animal rights activist was equally sensational. He went to Newfoundland to whistle at the seal slaughter; criticized the use of animals in laboratory experiments; and he was against Muslim slaughtering practices.
Bardot told the Associated Press on her 73rd birthday in 2007: “I don’t care about my former fame. That means nothing in front of a suffering animal, since it has no power, no words to defend itself.
His activism won the respect of his countrymen, and in 1985, he was awarded the Legion of Honor, the nation’s highest honor.
To turn right
However, over time, Bardot fell out of favor with the public as her animal protection diatribes took on an extreme tone. He was always critical of the influx of immigrants to France, especially Muslims.
He was convicted and fined five times in French courts for inciting racial hatred, in incidents fueled by his opposition to the Muslim practice of slaughtering sheep on annual religious holidays.
Bardot’s 1992 marriage to fourth husband Bernard d’Ormale, a former adviser to National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, contributed to her political transition. He described Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist with many accusations of racism, as “a lovely, intelligent man.”
In 2012, he wrote a letter supporting the presidential bid of Marine Le Pen, who now leads her father’s party, which has been renamed National Rally. Le Pen paid tribute on Sunday to “an outstanding woman” who was “incredibly French.”
In 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Bardot said in an interview that most actors protesting sexual harassment in the film industry were “hypocritical” and “ridiculous” because many played “jokes” with producers to get parts.
She said she had never been a victim of sexual harassment and found it “pleasant to be told I’m pretty or have a nice little ass.”
Privileged but ‘tough’ upbringing
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was born on September 28, 1934, into a wealthy industrial family. 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 the age of 14.
Bardot once described her childhood as “difficult” and said that her father was a strict punisher who sometimes punished her with a horse whip.
But it was the French film producer Vadim, whom she married in 1952, who saw her potential and wrote And God Created Woman to show her sensuality, an explosive cocktail of childlike innocence and raw sexuality.
The film, featuring Bardot as a bored newlywed who sleeps with her brother-in-law, was a major influence on New Wave directors Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, and came to embody the hedonism and sexual freedom of the 1960s.
And God Created Woman it was a box-office hit, and made Bardot a star. Her girlish pout, small waist and generous piercings were often more appreciated than her talent.
“It’s a shame that I did such a bad thing,” Bardot said of her early films. “I suffered a lot in the beginning. I was treated like nothing.”
Bardot’s shameless, off-screen romance with co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant continued to shock the nation. It dissolved the boundaries between his public and private life and turned him into a hot prize for the paparazzi.
Bardot was not accustomed to the limelight. She blamed constant media attention for the suicide attempt that followed 10 months after the birth of her only child, Nicolas. Photographers had broken into her house two weeks before she gave birth to take pictures of her pregnant.
Nicolas’ father was Jacques Charrier, a French actor whom he married in 1959 but who never felt comfortable in his role as Monsieur Bardot. Bardot soon surrendered her son to his father and later said that she was constantly depressed and unprepared for the duties of motherhood.
“At that time I was looking for roots,” he said in an interview. “I had nothing to offer.
In his 1996 autobiography Beginners BBshe likened her pregnancy to “a tumor growing inside me,” and described Charrier as “aggressive and abusive.”
Bardot married her third husband, West German billionaire Gunther Sachs, in 1966, but the relationship ended in divorce three years later.
Among his films were A Parisian (1957); If I’m Unluckywhere he starred in 1958 with screen legend Jean Gabin; The truth (1960); Private Life (1962); A Good Idiot (1964); Shalako (1968); Women (1969); Bear and Doll (1970); Rum Boulevard (1971); again Don Juan (1973).
Except in 1963 it was highly praised Disrespectdirected by Godard, Bardot’s films were rarely technically complex. Usually they were cars to show Bardot in scantily clad clothes or frolicking naked in the sun.
“It’s never been my favorite thing to do,” he said of filmmaking. And sometimes it can be fatal.” Marilyn [Monroe] he perished because of it.”
Bardot left her French Riviera villa in Saint-Tropez aged 39 in 1973 The Catching Woman.
Reinventing yourself in old age
Bardot emerged ten years later with a new persona: an animal rights activist, her face wrinkled and her voice deep from years of heavy smoking.
She gave up her jet-set lifestyle and sold movie memorabilia and jewelry to create a foundation dedicated exclusively to the prevention of animal cruelty.
His activism knew no bounds. He urged South Korea to ban the sale of dog meat and once wrote to former US president Bill Clinton asking why the US Navy recaptured two dolphins that had been released into the wild.
Bardot attacked old French and Italian sporting traditions including the Palio, a free horse race, and campaigned for wolves, rabbits, cats and pigeons.
A 1960s French film star goes to Newfoundland in 1977 to witness a seal hunt.
“It’s true that sometimes I get carried away, but when I see how things are moving slowly … my depression
In 1997, several cities removed Bardot-inspired portraits of Marianne after the actress expressed anti-immigrant sentiment. That same year, he received death threats after the sale of horse meat was banned.
Bardot once said that she identified with the animals she was trying to save.
“I understand hunted animals because of the way I was treated,” said Bardot. “What happened to me was inhuman. I was always surrounded by international newspapers.”
