Brigitte Bardot, icon of French cinema, dies aged 91

French actress Brigitte Bardot, icon of 20th century cinema and culture, has died at the age of 91. Controversial in her final years, the actress was admitted to a hospital in Toulon, in the south of France, in November and underwent surgery.

The information was confirmed to the French press by the Brigitte Bardot Foundation. The cause of death has not yet been confirmed.

Born in Paris, France, on September 28, 1934, Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot became known for becoming one of the greatest cultural icons of the 20th century. Her beauty helped to redefine the standards of aesthetics and female vision in cinema from the 1950s onwards, when she became a symbol of modern women for usually playing emancipated, libertarian and uncontrollable characters.

Life and career of Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte was introduced to the world of art early. Daughter of a French industrialist and a frustrated former artist who spent years trying to become a ballerina, she had a strict, Catholic upbringing in her youth, raised in a conservative and rigid family.

She began taking classical ballet classes during her childhood, and at the age of 15 she was hired by the French magazine Elle to be a model for a youth collection. The cover caught the attention of the then young filmmaker Roger Vadim, aged 22, who immediately fell in love with it and sparked his interest in an acting career.

A few years later, months after she turned 18, in 1952, she and Vadim got married. The union, which lasted five years, gave rise to the film that launched Bardot into world cinema and radically transformed her story: And God Created Woman (1956).

Her first acting project, however, came when a friend of her father recommended her to a comedy in which she could have a prominent role. The feature, Le Trou Normand (1952), became a bitter memory, as his lack of experience was a source of ridicule among the production teams. Even so, she continued trying new jobs, and little by little she began to attract attention from society and the press of the time.

Unhappy with the lack of success of his wife’s first films, Vadim cast her in the main role of his new production, a flirtation with the then insurgent nouvelle vague.

In And God Created Woman, Bardot plays Juliette, a teenager with sexual desires on the surface and who attracts the attention of all types of men around her. Considered scandalous for its approach to sexual themes, the film was condemned by the Catholic Church and had copies censored to meet the standards of the Hays Code.

The actress’s frequent appearances wearing a bikini in her first films, in fact, are considered an instrumental part of the clothing’s transformation into a symbol of glamor and rebellion.

When it hit screens in the United States, despite the initial shock, the film was a huge hit. One of the film’s scenes, in which Brigitte dances barefoot on a table, is still considered one of the most sensual in the history of cinema.

The year after the film’s release, in 1957, she and Vadim separated. Later, in 1959, she married her second husband, Jacques Charrier, with whom she had her only child, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier, a child she did not want and of which she did not have custody. She later married German Gunter Sachs, a union that lasted from 1966 to 1969.

Free from the veiled moralism natural to American cinema stars, the new French sensation attracted attention for the apparent natural freedom with which he behaved. During his meteoric career, he starred in more than 40 films, including classics such as The Truth (1960), Oscar-nominated Private Life (1962), Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (1963), and the western comedy Viva Maria! (1965). He worked alongside names like Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni.

Retirement, activism and controversies

Brigitte Bardot decided to retire from the screen at the height of her success, in 1973, at the age of 39, after acting in If Don Juan Were a Woman, by Vadim, and starring in a lesbian sex scene alongside her friend Jane Birkin.

Disillusioned with the constant attention, objectification and persecution from paparazzi, she began to desire a more private life away from sentimental scandals and media attention.

After retiring, he decided to dedicate himself to activism and the fight for the animal cause, even creating the Brigitte Bardot Foundation in 1986. He fought against the hunting of seals and whales, laboratory experiments with animals, against authorized dog fighting, the use of fur coats and bullfighting.

Activism, however, did not come without its share of controversies.

Over the following decades, he published books and gave interviews in which he shared conservative opinions, especially on topics such as migration, French culture and racial plurality.

In 2003, he published the book Un Cri dans le Silence (A Cry of Silence), in which he controversially addresses topics such as immigration, Islam and the impact of Arab culture in Europe. The work was also considered homophobic, as the actress believed the adoption of children by LGBTQIA+ couples was harmful.

Since then, Brigitte Bardot has accumulated dozens of lawsuits for racism and racial slurs, brought mainly by Muslim entities, and has been accused more than once for alleged racial incitement against immigrants in France.

In 2018, during the height of the Me Too movement, he even stated that the accusations made by some actresses were “in most cases, hypocritical, ridiculous, of no interest”.

“There are many actresses who provoke producers to get a role. Then, to get people to talk about them, they say that they have suffered harassment… In reality, more than benefiting them, it harms them”, he told the French magazine Paris Match.

In 2021, the actress was ordered by a Saint-Tropez court to pay a fine of 20,000 euros for racist insults, after calling the inhabitants of a French island natives who “preserved their wild genes”.

In her career marked by contrasts, Bardot was a muse for filmmakers, a sex symbol, a radical activist and a portrait of conservatism. He leaves a controversial but indisputable legacy.

Brigitte Bardot’s visit to Brazil

Anyone arriving in Armação de Búzios, in the Lakes Region of Rio de Janeiro, will come across a statue of the French actress Brigitte Bardot in the place that was named Orla Bardot, in the central region of the city.

The tribute to the muse of cinema from the 50s and 60s was erected after her two visits to the tourist attraction, in 1964, which radically transformed the status of the region.

Bardot visited Búzios on two occasions. The first time, she stayed for four months, between January and April 1964, accompanied by her then Brazilian-Moroccan boyfriend Bob Zagury. She stayed at Praia de Manguinhos, in a house described as humble compared to the reality of other residences, and was looking for peace after the release of O Desprezo (1963), by Jean-Luc Godard.

The frenzy

When he landed in Rio de Janeiro, a few days earlier, he caused a real frenzy. She attracted national and international press, as there was a rumor that she would announce her marriage to Zagury. In the only press conference she gave, Bardot declared that she was in the city to rest and that there would be no wedding. After that, she never left the apartment where she was staying.

At the time of his visit to the country, Búzios was a small fishing village, difficult to access.

As was her wish, she went unnoticed by locals on her walks along the seaside, and managed to have the peace she was looking for, although she was not completely free from press harassment.

But, after that, Búzios emerged from anonymity and became an international tourist spot, similar to what happened with Saint-Tropez, in the south of France, where she returned to live after announcing her retirement in 1973.

His second stay in Búzios was from December 1964 to January 1965, and was shorter. The press went to the place and made his stay unpleasant. Brigitte left after New Year’s Eve and never returned. She even earned the title of honorary citizen, but never sought it.

As a tribute, in 1999 Orla Bardot was inaugurated, where a bronze sculpture of the actress was placed. The work was created by sculptor Christina Motta, and is usually a point among tourists.