Brigitte Bardot, the French cinema icon of films including And God Created Woman, Contempt and The Truth, has died at the age of 91.
Bardot’s death was announced via a statement from the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, the animal welfare organisation she founded in 1986.
“The Brigitte Bardot Foundation announces with immense sadness the death of its founder and president, Madame Brigitte Bardot, a world-renowned actress and singer, who chose to abandon her prestigious career to dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare and her foundation,” read the statement.
The statement did not provide details about where Bardot died or a cause of death. She had been hospitalised in Toulon in southern France since November, according to French media reports.
French president Emmanuel Macron called Bardot “a legend of the century” in a statement in response to her death. ”Her films, her voice, her dazzling fame, her initials, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, her face that became Marianne [the emblem of French liberty] - Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom,” said Macron. ”A French existence, universal brilliance. She touched us. We mourn a legend of the century.”
Born Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot to a wealthy family in Paris on September 28, 1934, Bardot had early designs on becoming a ballerina; before modelling work as a teenager led to her first film role in Jean Boyer’s comedy Crazy For Love.
Her first leading part came in 1954 Italian drama Concert Of Intrigue, before a first major English-language role in Ralph Thomas’s 1955 British comedy Doctor At Sea as love interest to Dirk Bogarde.
Bardot became an international star in 1956 through romantic drama And God Created Woman, in which she played seductive 18-year-old orphan Juliette Hardy. Directed and co-written by Bardot’s then-husband Roger Vadim, the film is regarded to have launched Bardot’s ‘sex kitten’ persona, and played a major role in expanding the popularity of French cinema in the US when it was released there in 1957.
Bardot’s fame brought intense interest in her personal life. She separated from Vadim after becoming involved with her And God Created Woman co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant, while she survived an overdose in 1958, and gave birth to her only child, Nicholas-Jacques Charrier, in 1960, to her second husband, Jacques Charrier.
The actress continued to work frequently throughout this period, in films including in Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1960 courtroom drama The Truth, which was nominated for the Oscar for best foreign film and for which Bardot won Italy’s David di Donatello award for best foreign actress.
Bardot often worked with leading male directors of the time, including Louis Malle in 1962’s A Very Private Affair, inspired by Bardot’s own life and opposite Marcello Mastroianni. She reunited with Vadim on several films, including 1962’s Love On A Pillow; and recorded one of her most iconic roles in Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (French title: Le Mépris), as the wife of a French playwright making a troubled production of Homer’s Odyssey.
After a couple of unsuccessful Hollywood films and a switch to French comedies, Bardot retired from acting in 1973 at the age of 39.
Having met animal conservationist Paul Watson in 1977, Bardot began to dedicate her time to animal rights activism, establishing the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals in 1986. Bardot became a vegetarian and campaigned on animal rights issues ,including the consumption of horse meat and the killing of dolphins.
Bardot also became known for far-right political views, especially on the topic of immigration. She was fined six times by French courts for inciting racial hatred, and regularly criticised the mixing of different racial groups in French society, often through the prism of her animal rights activism.
She also criticised the #MeToo movement of women speaking out against sexual abuse and harassment.
Bardot was married four times, to Vadim (1952-57), Jacques Charrier (1959-62), Swiss socialite Gunter Sachs (1966-69), and Bernard d’Ormale, former advisor to far-right politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, from 1992 until her death.
She is survived by d’Ormale and her son Nicholas-Jacques Charrier.
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