Brigitte
Bardot, French screen legend, dies aged 91
Emmanuel
Macron leads tributes to actor who became an international sex symbol and later embraced animal rights and far-right politics
Andrew
Pulver, and Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Sun 28
Dec 2025 17.39 GMT
Brigitte
Bardot, the French actor and singer who became an international sex symbol
before turning her back on the film industry and embracing the cause of animal
rights activism and far-right politics, has died aged 91.
Paying
tribute to Bardot on Sunday, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, wrote on
social media that France was mourning “a legend of the century”.
“Her
films, her voice, her dazzling glory … her sorrows, her generous passion for
animals, her face that became Marianne, Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of
freedom,” Macron said.
Bardot’s
death, at her Saint-Tropez home, La Madrague, on the French Riviera, was
announced by her foundation. “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,”
it said.
Her cause
of death was not made public. Bardot was briefly hospitalised in October for
what her office called a “minor” procedure.
The town
hall in Saint-Tropez, where Bardot had holidayed as a child and where she later
shot the film And God Created Woman, said the actor had “helped make
Saint-Tropez shine across the world”.
The town
said Bardot was its “most radiant ambassador” and part of “the collective
memory of Saint-Tropez, which we must preserve”.
Bardot
shot to international fame in 1956 with And God Created Woman, written and
directed by her then husband, Roger Vadim, and for the next two decades was
said to have embodied the idea of the archetypal “sex kitten”. In the early
1970s, however, she announced her retirement from acting and became an
outspoken campaigner on animal rights, and increasingly active politically on
the far right.
Bardot’s
incendiary comments about ethnic minorities, immigration, Islam and
homosexuality resulted in a string of convictions for inciting racial hatred.
French courts fined her six times between 1997 and 2008 for her comments,
particularly those targeting France’s Muslim community. In one case, a Paris
court fined her €15,000 (£13,000) for describing Muslims as “this population
that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts”.
Jordan
Bardella, the president of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party (RN),
which Bardot supported, wrote: “Brigitte Bardot was a woman of heart,
conviction and character. An ardent patriot, devoted to animals that she
protected throughout her life, she embodied a whole French era, but also above
all a certain idea of courage and freedom.”
Le Pen,
whom Bardot once described as “the Joan of Arc of the 21st century”, wrote on
social media that Bardot was “exceptional for her talent, courage, frankness
and beauty”. “She was incredibly French,” she said. “Free, indomitable, whole.
She will be hugely missed.”
Such was
Bardot’s role in the far right’s cultural pantheon that tributes were also paid
to her from Italy’s government, where the deputy prime minister, Matteo
Salvini, called her “a timeless star, but above all a woman who was free,
nonconformist, protagonist of courageous battles in defence of our traditions”.
The
Italian culture minister, Alessandro Giuli, said: “Brigitte Bardot was not only
one of the great protagonists of world cinema, but also an extraordinary
interpreter of western fundamental freedoms.” He said she “resolutely defended
her vision of cultural and social values and civic engagement”.
Born in
1934 in Paris, Bardot grew up in a prosperous, traditional Catholic family but
excelled enough as a dancer to be allowed to study ballet, gaining a place at
the prestigious Conservatoire de Paris. At the same time she found work as a
model, appearing on the cover of Elle in 1950 while still 15. As a result of
her modelling work, she was offered film roles; at one audition she met Vadim,
whom she would marry in 1952, after she turned 18. Bardot was cast in small
roles, with increasing prominence, playing Dirk Bogarde’s love interest in
Doctor at Sea, a big hit in the UK in 1955.
But it
was Vadim’s And God Created Woman, in which Bardot played an uninhibited
teenager in Saint-Tropez, that consolidated her image and turned her into an
international icon. The film was a huge hit in France, as well as
internationally, and catapulted Bardot into the front rank of French screen
performers.
As well
as for cinema audiences, Bardot swiftly became an inspiration for intellectuals
and artists; not least the young John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who demanded
their then girlfriends dye their hair blond in imitation of her. The columnist
Raymond Cartier wrote a lengthy article about “le cas Bardot” in Paris-Match in
1958, while Simone de Beauvoir published her famous essay Brigitte Bardot and
the Lolita Syndrome in 1959, framing the actor as France’s most liberated
woman. In 1969, Bardot was chosen as the first real-life model for Marianne,
the symbol of the French republic.
In the
early 1960s, Bardot appeared in a string of high-profile French films,
including Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Oscar-nominated drama The Truth, Louis
Malle’s Very Private Affair (opposite Marcello Mastroianni) and Jean-Luc
Godard’s Contempt. In the second half of the decade, Bardot took up a number of
Hollywood offers: these included Viva Maria!, a Mexican-set period comedy with
Jeanne Moreau, and Shalako, a western with Sean Connery.
Bardot
also had a parallel music career, which included recording the original version
of Serge Gainsbourg’s Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus, which Gainsbourg had written
for her while they were having an extramarital affair. (Afraid of scandal after
her then husband, Gunter Sachs, found out, Bardot asked Gainsbourg not to
release it. He went on to re-record it with Jane Birkin, to huge commercial
success.)
Bardot
found the pressure of stardom increasingly irksome, telling the Guardian in
1996: “The madness which surrounded me always seemed unreal. I was never really
prepared for the life of a star.” She retired from acting in 1973, aged 39,
after making the historical romance The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot.
Her primary focus became animal welfare activism, joining protests against seal
hunts in 1977 and establishing the Brigitte Bardot Foundation in 1986.
Bardot
subsequently sent letters of protest to world leaders over issues such as dog
extermination in Romania, dolphin killing in the Faroe Islands and cat
slaughter in Australia. She also regularly aired outspoken views on religious
animal slaughter. In her 2003 book A Cry in the Silence she espoused rightwing
politics and took aim at gay men and lesbians, schoolteachers and the so-called
“Islamisation of French society”, resulting in a conviction for inciting racial
hatred.
Bardot
was married four times: to Vadim between 1952 and 1957; Jacques Charrier
between 1959 and 1962, with whom she had a son, Nicolas, in 1960; Sachs from
1966-69; and to the former Le Pen adviser Bernard d’Ormale, whom she married in
1992. She also embarked on a number of high-profile relationships, including
with Jean-Louis Trintignant and Gainsbourg.
An Appraisal
From Sex
Appeal to the Far Right, Brigitte Bardot Symbolized a Changing France
In the
decades after becoming a megastar, the French actress became as known for her
politics as she once had been for her acting career.
By
Elisabeth Vincentelli
Dec. 28,
2025
Updated
7:09 a.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/28/arts/brigitte-bardot-movies-songs-animal-rights.html
The
actress, singer and activist Brigitte Bardot, who has died at 91, personified
France in a literal way: In 1969, she became the first celebrity to be used as
the model for Marianne, the symbol of the Republic that has adorned the
country’s City Halls as well as official documents, stamps and coins since the
French Revolution. Just over a year earlier, she had kicked off her TV special
“Le Show Bardot,” wearing little besides thigh-high boots and a French flag, as
the national anthem played and then quickly morphed into a peppy new pop tune.
B.B., as
she was known, was a new France: bold, free and unconventional.
Yet
Bardot wasn’t a consensual figure. You might even say she was among the first
problematic stars of the modern era: Admired and reviled in turns, or even
simultaneously, she was a star accused of being a bad actress, a cranky,
unfiltered misanthrope doubling as an emblem of modernity and liberation, and a
tireless crusader for animal rights who cottoned to the far-right National
Front and was convicted multiple times for “inciting racial hatred.”
Bardot
did not need anyone to cancel her, though: In a way, she did it herself,
quitting acting in 1973 before she turned 40. Unlike many star retirements
before and since, this one stuck. Many may argue that this left her with enough
time on her hands to get in trouble, but for better or for worse, she wanted
agency, and she got it.
Long
before she became Marianne, Bardot carried an even heavier burden: She was
synonymous with womanhood itself. After all, the movie that made her a star in
her early 20s was the melodrama “And God Created Woman,” in 1956.
Under the
direction of her then-husband, Roger Vadim, Bardot unleashed a sultry,
unapologetic sensuality that made it feel as if she had suddenly opened wide
France’s windows and let in a bracing gust of fresh air. Writing in The New
York Times in 2018, A.O. Scott described the film as “a watershed in the
cinematic history of sex, sunshine and a certain image of France.”
And this
being France, it did not take long for Bardot to attract the attention of the
intellectual and literary sets. Marguerite Duras wrote an article under the
headline “Queen Bardot” in 1958. The following year, Simone de Beauvoir wrote a
piece headlined “Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome” for Esquire, an
admiring article that mentioned the young actress’s love for animals and ended
with the thought: “I hope that she will not resign herself to insignificance in
order to gain popularity. I hope she will mature, but not change.”
After her
breakthrough in 1956, Bardot was propelled into a whirlwind megastardom that
she would never feel comfortable with. She was hounded by paparazzi, multiplied
affairs and marriages in a quest for love, and made movies at a frenzied pace.
In her
essay “Brigitte Bardot or the ‘Problem’ of Women’s Comedy,” the scholar Ginette
Vincendeau pointed out that the attention surrounding Bardot tended to focus on
her sex appeal, but that most of her hits were comedies, starting with “Naughty
Girl” in 1956, that benefited from her playful naturalism and energy, and the
way she subverted the stereotype of the “dumb blonde.”
While
those films tended to be box-office gold, Bardot also successfully ventured
into more serious fare, most notably Henri-Georges Clouzot’s noirish drama “The
Truth” (1960) and Jean-Luc Godard’s intoxicating paean to cinema, “Contempt”
(1963).
The 1960s
were Bardot’s decade. In addition to her cinematic activities, she released her
first single, “Sidonie,” in 1962 (it was featured in her first film with Louis
Malle, “A Very Private Affair”) and then went on to build an impressive
discography marked by nonchalant, bemused, piquant performances. A TV special
that aired on Jan. 1, 1968 immediately acquired cult status, bolstered by
imaginatively staged versions of new Serge Gainsbourg songs like “Comic Strip,”
“Bonnie & Clyde” and “Harley Davidson.”
The
French sociologist and philosopher Edgar Morin wrote in his book “The Stars”
(1972) that Bardot had “admirable qualities of extreme innocence and extreme
eroticism,” a paradox that made her intriguing. She had a reputation for being
sexually brazen, for example, but she asked Gainsbourg not to release their
steamy duet “Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus,” which they had recorded in 1967 when
they were having an affair. He obliged, and then rerecorded it in 1969 with
another paramour, Jane Birkin, and it became a hit. (The Bardot version finally
came out in 1986.)
She was
so fond of singing that she lingered in that career after she stopped making
films: Her last single, “Toutes Les Bêtes Sont à Aimer” (“All Animals Are to Be
Loved”), came out in 1982, about a decade after she withdrew from cinema.
The
decisive moment came when she was making what would turn out to be her last
feature, “The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot” (1973). She had noticed
that one of the extras had a small goat, and learned that goat was destined for
a barbecue. Horrified, Bardot bought the animal — an episode that she later
said had compelled her to turn from acting to animal rights campaigning.
In a 1994
interview with The New York Times, Bardot said she had always loved animals:
“But when I was making films, I discovered there was a difference between
loving animals and fighting for them — and I didn’t have time to fight for
them. So that’s why I gave up cinema. I stopped making films to look after
animals.”
She holed
up in the Mediterranean town of St.-Tropez, where she had two properties, one
of which was famous from her song “La Madrague.” From there, she dedicated
herself full time to a kind of radicalism not often displayed by celebrities.
“I only
live in the world of animal protection,” she said in the 1994 interview. “I
speak only of that. I think only of that. I am obsessed.” And not much else
seemed to matter — in 1986, she helped finance the Brigitte Bardot Foundation,
an animal protection nonprofit, by selling many of her belongings.
As the
decades went by, Bardot became as famous for her politics as she once had been
for her career. She regularly gave interviews and opined freely, usually to
bemoan the state of the world in general and her own country in particular.
She
believed, for example, that only the political right — all the way to the
extremes of the National Front and its successor, the National Rally — could
save a decadent France. Earlier this year, she expressed support for Gérard
Depardieu and Nicolas Bedos, who have both been convicted of sexual assault.
Among the French luminaries who mourned her on Sunday was the far-right leader
Marine Le Pen, who said Bardot “was quintessentially French: free-spirited,
indomitable, uncompromising. We will miss her dearly.”
In a
phone interview with Le Monde newspaper for her 90th birthday, Bardot said: “I
don’t need anything. I have everything I need for the way I live. I don’t ever
want more than what I have.”
As De
Beauvoir had hoped, she did not change.
Ségolène
Le Stradic contributed reporting from Paris.
No comments:
Post a Comment