The actress was a symbol of sexual liberation in the 1950s but became increasingly controversial after making homophobic and racist slurs.
Brigitte Bardot, the international sex goddess of cinema in the 1950s and ’60s, has died aged 91. Bardot’s animal rights foundation announced her death in a statement to news agency Agence France-Presse on Sunday, without specifying the time or place of death.
Stylish and seductive, Bardot exuded a kind of free sexuality, rare in the buttoned-up 1950s. She modeled, made movies, influenced fashion around the world and recorded albums. She married four times. Her list of lovers famously included Warren Beatty, Nino Ferrer and singer-songwriter-producer Serge Gainsbourg, with whom she recorded the French hit Bonnie and Clyde.
Bardot’s look was copied by women around the world, says Claire Schub who teaches French literature and film at Tufts University.
As an actor, Bardot worked with some of France’s leading directors including Henri-Georges Clouzot in La Vérité (The Truth), Jean-Luc Godard in Le Mépris (Contempt) and Louis Malle in Viva Maria!
Born Catholic to an upper-middle-class couple in Paris in 1934, Bardot studied ballet and modeled before becoming an actor. As a teenager, she appeared several times on the cover of Elle magazine, attracting the attention of Roger Vadim who was six years her senior. The two married in 1952. Bardot’s parents made them wait until she turned 18.
Vadim, an aspiring director, has been credited with turning Bardot into the iconic sex symbol she became. In his 1957 film And God Created Woman, Bardot plays a provocative young woman on a quest for sexual liberation.
