Brigitte Bardot, legendary French New Wave actor, fashion icon, and noted animal rights activist has died at the age of 91. The death of the fêted La Vérité, And God Created Woman, and Le Mepris star was announced in a statement by the Brigitte Bardot Foundation which reads as follows: “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.” French media is reporting that Bardot died in the French Riviera port of Toulon following a brief illness and recent surgery, though a specific cause of death is currently unknown.
Born in Paris, France on 28 September, 1934, Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot grew up in a luxurious seven-bedroom apartment in the French capital’s 16th arrondissement where, from an early age, a young Bardot — affectionately known by many as B.B. — showed a certain proclivity for the arts and visual media. As a child during World War II, Brigitte trained in ballet, and by the tender age of just 15, Bardot graced the cover of prestigious fashion magazine Elle for the first (and most certainly not last) time, marking the birth of a star who would soon be bound for the big screen.
Having appeared alongside Kirk Douglas in American romantic drama Act Of Love in 1953, led Italian filmmaker Mario Bonnard’s historical melodrama Concert Of Intrigue in 1954, and impressed with bigger roles in both Marc Allégret’s School For Love and as Dirk Bogarde’s love interest in British rom-com Doctor At Sea in 1955, Brigitte Bardot — who’d already been turning heads and setting hearts aflutter following a memorable appearance at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival — announced her arrival proper as a major star of the burgeoning French New Wave in 1956. In the span of a single year, Bardot shone as a badly behaved schoolgirl in aptly titled CinemaScope musical spectacular Naughty Girl, as a scandalous novelist in racy French comedy Plucking The Daisy, and — most impactfully — made waves as hedonistic teen tearaway Juliette in her then-husband Roger Vadim’s raunchy melodrama And God Created Woman, positioning herself as a vital, empowering, trailblazing figure in a sexual revolution in cinema and society at large that would be keenly felt well into the Swinging Sixties.
While Bardot and her ‘sex-kitten’ personae would continue to figure prominently in French cinema across the two decades post-And God Created Woman however, in films as varied as La Vérité, Contempt, Two Weeks In September, and dozens of others, the cultural icon announced her retirement from acting aged just 39 in 1973, saying goodbye to the industry at large with a sensational nude Playboy photoshoot the following year to mark her 40th birthday.
While some may have been inclined to rest on their laurels and enjoy the fruits of their fame after retiring so young, this was never the case for Brigitte Bardot. In fact, despite Bardot’s movie star standing and fashion icon status (yes, the off-the-shoulder Bardot top style is so-named after the star, who revived the trend in the sixties), Bardot’s largest cultural contribution is arguably her staunch animal rights activism. Throughout her life, Bardot campaigned against animal cruelty, leading protests against archaic seal and dolphin hunting practices among many other high-profile campaigns. In 1986, she also founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals, which has been at the forefront of legislative changes and fundraising for the wellbeing of all animals in France for almost four decades now, welcoming over 70,000 donors from over 70 countries to its cause to date.
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While Brigitte Bardot’s cultural impact is colossal and her body of work — both artistically and as an activist — vast, the legacy she leaves behind is undeniably complicated. A public, vocal proponent of the far-right, Bardot’s strongly worded views when it came to ethnic minorities, immigration, Islam and homosexuality frequently landed the star in hot water, incurring numerous fines between the late 1990s and mid-2010s. Furthermore, during Hollywood and the movie industry’s #MeToo reckoning, Bardot joined compatriot Catherine Deneuve in decrying women’s rights activists in the industry, labelling them ‘hypocrites’.
Remarking on Bardot’s death, French president Emmanuel Macron wrote on X, “Her films, her voice, her dazzling glory, her initials, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, her face that became Marianne, Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom. French existence, universal brilliance. She touched us. We mourn a legend of the century.”
A striking, singular figure whose complex legacy will doubtless continue to be discussed for generations to come, Brigitte Bardot is destined to live long in the cultural consciousness — immortalised both in celluloid and in print, as well as through her foundation. Our thoughts are with her friends, family, and loved ones at this difficult time.
