French film icon Brigitte Bardot has died at the age of 91. As reported by the BBC, French news agency AFP shared a statement from the Brigitte Bardot Foundation confirming her death.
“The Brigitte Bardot Foundation announces with deep sadness the passing of its founder and president, Madame Brigitte Bardot, a world-famous actress and singer. She chose to leave behind a prestigious career and dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare and the Foundation,” the statement said.
Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. She began her career as a model and appeared on the cover of ELLE in 1950. That exposure led to film auditions and later roles in “Crazy for Love,” “Manila,” “The Girl in the Bikini,” “Long Teeth,” “Portrait of the Father,” “The Bride is Too Beautiful,” and the musical “Naughty Girl.”
In 1952 she married director Roger Vadim and eventually starred in his controversial film, And Whom God Created. Early on, she also appeared in another film written by Vardim, Plucking the Daisy. However, it was this first film that catapulted Bardot to international stardom. Although she and Valdim divorced, they continued to work together on films such as The Night Heaven Fell and Please, Not Now!
Bardot married actor Jacques Charrier in 1959, and they had a son, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier, in 1960, but they divorced in 1962.
In a 2010 interview with France magazine, Bardot spoke about her difficult childhood and struggles with mental health. She also talked about how she felt about being recognized as the movie’s original “sex kitten.”
“My parents were strict with me and I suffered at times, but now I am grateful to them,” she said. “I think they were impressed, but they also felt uncomfortable with this career, and I think that was beyond their understanding.”
Of her famous beauty, she said, “I didn’t care about it. It was better to be out there and be sexy than ugly.”
Bardot also branched out outside of French cinema, starring in the Hollywood film Dear Brigitte and later appearing in Chalaco. By the early 1970s, Bardot moved away from acting and began working for animal rights. In 1986, she founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for Animal Welfare and Conservation.
The star’s later life was filled with controversy, especially after her 1992 marriage to Bernard Dormal, a former advisor to French right-wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen. Bardot has been prosecuted and fined multiple times for inciting racial hatred for his anti-immigration writings, such as his 1999 book Le Carré de Pluton. She also publicly criticized the #MeToo movement and said she had never been harassed herself, according to the Guardian.
Bardot has made limited appearances in recent years, but in 2012 Vanity Fair gave an inside look into her life at her home in Saint-Tropez. Looking back on her career, she told the magazine at the time, “If I subvert some concepts and go against established rules, that’s not part of what I wanted to do. That was never my goal.”
