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Brigitte Bardot, the sexy blonde who revolutionized French cinema

2025-12-28 15:39:00, Lifestyle CNA

Brigitte Bardot, who has died aged 91, swept away the sedate portrayal of women in 1950s cinema, coming to personify a new era of sexual liberation.

On screen, she was a French cocktail of kitten charm and continental sensuality. One publication called her "the puffed-up princess and come-hither countess," but it was an image she came to hate.

Mercilessly promoted as a hedonistic sex symbol, Bardot was frustrated in her ambition to become a serious actress. Eventually, she abandoned her career to campaign for animal welfare.

Years later, her reputation was tarnished when she made homophobic slurs and was fined several times for inciting racial hatred. Her son also sued her for emotional distress after she said she would have preferred to "give birth to a little dog."

It was a mark on the memory of an icon who - at her peak - put the bikini, female desire and French cinema on the map.

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was born in Paris on September 28, 1934.

She and her sister, Marie-Jeanne, grew up in a luxurious apartment in the city's most luxurious neighborhood. Her Catholic parents were wealthy and devout, and demanded high standards from their children. The girls' friendships were closely monitored. When they broke their parents' favorite vase, they were beaten as punishment.

But Bardot found life claustrophobic. At the age of 15, she later recalled, "I was looking for something, perhaps a fulfillment of myself."

A family friend convinced her to pose for the cover of Elle, France's leading women's magazine, and the photos caused a sensation.

Existentialist Simone de Beauvoir praised her as an icon of "absolute freedom" - elevating Brigitte to the status of a philosophy.

To audiences, Bardot became indistinguishable from the character she played. Paris-Match called her "immoral from head to toe." And when Bardot eloped with Jean-Louis Trintignant, her image as a wild libertine was inevitable.

In 1959, Brigitte - after several love stories - married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in the film Babette Goes To War.

The couple had a son, Nicolas, but Bardot hated her pregnancy: repeatedly hitting herself in the stomach and begging a doctor for morphine to induce an abortion.

After nearly 50 films, she announced that she would retire to dedicate her life to animal welfare in 1973.

"I gave my beauty and youth to men," she said. "I will give my wisdom and experience to animals."/BBC