Babette Forever: Brigitte Bardot died
Brigitte Bardot, a symbol of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, an actress who easily combined the role of liberated emotional simpletons with serious roles in the program films of the French "new wave", has died. But that wasn't the main thing, of course: she became one of the first beauties of the planet, even entering Russian poetry in this capacity. In Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poem "Bratskaya HPP", the photo of the "artist Brigitte" symbolizes impeccable female beauty. Izvestia recalls the main facts of the actress' biography.
On the "new wave"
Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was born on September 28, 1934 in Paris. She was the eldest daughter of Louis Bardot, an engineer and small business owner, and Anne-Marie, nee Mussel, a housewife. His father, a veteran of the First World War, wrote poetry in his spare time, winning a prize from the French Academy for them. His mother was fond of ballet and took both daughters, Brigitte and her younger sister Marie-Jeanne, to a dance studio from an early age. The younger of the two girls was considered promising.: Bridget had been awkward since childhood, wearing thick glasses and braces, so her family did not hesitate to complain that fate had deprived her eldest daughter of beauty. Everything changed when Bridget turned fifteen: a slender, graceful and plastic girl became a real beauty. In 1949, she first took part in an advertising photo shoot for the Fashion Garden magazine, and when the founder and editor of Elle, Helen Gordon-Lazarev, saw the pictures, she immediately invited the girl to shoot for the cover of the magazine. The 50 pounds received for filming became Bardot's first fee.
Wedding of Roger Vadim and Brigitte Bardot, December 20, 1952
One of the pictures of Brigitte in Elle was seen by a young director Roger Vadim, who invited the girl to star in one of his paintings. Filming was eventually closed, but Bardot and Vadim began a whirlwind romance that lasted three years — until Bardot came of age, when the young people got married. Vadim attracted his future wife to the acting profession, and through friends and colleagues he helped her get her first roles. She played her first major role in the film "Manina, the Girl in a Bikini," where she sported a revealing swimsuit most of the time — as a result, the director of the film had to prove to the outraged conservatives through the court that the film did not pose a threat to the moral foundations of society.
French actress Brigitte Bardot first appeared at the Cannes Film Festival, 1953
In 1953, Bardot made her first appearance at the Cannes Film Festival — and made a splash there, appearing on the beach in a bikini and outshining the crowd of recognized movie stars in the eyes of photographers. Since then, her popularity with directors has only grown. The young actress, initially clamped down and shy on the set, gradually learned to relax in front of the camera and no longer shied away, starring alongside such movie stars as Burville ("The Norman Hole"), Kirk Douglas ("The Act of Love") and Jean Marais ("Future Stars"). After the films "Big Maneuvers" and "Mademoiselle Striptease," 22-year-old Bardot finally secured the title of a sex symbol of France.
"And God created a woman"
In 1956, Roger Vadim decided to cast his wife in his own program film, which would reveal her "natural undisguised sexuality." The painting "And God created a woman" became a statement against patriarchal principles and outdated rigid moral frameworks. Representatives of the Catholic Church opposed its screening, and in the United States, distributors had to withstand serious pressure to release the film on screens. In Texas, the film was completely banned for fear of angering the conservative public. Brigitte Bardot perfectly coped with the role of a free, liberated girl who can not make a choice between three men, and forced critics to talk about herself as a serious actress.
A frame from the movie "And God created a woman"
During filming, Brigitte Bardot began an affair with her co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant. As a result, the actress divorced her husband for the sake of a new lover. As Vadim later said, they parted quietly and without scandals, remaining friends.
In 1959, the actress starred in Christian-Jacques's military comedy Babette Goes to War, which was nominated for the main prize at the Moscow International Film Festival. It became the first picture featuring Brigitte Bardot, officially shown in the USSR.
A shot from the movie "Babette goes to war"
The 1960s were an era of ascent for Bardo. She hosted television shows, starred in dance films, demonstrating her ballet skills, her film partners were the most famous actors of the era — Marcello Mastroiani, Michel Piccoli, Alain Delon. At first, the actress's relationship with the latter did not go well — she accused her filming partner of coldness and selfishness, but years later she changed her mind, calling Delon one of the most beautiful and talented actors in France. After breaking up with Trintignant, Bardot began dating actor and producer Jacques Charrier, to whom she gave birth to her son Nicolas-Jacques in 1960. Motherhood, however, did not delight her, and the actress decided not to interrupt her career for the sake of a child. In the same year, she starred in the tragic film "The Truth" by the acclaimed master of thrillers Henri-Georges Clouzot, and in 1963 - in Jean-Luc Godard's drama "Contempt". Critics recognize both of these works as the best in Bardot's film career. In 1965, for his role in Louis Mahl's Viva, Maria! The actress was nominated for the British BAFTA Film Award for Best Foreign Actress.
In the animal world
In the 1970s, Bardot's acting career began to decline. The comedy "Novices", the westerns "Shalako" and "Oil Producers" with her participation consistently failed at the box office. Bardot felt that her acting skills were exhausted. Besides, she was about to turn forty, and her main trump card, a winning young beauty, was rapidly disappearing. "If I don't leave the cinema, it will leave me," the actress said in an interview. She played her last major role in Roger Vadim's film "If Don Juan were a Woman", released in 1973. Critics called this work one of the most controversial and incomprehensible films of the director.
A shot from the movie "If Don Juan were a woman"
After completing her film career, Brigitte Bardot did not leave public life, devoting herself to the protection of animal rights. She opposed the cruel methods of slaughtering livestock in slaughterhouses, campaigned against the extermination of fur seals by the aborigines of Eastern Canada, fought against hunting, bullfighting, dog and cockfighting, the fur trade, eating horse meat, inhumane methods of treating animals in zoos and their use in medical experiments.
In 1987, she founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for Animal Welfare and made a lot of efforts to expand and popularize its activities. By the end of the 1990s, the Foundation had about 27,000 members in 42 countries. Later, unable to participate personally in the foundation's events due to health problems, the actress nevertheless actively participated in its work. So, in 2010, she sent a letter to Queen Margrethe II of Denmark calling for an end to dolphin killing in the Faroe Islands, and in 2011 she sent an open letter of protest to French Minister of Culture Frederic Mitterrand, who included bullfighting in the country's cultural heritage.
Celebrating the anniversary of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, 2006
In recent years, Bardot has lived permanently at her villa La Madrague in Saint-Tropez. In September 2025, due to illness, the actress was admitted to a private hospital in Toulon, where she underwent surgery. Brigitte Bardot died on December 28 at the age of 91.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
