Brigitte Bardot, 1960s French sex symbol turned militant animal rights activist, dies at 91

Bardot became an international celebrity as a sexualized teen bride in the 1956 film And God Created Woman. The director's then-husband Roger Vadim caused a scandal with scenes of the leggy beauty dancing naked on tables.

At the height of her film career, spanning more than two dozen films and three marriages, Bardot became a symbol of a nation breaking free from bourgeois respectability. Her tousled blonde hair, curvaceous figure and pouted irreverence made her one of France's most famous stars, even as she battled depression.

Her popularity was such that in 1969 her facial features were chosen as the model for Marianne, the national coat of arms of France and the official Gallic seal. Bardo's face has appeared on statues, postage stamps and coins.

“We mourn a legend,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in Post X.

Bardot's second career as an animal rights activist was equally sensational. She traveled to the Arctic to report the killing of baby seals. She also condemned the use of animals in laboratory experiments and spoke out against Muslim killing rituals.

“Man is a voracious predator,” Bardot told The Associated Press on her 73rd birthday in 2007. “I don't care about my past glory. It means nothing in the face of an animal that suffers because it has neither the strength nor the words to defend itself.”

Her activism earned her the respect of her countrymen, and in 1985 she was awarded the Legion of Honor, the nation's highest recognition.

However, she later fell out of favor with the public as her animal rights diatribes took on a decidedly extremist tone. She often condemned the influx of immigrants into France, especially Muslims.

She was convicted and fined five times in French courts for inciting racial hatred in incidents stemming from her opposition to the Muslim practice of slaughtering sheep during annual religious holidays.

Bardot's 1992 marriage to fourth husband Bernard d'Ormal, a former adviser to far-right National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, contributed to her political shift. She described Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist with many racist beliefs, as a “wonderful, intelligent man.”

In 2012, she supported the presidential bid of Marine Le Pen, who now heads her father's renamed National Rally party. On Sunday, Le Pen paid tribute to an “exceptional woman” who was “incredibly French.”

In 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Bardot stated this in an interview. that most actors protesting sexual harassment in the film industry were “hypocritical” because many “baited” producers to get roles.

She said she had never been a victim of sexual harassment and found it “charming when people told me I was beautiful or that I had a nice little butt.”

Privileged but 'difficult' upbringing

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was born on September 28, 1934 in the family of a wealthy industrialist. A shy child, she studied classical ballet and was discovered by a family friend who put her on the cover of Elle magazine at age 14.

Bardot once described her childhood as “difficult” and said that her father was a strict disciplinarian and would sometimes punish her with a whip.

Vadim, the French film producer she married in 1952, saw her potential and wrote And God Created Woman to showcase her provocative sensuality, an explosive cocktail of childlike innocence and raw sexuality.

The film, which portrays Bardot as a teenager who marries to escape an orphanage and then sleeps with her brother-in-law, was a critical influence on New Wave directors Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut and became the epitome of 1960s hedonism and sexual freedom.

The film was a box office success and made Bardot a superstar. Her girlish, plump lips, thin waist and ample bust were often valued more than her talent.

“It’s a shame that I did so poorly,” Bardot said of her early films. “I suffered a lot at first. I was actually treated like less than nothing.”

Bardot's unabashed, off-screen romance with co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant blurred the lines between her public and private life and turned her into a hot prize for the paparazzi.

Bardo never got used to everyone's attention. She blamed the suicide attempt, which followed 10 months after the birth of her only child Nicholas, on constant media attention. Photographers broke into her home two weeks before she gave birth to take pictures of her pregnant.

Nicolas's father was Jacques Charrier, a French actor whom she married in 1959 but who never felt comfortable in the role of Monsieur Bardot. Soon Bardo gave her son to his father, and later said that she was chronically depressed and was unprepared to fulfill maternal responsibilities.

“I was looking for roots then,” she said in an interview. “I had nothing to offer.”

In her 1996 autobiography, Initiales BB, she compared her pregnancy to “a tumor growing inside me” and described Charrier as a “temperamental and violent person.”

Bardot married her third husband, West German millionaire playboy Gunther Sachs, in 1966, and they divorced three years later.

Her films included Woman of Paris (1957); In Case of Misfortune, in which she starred in 1958 with screen legend Jean Gabin; “Truth” (1960); “Private Lives” (1962); “The Delightful Idiot” (1964); “Shalako” (1968); “Women” (1969); “The Bear and the Doll” (1970); “Rum Boulevard” (1971); and Don Juan (1973).

With the exception of Godard's critically acclaimed 1963 film Contempt, Bardot's films were rarely complex in plot. They were often a means of showcasing Bardot in skimpy dresses or frolicking naked in the sun.

“It’s never been my big passion,” she said of filmmaking. “And sometimes it can be deadly. Marilyn (Monroe) died because of it.”

Bardot retired to her villa on the Riviera in Saint-Tropez at the age of 39 in 1973 after the film The Lady Thief. As fans brought flowers to her home on Sunday, the local administration of Saint-Tropez called for “respect for the privacy of her family and the tranquility of the places where she lived.”

Ten years later, she emerged with a new identity: an animal rights lobbyist, her face wrinkled and her voice deep from years of heavy smoking. She gave up her luxurious life and sold her movie memorabilia and jewelry to create a foundation dedicated solely to the prevention of animal cruelty.

She was sometimes plagued by depression and said she attempted suicide again on her 49th birthday.

Her activity knew no bounds. She called on South Korea to ban the sale of dog meat and once wrote to US President Bill Clinton asking why the US Navy had captured two dolphins that had been released into the wild.

She attacked centuries-old French and Italian sporting traditions, including the Palio, a free-for-all horse race, and championed wolves, rabbits, kittens and doves.

“It's true that sometimes I get carried away, but when I see how slowly things move forward … my grief takes over,” Bardot told the AP when asked about her beliefs in racial hatred and opposition to Muslim ritual killings.

In 1997, Bardot-style statues of Marianne were removed in several cities after the actress expressed anti-immigrant sentiments. Also that year, she received death threats after calling for a ban on the sale of horse meat.

Environmental activist Paul Watson, who was beaten while protesting the Canadian seal hunt with Bardot in 1977 and campaigned with her for five decades, acknowledged that “many people don't agree with Bridget's politics or some of her views.”

“She was not devoted to the human world,” he said. “The animals of this world lost a wonderful friend today.”

Bardot once said that she identifies with the animals she tries to save.

“I can understand animals being hunted because of how they treated me,” Bardot said. “What happened to me was inhumane. I was constantly surrounded by the world's press.”

Elaine Ganley contributed reporting to this article before her retirement. Angela Charlton contributed to this report.