Paris — Brigitte Bardot's funeral was held Wednesday with a private service and public tributes in Saint-Tropez, the French Riviera resort where she lived for more than half a century after retiring as a movie star at the height of her fame.
Animal rights activist and far-right supporter. died December 28 at the age of 91 at his home in the south of France.
President Emmanuel Macron said after her death that France was “mourning a legend.”
She died of cancer after two operations, her husband Bernard d'Ormal said in an interview with Paris Match magazine published Tuesday evening. “She was conscious and concerned about the animals until the very end,” he said.
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Residents and fans applauded the funeral column as the coffin of Bardot, once one of the most photographed women in the world and a defining screen siren of the 1960s, was carried through the city's narrow streets.
To the sounds of “Ave Maria” by Maria Callas, the service began in the Catholic Church of Notre-Dame de l'Assomption in the presence of Bardot's husband, son and grandchildren, as well as guests invited by the family and the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Protection of Animals.
Hundreds of people gathered in the small town to watch the farewell on large screens installed in the port and in two squares.
After the church service, Bardot will be buried “in the strictest privacy” in a cemetery overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, according to the Saint-Tropez mayor's office.
She has long called Saint-Tropez her refuge from the celebrities who once made her a household name.
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A nearby site will host a public celebration of fans of the woman whose image once symbolized post-war liberation and French sensuality.
“Brigitte Bardot will forever be associated with Saint-Tropez, of which she was the most prominent ambassador,” the mayor’s office said last week. “With her presence, personality and aura, she left a mark on the history of our city.”
Bardot settled decades ago at her seaside villa La Madrag and retired from filmmaking in 1973 at the age of 39, after an international career spanning more than two dozen films.
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She later became an animal rights activist, founding and supporting a foundation dedicated to animal welfare.
“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 is suffering 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.
Although she retired from the film industry, she remained a highly visible and often controversial public figure through decades of militant animal rights activism and ties to far-right politics.
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She will be buried in the so-called maritime cemetery, where her parents are also buried.
The cemetery, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, is also the final resting place of several cultural figures, including film director Roger Vadim, Bardot's first husband, who directed her breakthrough film And God Created Woman, the role that made her an international star.
