{"id":37862,"date":"2025-12-30T20:35:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T19:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/?p=37862"},"modified":"2026-03-30T10:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T08:16:09","slug":"brigitte-bardot-radiant-and-indomitable-bb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.luxus-plus.com\/en\/brigitte-bardot-radiant-and-indomitable-bb\/","title":{"rendered":"Brigitte Bardot, radiant and indomitable B.B."},"content":{"rendered":"

Brigitte Bardot passed away on December 28 in Saint-Tropez at the age of 91. With her passing, we have lost not only a fashion icon, but also a sex symbol, a singer and actress, and above all, France’s very first superstar.<\/p>\n

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Don’t be fooled by her angelic features. With her cheeky wit, disarming frankness, and free spirit, the incendiary blonde shook up the puritanical 1950s, becoming, despite herself, the standard-bearer of sexual liberation.<\/p>\n

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Like another icon, this time American, Marilyn Monroe (whose career spanned 17 years), Brigitte Bardot managed to leave a lasting mark on her era and pop culture despite a relatively short career in the spotlight. Two decades later, animal rights soon took precedence over her daily life as a star, constantly hounded and bombarded by the flashbulbs of photographers from around the world.<\/p>\n

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It was thus, far from the spotlight, that B.B. invented a new life for herself, fully committed to the animal cause until her death<\/b> from cancer on December 28, a date that directly echoes her birthday. Here is her story.<\/p>\n

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Curious bourgeois of the 16th Arrondissement<\/h3>\n

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Brigitte, Anne-Marie Bardot, was born on September 28, 1934<\/b> into a Catholic bourgeois family in the 15th arrondissement of Paris<\/b>. Her father<\/b>, Louis, was an engineer<\/b> and industrialist, owner of the Bardot factories (now owned by Air Liquide), while her mother, the daughter of an insurance company director, became a milliner.<\/b><\/p>\n

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The home where Brigitte was born was also involved in the arts and entertainment world, which it frequented assiduously but discreetly. Her father wrote poems in his spare time under the pseudonym Pilou-Bardot<\/b>. Her mother<\/b>, who grew up in the upper middle class with parents who owned a box at La Scala in her native Milan, had always wanted to be a dancer or actress. Passionate about cinema and fond of amateur family films<\/b>, the couple nevertheless imposed a fairly strict discipline<\/b>. At home, formal address was the rule and punishments were not uncommon<\/b> for misbehavior. Brigitte Bardot said she was \u201ckept under lock and key until the age of 15,\u201d \u201csupervised by a governess,\u201d and never allowed to go out alone.<\/b><\/p>\n

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Self-conscious about her appearance, particularly due to a slight squint in her left eye<\/b>, Brigitte nevertheless acquired\u2014not without a few slaps\u2014the \u201chaughty bearing\u201d<\/b> that would become her trademark. As for her way of speaking, she owed that to a hard-of-hearing father<\/b> who had to be spoken to clearly in order to be understood.<\/p>\n

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With a restless temperament<\/b> and suffering from her parents’ preference for her younger sister<\/b> Marie-Jeanne, Brigitte was enrolled in the Rico dance school<\/b> at the age of six, attending one day a week. In 1942, when her parents moved from Place Violet to Rue de la Pompe in the 16th arrondissement, she was enrolled in part-time school, attending Marcelle Bourgat’s dance school at Salle Pleyel in the 8th arrondissement three days a week and dance classes three days a week. Faced with disastrous results, her parents enrolled her in a private school for a year where, cut off from her passion for ballet, she fell ill. She finally resumed dancing at the age of twelve<\/b>. After a brief stint at the Conservatoire, she joined Boris Kniaseff’s class<\/b>. This former dancer and choreographer at the Th\u00e9\u00e2tre des Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es and the Ballets Russes was known for his uncompromising attitude and his use of the cane. There, she met up again with a classmate from Bourgat’s class who would go on to become an actress and dancer, Leslie Caron.<\/b><\/p>\n

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At the age of thirteen<\/b>, she took part in her first fashion show<\/b> through her mother, who was well connected in the fashion press. Noticed by the photographer and milliner Jean Barthet, Brigitte became a junior model for the Preppy-style fashion house Virginie Jeune Fille, then the face of Carven’s youth-oriented perfume Ma Griffe.<\/b><\/p>\n

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But it was when she stepped in at the last minute to replace another dancer for a photo shoot for Jardin des modes<\/i><\/b> magazine that her career in fashion journalism really took off<\/b>. However, in a family where order, bourgeois propriety, and discretion reigned supreme, the Bardots took a very dim view of their daughter becoming a simple cover girl<\/i>. <\/b><\/p>\n

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However, the couple eventually relented, allowing her to pose for other publications, including ELLE, on the condition that she was not paid and that her name did not appear, hence the appearance of the initials B.B.<\/p>\n

One of the photos, showing her with brown hair, worn in a bun and sporting a mysterious smile, caught the eye of director Marc All\u00e9gret<\/b>, who asked his first assistant, Roger Vadim, to find her and arrange an audition<\/b>. Although the Bardot family was opposed to their daughter pursuing a career in cinema, her maternal grandfather, L\u00e9on Mucel, managed to persuade them to change their minds.<\/p>\n

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Brigitte and Roger Vadim finally met. Although they were dazzled by each other’s beauty and professionalism, there was no indication at that moment that a romance would blossom between the two young people. Vadim, then a screenwriter on the future film \u201cLes lauriers sont coup\u00e9s\u201d<\/b>, said he was particularly \u201cstruck by admiration\u201d for the very \u201cregal\u201d<\/b> mannerisms (posture, phrasing, laughter, etc.) of Brigitte, who was about to celebrate her 15th birthday<\/b>. \u201cWhat struck me about Brigitte when I met her was, to use a dance term, her posture, her bearing, her arched back, her regal head carriage, and her way of seeing. Many people look, but don’t know how to see.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Stunningly beautiful and scandalously free<\/h3>\n

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Although the film \u201cLes lauriers sont coup\u00e9s\u201d was never made, a relationship soon developed with Roger Vadim, on Brigitte’s initiative and without the knowledge of her parents<\/b>, who were opposed to the relationship. To join her first love in his maid’s room on the \u00cele Saint-Louis<\/b>, Brigitte did not hesitate to skip classes. When Brigitte’s parents learned of the affair, her father threatened to send her to boarding school in England for five years<\/b>. Desperate, Brigitte attempted suicide.<\/b> Her father finally gave up on his plan<\/b> but made his daughter promise not to marry before she turned 18.<\/p>\n

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In 1952, Brigitte Bardot, aged 18, made her film debut<\/b>. Through a friend of her father’s, she landed the lead role in the film Le Trou normand<\/i> <\/b>directed by Jean Boyer and starring Bourvil. However, the three-month shoot proved to be a living hell, as she was humiliated by several members of the crew who constantly criticized her acting and delivery. That same year, she made a timid debut in Manina, la fille sans voile. Meanwhile, her nausea worsened and the young woman traveled to Meg\u00e8ve to have an abortion, again without her parents’ knowledge.<\/p>\n

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Among her early film roles, she made an appearance in Sacha Guitry’s historical epic, Si Versailles m’\u00e9tait cont\u00e9<\/i><\/b>. While in Rome<\/b>, she starred in Helen of Troy<\/i><\/b>, her first American peplum film before Les Week-ends de N\u00e9ron<\/i><\/b>, and became friends with actress Ursula Andress.<\/p>\n

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Poster for the film And God Created Woman <\/i>by Roger Vadim, 1967 \u00a9 Hoche Productions, Cocinor, I\u00e9na Films, and Union Cin\u00e9matographique Lyonnaise (UCIL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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At the 1956 Cannes Film Festival, the young woman’s sex appeal began to make waves<\/b>. At the same time, a film appeared on screens that would make Bardot a living legend<\/b>: And God Created Woman<\/i><\/b>, directed by Roger Vadim. The young girl’s sensual and lively performance, particularly her swaying movements to a frenzied mambo<\/b>, sent the teenage boys of the time into a frenzy. The heroine of the film was also shocking because she expressed her desires, sexuality, and freedom in the same way as the men of the time. Off set, the young woman began an affair with one of the film’s leading actors, Jean-Louis Trintignant.<\/p>\n

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When asked about the character of Juliette, the young director Roger Vadim said: “Through Brigitte, I wanted to recapture the atmosphere of an era<\/b>. Juliette is a girl of her time, who has freed herself from all feelings of guilt and all the taboos imposed by society, and whose sexuality is entirely free.<\/b> In pre-war literature and films, she would have been likened to a prostitute. In this film, she is a very young woman, generous, sometimes deranged and ultimately elusive, whose only excuse is her generosity.” Received coolly in France<\/b>,the film was met with resistance from conservatives<\/b>, with particularly virulent criticism directed at Brigitte Bardot, and the public did not really take to it, but Bardot mania transcended borders and was only just beginning.<\/strong> After seeing the film, Simone de Beauvoir declared that \u201cshe walks lasciviously and a saint would sell his soul to the devil to see her dance.\u201d<\/b> Jean-Paul Sartre’s partner and author of Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter<\/i> came to her defense, praising her freedom in an article entitled Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome: \u201cShe doesn’t give a damn about other people’s opinions. She’s not trying to shock. She has no demands: she is no more aware of her rights than of her duties. She follows her desires.\u201d <\/b>Roland Barthes even devoted a passage to her in his seminal sociological work Mythologies: ” She represents a more open eroticism, stripped of all those falsely protective<\/b> substitutes that were semi-clothing, makeup, blurring, allusion, and escape.” Despite the reluctance of religious circles, the film Et Dieu… cr\u00e9a la femme<\/em>, renamed And God Created Woman<\/strong><\/em>, was a huge success in the United States.<\/p>\n

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The Bardot myth<\/h3>\n

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Once her myth had been propelled onto the world stage to the rhythm of the mambo<\/b>, Roger Vadim’s Les Bijoutiers du clair de lune<\/i><\/b> (1958) and Julien Duvivier’s La Femme et le Pantin<\/i><\/b> (1959) followed. Henri-Georges Clouzot’s La V\u00e9rit\u00e9<\/em><\/strong> (1960) offered her one of her most dramatic roles, which was praised by critics. But the role and the filming were so violent<\/strong>\u2014both physically and psychologically\u2014that, at the age of 26, she considered ending her life<\/strong> but fortunately failed in her suicide attempt. She told Vogue in 2012: \u201cClouzot convinced me so thoroughly that I was this woman of loose morals, this tragedienne, that I ended up believing it myself. I became Dominique. So much so that months later, I wanted to kill myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Breaking away from her image as a sex symbol,<\/b> Jean-Luc Godard’s Le M\u00e9pris<\/i> (1963)<\/b> earned her the admiration of intellectual circles. She plays Camille, a cold, wounded, silent woman whose desire takes on the tones of a Greek tragedy<\/strong>. A cornerstone of the French New Wave, the film questions the commodification of the female body, the male gaze, and the loss of love in favor of interest and power. Her success continued with Louis Malle’s Viva Maria!<\/em><\/strong> (1965), in which she starred opposite Jeanne Moreau.<\/p>\n

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Her last popular success<\/b>, Christian-Jaque’s western Les P\u00e9troleuses<\/em><\/strong> (1971), released two years before her retirement from the arts, saw her share the limelight with another major European icon: Claudia Cardinale. In it, she portrayed the image of an independent woman, violent when necessary and, above all, free from any male authority.<\/b><\/p>\n

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After 17 years of triumph in cinema<\/b>, Brigitte decided to withdraw from this \u201cwonderful and abominable world.\u201d In 1973, at the dawn of her 40th birthday, she chose to lead a committed life<\/b>, entirely devoted to defending the animal cause<\/b>. A documentary about baby seals convinced her to put her career aside. She was thus the initiator of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, created in 1986.<\/b><\/p>\n

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But the Bardot myth cannot be summed up by cinema and her elegant clothing alone; it is also a musical story<\/b>. Initially recording songs related to her films<\/b>, Brigitte enjoyed her golden age in music from 1962 onwards<\/b>, thanks to her decisive encounter with Serge Gainsbourg. Although her spoken-sung style<\/b> can be unsettling, it remains very modern and perfectly in line with her image. The hits came thick and fast, from La Madrague<\/i><\/b> to Bonnie and Clyde<\/i><\/b>, via the very rock Harley Davidson<\/i><\/b> and the very baroque Initials B.B<\/i><\/b>. The latter, sampling an extract from Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony of the New World<\/i>, was an ode to the absolute love<\/b> that the famous and provocative lyricist had for her in 1968. Above all, it is a catharsis following a painful breakup<\/b> experienced by the author of Le Poin\u00e7onneur des Lilas after a year of passionate relationship. The man had not only been her lover but also her Pygmalion<\/b>, creating a phantasmagorical figure of a Barbarella-style booted horsewoman.<\/b><\/p>\n

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45 rpm vinyl record Harley Davidson<\/i> by Brigitte Bardot, 1967 \u00a9 Disc’AZ\/Universal Music Group<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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The symphonic piece, a major milestone in Gainsbourg’s career, is prominently featured in Joann Sfar’s biopic \u201cGainsbourg (vie h\u00e9ro\u00efque)<\/i><\/b>\u201d (2010)<\/b>. The incendiary blonde<\/b> is played by supermodel Laetitia Casta<\/b>. That same year, a large-scale exhibition<\/b> was dedicated to her at the Mus\u00e9e des Ann\u00e9es Trente in Boulogne-Billancourt<\/b>. Although criticized by intellectual circles, the exhibition was a resounding success, cementing the mythical image of the star, then aged 76.<\/b><\/p>\n

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In 2014, the Miss Dior perfume<\/strong> used \u201cMoi je joue\u201d as its soundtrack, a song rediscovered by the younger generation from Bardot’s discography, set against images of the rooftops of Paris and colorful balloons straight out of the film Funny Face starring Audrey Hepburn.<\/p>\n

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In 2023<\/b>, Brigitte indirectly recounted her life story once again, this time from the perspective of her childhood and her first romantic experiences with Bardot<\/i>, in <\/b>a six-part biopic series directed by Dani\u00e8le and Christopher Thompson<\/b> and broadcast on France T\u00e9l\u00e9vision. The Franco-Argentinian actress, Julia de Nunez<\/strong>, renowned for her physical resemblance to the real BB, was chosen to play the false ing\u00e9nue and true liberated woman. The series notably showed her influence on the tourist appeal of a small fishing port called Saint Tropez following the success of Et Dieu… cr\u00e9a la femme (And God Created Woman) and until then prized by the Impressionists and Colette. In recent years, the village in the Var region has skillfully played on the star’s timeless image through photo exhibitions of the star, who lived in seclusion in her villa in La Madrague.<\/p>\n

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Finally, just this month in theaters, the documentary Bardot<\/em> attempted to unravel the secret of this woman who once left everything behind to devote herself exclusively to her foundation and the animal cause.<\/strong> Presented at the last Cannes Film Festival, the film aims to be \u201ca cross-reflection on what it means to be a female artist, a free woman, and sometimes ahead of her time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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