Brigitte Bardot, icon of French cinema, dies at 91

By Ingrid Melander

PARIS, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Actress Brigitte Bardot shot to international fame dancing the mambo barefoot in "And God Created Woman", her tousled hair and fierce energy radiating a sexual magnetism rarely before seen in mainstream cinema.

A global icon was born.

At just 21, she scandalised censors and captivated audiences. Her free-spirited performance in the 1956 film, shot by her husband Roger Vadim, marked a decisive break from the demure heroines of the previous era.

Brigitte Bardot, often referred to in France simply as "B.B." and whose later years were marked by animal rights campaigns and far-right political sympathies, has died at the age of 91, her foundation said on Sunday. The cause was not immediately known.

'SHE FOLLOWS HER INCLINATIONS'

Born in Paris on September 28, 1934, Bardot grew up in an upper-middle-class household. She described herself as a shy, self-conscious child who "wore spectacles and had lank hair".

By 15, however, she graced the cover of Elle magazine, launching a modelling career that soon led to film.

Bardot’s character in "And God Created Woman" was the embodiment of liberated femininity. The controversy only fuelled her appeal. Bardot became a symbol of 1950s and 60s France.

Her allure extended far beyond French cinema. At 15, Bob Dylan is said to have written his first song about her, the never-released "Song for Brigitte", while Andy Warhol painted her portrait.

Bardot's ability to subvert traditional gender roles made her not just a sex symbol, but a pop culture icon and a touchstone for shifting social attitudes.

In 1959, Simone de Beauvoir penned an article for Esquire magazine in which she lionised Bardot's conspicuous sense of freedom. "B.B. does not try to scandalise," the feminist philosopher wrote. "She follows her inclinations. She eats when she is hungry and makes love with the same unceremonious simplicity.

"Moral lapses can be corrected, but how could B.B. be cured of that dazzling virtue — genuineness? It is her very substance."

De Beauvoir concluded: "I hope she will mature, but not change."

'I'VE BEEN LET DOWN TOO OFTEN'

Despite her influence, Bardot found celebrity life isolating. She often spoke of being a prisoner of her own fame, unable to enjoy life’s simple pleasures.

"Nobody can imagine how horrific it was, such an ordeal," she reflected decades later. "I couldn't go on living like that."

Her personal life was shaped by four marriages, widely reported affairs, and well-documented struggles with depression.

On her 26th birthday she was found unconscious at a house on the French Riviera after trying to take her own life. Rumours of another attempted suicide surfaced years later when she mysteriously cancelled a 49th birthday party then appeared in hospital.

Alongside her acting, Bardot enjoyed a successful music career. Her collaborations with singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, including the erotic "Je t’aime ... moi non plus" ("I Love You ... Neither Do I"), drew both acclaim and controversy.

In the late 1960s she modelled for a bust of Marianne, the personification of the French Republic.

But she found little satisfaction in the praise she garnered.

"I have been very happy, very rich, very beautiful, much adulated, very famous and very unhappy," she told the magazine Paris Match around the time of her 50th birthday. "I've been let down too often. I've had really terrible disappointments in my life. That is why I've chosen to withdraw, to live alone."

'THIS IS MY ONLY BATTLE'

Bardot made the last of her 42 films in 1973. Disenchanted with the industry, she declared the world of cinema "rotten" and left public life.

"I will have given 20 years of my life to cinema, that's enough," she said in a TV interview at the time.

She settled in the fashionable French resort of Saint-Tropez, where she found solace among animals and the Mediterranean landscape.

There, she began a passionate defence of animal welfare. "This is my only battle, the only direction I want to give my life," Bardot said in 2013.

Her devotion to animals became legendary. In 1986, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals, auctioning off personal souvenirs the following year to raise funds for her cause.

Bardot supported high-profile activists, such as anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson, and campaigned vigorously against animal cruelty, at times threatening to leave France over animal welfare disputes.

When actor Gérard Depardieu accepted Russian citizenship after a public spat with French authorities, in 2013, Bardot threatened to follow suit if France euthanised two sick circus elephants.

For much of the latter part of her life, Bardot lived alone behind high walls in Saint-Tropez, surrounded by a menagerie of cats, dogs and horses.

This passion, she often suggested, was an antidote to her disappointing relationships. "I gave my beauty and my youth to men," she once said. "I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals."

'FEMINISM ISN'T MY THING'

As her advocacy intensified, so too did the backlash to her political statements.

Bardot’s public remarks on immigration, Islam and homosexuality led to a string of convictions for inciting racial hatred.

Between 1997 and 2008, she was fined six times by French courts for her comments, particularly those targeting France’s Muslim community.

In one case, a Paris court fined her €15,000 ($17,000) for describing Muslims as "this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts".

In 1992, she married Bernard d’Ormale, a former adviser to the far-right National Front, and later publicly endorsed the party's successive leaders, Jean-Marie Le Pen and his daughter Marine Le Pen. Bardot called the latter "the Joan of Arc of the 21st century".

Yet, for all her polarising views, Bardot’s influence endured, whether in fashion - with media noting regular comebacks of her trademark hairstyle - or through regular documentaries and coffee‑table books celebrating her rare impact on French cinema.

Asked by French channel BFM TV in May 2025 if she considered herself a symbol of the sexual revolution, she said: "No, because before me, plenty of wild things had already happened — they didn’t wait for me. Feminism isn't my thing; I like men."

In the same interview, she was asked how often she reflected on her film career. "I don’t think about it," she said, "but I don’t reject it, because it’s thanks to it that I’m known everywhere in the world as someone who defends animals."

(Additional reporting by America Hernandez;Editing by Olivier Holmey)