Brigitte Bardot, French screen legend, dies aged 91

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Source: The Guardian

Sun 28 Dec 2025 04.50 EST
Last modified on Sun 28 Dec 2025 04.51 EST


Brigitte Bardot, the French actor and singer who became an international sex symbol before turning her back on the film industry to become an animal rights activist, has died aged 91.

Bardot shot to international fame with the 1956 film And God Created Woman, written and directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim, and for the next two decades embodied the idea of the archetypal “sex kitten”. In the early 70s, however, she announced her retirement from acting and became increasingly active politically. Her outspoken support of animal rights evolved into incendiary comments about ethnic minorities and open support for France’s far-right Front National, resulting in a string of convictions for racial hatred.

Born in 1934 in Paris, Bardot grew up in a prosperous, traditional Catholic family but excelled enough as a dancer to be allowed to study ballet, gaining a place at the prestigious Conservatoire de Paris. At the same time she found work as a model, appearing on the cover of Elle in 1950 while still 15. As a result of her modelling work, she was offered film roles; at one audition she met Vadim, whom she would marry in 1952, after she turned 18. Bardot was cast in small roles, with increasing prominence; she played Dirk Bogarde’s love interest in Doctor at Sea, a big hit in the UK in 1955.

But it was Vadim’s And God Created Woman, in which Bardot played an uninhibited teenager in Saint-Tropez, that consolidated her image and turned her into an international icon. The film was a huge hit in France, as well as internationally, and catapulted Bardot into the front rank of French screen performers.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/dec/28/brigitte-bardot-french-screen-legend-and-animal-rights-activist-dies

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Didn't realize she was still around.