Brigitte Bardot, the French 1960s film star who became one of the greatest screen sirens of the 20th century and later a militant animal rights activist and far-right supporter, has died. She was 91.
Bardot died on Sunday local time at her home in southern France, according to Bruno Jacquelin, of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals.
Speaking to The Associated Press, he gave no cause of death and said no arrangements had been made for funeral or memorial services. She had been hospitalised last month.
Bardot became an international celebrity as a teen bride in the 1956 movie And God Created Woman. Directed by then husband Roger Vadim, it triggered a scandal with scenes of the long-legged beauty dancing on tables naked.
Bardot's cinema career spanned more than two dozen films. Source: Getty / Franco Origlia
Such was her widespread appeal that, in 1969, her features were chosen as the model for Marianne, France's national emblem and the official Gallic seal. Bardot's face appeared on statues, postage stamps and coins.
French President Emmanuel Macron said in an X post: ''We are mourning a legend."
Bardot's second career as an animal rights activist was equally sensational. She travelled to the Arctic to blow the whistle on the slaughter of baby seals. She also condemned the use of animals in laboratory experiments, and she opposed Muslim slaughter rituals.
"Man is an insatiable predator," Bardot told The Associated Press on her 73rd birthday in 2007.
While Bardot was a popular star, her physical appearance was often appreciated more than her talent. Source: AP / Jean Jacques Levy
Her activism earned her the respect of her compatriots, and in 1985, she was awarded the Legion of Honour, the nation's highest honour.
Later, however, she fell from public grace as her animal protection diatribes took on a decidedly extremist tone. She frequently decried the influx of immigrants into France, especially Muslims.
She was convicted and fined five times in French courts for inciting racial hatred.
In 2018, at the height of the #MeToo movement, Bardot said in an interview most actors protesting sexual harassment in the film industry were "hypocritical" because many played "the teases" with producers to land parts.
Bardot said she had never had been a victim of sexual harassment and found it "charming to be told that I was beautiful or that I had a nice little ass".
Among Bardot's films were A Parisian (1957); In Case of Misfortune, in which she starred in 1958 with screen legend Jean Gabin; The Truth (1960); Private Life (1962); A Ravishing Idiot (1964); Shalako (1968); Women (1969); The Bear And The Doll (1970); Rum Boulevard (1971); and Don Juan (1973).
But while she was a popular star, her physical appearance was often appreciated more than her talent.
"It's an embarrassment to have acted so badly," Bardot said of her early films.
With the exception of 1963's critically acclaimed Contempt, Bardot's films were rarely complicated by plots. Often, they were vehicles to display Bardot in scanty dresses or frolicking nude in the sun.
"It was never a great passion of mine," Bardot said of filmmaking.
"And it can be deadly sometimes. Marilyn [Monroe] perished because of it."
Bardot retired to her Riviera villa in St Tropez at the age of 39 in 1973 after The Woman Grabber.
As fans brought flowers to her home, the local St Tropez administration called for "respect for the privacy of her family and the serenity of the places where she lived".
— With additional reporting by Associated Press via Australian Associated Press
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