Brigitte Bardot, 1960s sultry sex symbol turned militant animal rights activist, dies at 91

Brigitte Bardot, the French 1960s enactment awesome who became 1 of the top surface sirens of the 20th period and aboriginal a militant carnal rights activistic and far-right supporter, has died. She was 91.

Bardot died Sunday astatine her location successful confederate France, according to Bruno Jacquelin, of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the extortion of animals. Speaking to The Associated Press, helium gave nary origin of death, and said nary arrangements person yet been made for ceremonial oregon memorial services. She had been hospitalized past month.

Bardot became an planetary personage arsenic a sexualized teen bride successful the 1956 movie "And God Created Woman." Directed by her then-husband, Roger Vadim, it triggered a ungraded with scenes of the long-legged quality dancing connected tables naked.

At the tallness of a cinema vocation that spanned immoderate 28 films and 3 marriages, Bardot came to symbolize a federation bursting retired of bourgeois respectability. Her tousled, blond hair, voluptuous fig and pouty irreverence made her 1 of France's best-known stars.

Such was her wide entreaty that successful 1969 her features were chosen to beryllium the exemplary for "Marianne," the nationalist emblem of France and the authoritative Gallic seal. Bardot's look appeared connected statues, postage stamps and adjacent connected coins.

''We are mourning a legend,'' French President Emmanuel Macron wrote Sunday connected X.

Bardot's 2nd vocation arsenic an carnal rights activistic was arsenic sensational. She traveled to the Arctic to stroke the whistle connected the slaughter of babe seals; she condemned the usage of animals successful laboratory experiments; and she opposed Muslim slaughter rituals.

"Man is an insatiable predator," Bardot told The Associated Press connected her 73rd birthday, successful 2007. "I don't attraction astir my past glory. That means thing successful the look of an carnal that suffers, since it has nary power, nary words to support itself."

Her activism earned her compatriots' respect and, successful 1985, she was awarded the Legion of Honor, the nation's highest recognition.

Later, however, she fell from nationalist grace arsenic her carnal extortion diatribes took connected a decidedly extremist tone. She often decried the influx of immigrants into France, particularly Muslims.

She was convicted and fined 5 times successful French courts of inciting radical hatred, successful incidents inspired by her absorption to the Muslim signifier of slaughtering sheep during yearly spiritual holidays.

Bardot's 1992 matrimony to 4th hubby Bernard d'Ormale, a onetime advisor to National Front person Jean-Marie Le Pen, contributed to her governmental shift. She described Le Pen, an outspoken nationalist with aggregate racism convictions of his own, arsenic a "lovely, intelligent man."

In 2012, she wrote a missive successful enactment of the statesmanlike bid of Marine Le Pen, who present leads her father's renamed National Rally party. Le Pen paid homage Sunday to an "exceptional woman" who was "incredibly French."

In 2018, astatine the tallness of the #MeToo movement, Bardot said successful an interrogation that astir actors protesting intersexual harassment successful the movie manufacture were "hypocritical" and "ridiculous" due to the fact that galore played "the teases" with producers to onshore parts.

She said she had ne'er had been a unfortunate of intersexual harassment and recovered it "charming to beryllium told that I was beauteous oregon that I had a bully small ass."

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot was calved Sept. 28, 1934, to a affluent industrialist. A shy, secretive child, she studied classical ballet and was discovered by a household person who enactment her connected the screen of Elle mag astatine property 14.

Bardot erstwhile described her puerility arsenic "difficult" and said her begetter was a strict disciplinarian who would sometimes punish her with a equine whip.

But it was French movie shaper Vadim, whom she joined successful 1952, who saw her imaginable and wrote "And God Created Woman" to showcase her provocative sensuality, an explosive cocktail of childlike innocence and earthy sexuality.

The film, which portrayed Bardot arsenic a bored newlywed who beds her brother-in-law, had a decisive power connected New Wave directors Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut, and came to embody the hedonism and intersexual state of the 1960s.

The movie was a box-office hit, and it made Bardot a superstar. Her girlish pout, tiny waist and generous bust were often much appreciated than her talent.

"It's an embarrassment to person acted truthful badly," Bardot said of her aboriginal films. "I suffered a batch successful the beginning. I was truly treated similar idiosyncratic little than nothing."

Bardot's unabashed, off-screen emotion matter with co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant further shocked the nation. It eradicated the boundaries betwixt her nationalist and backstage beingness and turned her into a blistery prize for paparazzi.

Bardot ne'er adjusted to the limelight. She blamed the changeless property attraction for the termination effort that followed 10 months aft the commencement of her lone child, Nicolas. Photographers had breached into her location 2 weeks earlier she gave commencement to drawback a representation of her pregnant.

Nicolas' begetter was Jacques Charrier, a French histrion whom she joined successful 1959 but who ne'er felt comfy successful his relation arsenic Monsieur Bardot. Bardot soon gave up her lad to his father, and aboriginal said she had been chronically depressed and unready for the duties of being a mother.

"I was looking for roots then," she said successful an interview. "I had nary to offer."

In her 1996 autobiography "Initiales B.B.," she likened her gestation to "a tumor increasing wrong me," and described Charrier arsenic "temperamental and abusive."

Bardot joined her 3rd husband, West German millionaire playboy Gunther Sachs, successful 1966, but the narration again ended successful divorcement 3 years later.

Among her films were "A Parisian" (1957); "In Case of Misfortune," successful which she starred successful 1958 with surface fable 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).

With the objection of 1963's critically acclaimed "Contempt," directed by Godard, Bardot's films were seldom analyzable by plots. Often, they were vehicles to show Bardot successful scanty dresses oregon frolicking nude successful the sun.

"It was ne'er a large passionateness of mine," she said of filmmaking. "And it tin beryllium deadly sometimes. Marilyn (Monroe) perished due to the fact that of it."

Bardot retired to her Riviera villa successful St. Tropez astatine the property of 39 successful 1973 aft "The Woman Grabber."

She emerged a decennary aboriginal with a caller persona: An carnal rights lobbyist, her look was wrinkled and her dependable was heavy pursuing years of dense smoking. She abandoned her jet-set beingness and sold disconnected movie memorabilia and jewelry to make a instauration devoted exclusively to the prevention of carnal cruelty.

Her activism knew nary borders. She urged South Korea to prohibition the merchantability of canine nutrient and erstwhile wrote to U.S. President Bill Clinton asking wherefore the U.S. Navy recaptured 2 dolphins it had released into the wild.

She attacked centuries-old French and Italian sporting traditions including the Palio, a free-for-all equine race, and campaigned connected behalf of wolves, rabbits, kittens and turtle doves.

"It's existent that sometimes I get carried away, but erstwhile I spot however dilatory things determination guardant ... my distress takes over," Bardot told the AP erstwhile asked astir her radical hatred convictions and absorption to Muslim ritual slaughter,

In 1997, respective towns removed Bardot-inspired statues of Marianne aft the histrion voiced anti-immigrant sentiment. Also that year, she received decease threats aft calling for a prohibition connected the merchantability of equine meat.

Bardot erstwhile said that she identified with the animals that she was trying to save.

"I tin recognize hunted animals due to the fact that of the mode I was treated," Bardot said. "What happened to maine was inhuman. I was perpetually surrounded by the satellite press."