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.
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.
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.
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 from cancer on December 28, a date that directly echoes her birthday. Here is her story.
Curious bourgeois of the 16th Arrondissement
Brigitte, Anne-Marie Bardot, was born on September 28, 1934 into a Catholic bourgeois family in the 15th arrondissement of Paris. Her father, Louis, was an engineer 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.
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. Her mother, 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, the couple nevertheless imposed a fairly strict discipline. At home, formal address was the rule and punishments were not uncommon for misbehavior. Brigitte Bardot said she was “kept under lock and key until the age of 15,” “supervised by a governess,” and never allowed to go out alone.
Self-conscious about her appearance, particularly due to a slight squint in her left eye, Brigitte nevertheless acquired—not without a few slaps—the “haughty bearing” that would become her trademark. As for her way of speaking, she owed that to a hard-of-hearing father who had to be spoken to clearly in order to be understood.
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Featured photo: DR
