Brigitte Bardot passes away

Brigitte Bardot, the French actress and singer who became an international sex symbol before turning her back on the film industry and dedicating herself to fighting for animal rights, has died at the age of 91.

Bardot gained worldwide fame with the 1956 film "And God Created Woman", written and directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim.

Over the next two decades, she embodied the archetype of the so-called "sexy pussy."

In the early 1970s, however, she announced her retirement from acting and began to become increasingly politically engaged, writes The Guardian.

Her outspoken support for animal rights eventually turned into inflammatory statements about ethnic minorities and open support for the far-right National Front, resulting in a series of convictions for inciting racial hatred.

Born in 1934 in Paris, Bardot grew up in a wealthy, traditional Catholic family, but she distinguished herself so much as a dancer that she was allowed to study ballet, and was awarded a place at the prestigious Paris Conservatory.

At the same time, she worked as a model, appearing on the cover of Elle magazine in 1950, when she was just 15 years old. Her modeling career also led to her being offered film roles; at one audition, she met Vadim, whom she married in 1952, after she turned 18.

Bardot received smaller roles that grew in importance over time; in 1955, she played Dirk Bogarde's love interest in "The Doctor at Sea," a major box office hit in Great Britain.

However, it was Vadim's film "And God Created Woman," in which Bardot plays a wild teenager in Saint-Tropez, that solidified her image and turned her into an international icon. The film was a huge hit in France and around the world, launching Bardot into the top ranks of French film stars.

In addition to the film audience, Bardot quickly became an inspiration to intellectuals and artists - among them a young John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who, according to legend, demanded that girls of the time dye their hair blonde after her. In 1958, columnist Raymond Cartier published an extensive article on the "Bardo case" in the magazine Paris-Match, while Simone de Beauvoir published her famous essay "Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome" in 1959, in which she presented the actress as the most liberated woman in France.

In 1969, Bardot was chosen as the first real-life model of Marianne, the symbol of the French Republic.

In the early 1960s, Bardot starred in a series of notable French films, including the Oscar-nominated drama "Truth" by director Henri-Georges Clouzot, then "A Very Private Affair" by Louis Malle, in which she played alongside Marcello Mastroianni, and "Contempt" by Jean-Luc Godard.

In the second half of the decade, she also accepted several Hollywood offers, including "Viva Maria!", a costume comedy set in Mexico with Jeanne Moreau, and the western "Shalako" with Sean Connery.

Bardot pursued a parallel musical career, including recording an original version of the song "Je t'aime… moi non plus", which Serge Gainsbourg had written for her during their affair. Fearing scandal after her then-husband Gunther Sachs learned of the affair, Bardot asked Gainsbourg not to release the song; he later re-recorded it with Jane Birkin, to huge commercial success.

However, Bardot found the pressure of fame increasingly difficult to bear. In a 1996 interview with The Guardian, she said: "The madness that surrounded me always seemed unreal to me. I was never really prepared for the life of a star." She retired from acting in 1973, at the age of 39, after the historical romance "The Instructive and Joyful Story of Colineau". Her main focus then became animal protection activism - in 1977 she joined protests against seal hunting, and in 1986 she founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation.

She later wrote letters of protest to world leaders about, among other things, the extermination of dogs in Romania, the killing of dolphins in the Faroe Islands, and the slaughter of cats in Australia. She also regularly expressed strong views on the religious slaughter of animals. In her 2003 book "The Cry in Silence", she advocated right-wing politics and attacked homosexuals, teachers, and the so-called "Islamization of French society", for which she was convicted of inciting racial hatred.

Bardot had a long history of supporting France's National Front (now the National Rally). She told the Guardian: "When it comes to the terrifying wave of immigration, I fully share the views of Jean-Marie Le Pen." In a 2006 letter to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, she alleged that France's Muslim population was "destroying our country by imposing their customs."

Bardot was married four times: to Vadim from 1952 to 1957, to Jacques Charrier from 1959 to 1962, with whom she had a son, Nicolas, in 1960, then to Sax (1966–1969), and to Le Pen's former advisor, Bernard d'Ormal, whom she married in 1992. She also had a number of public relationships, including those with Jean-Louis Trentanian and Gainsbourg.