Brigitte Bardot Dies: The legendary film star was 91

Brigitte Bardot, the French film actress whose sexually provocative roles in the mid-fifties and throughout the sixties catapulted her to international fame, has died. She was ninety one. While she’d been retired from acting since 1973 (at only thirty nine years old), Bardot retained an iconic place in film history.

Why Brigitte Bardot Was a Cultural Shock in the 1950s

One need remember that in the 1950s, culture, at least as far as sexuality was concerned, was conservative. Sure, America had its share of sex symbols, including Marilyn Monroe, but the emergence of Bardot sent shockwaves through the industry. Why? Because she did nude scenes, something which was unheard of in mainstream fare, and when her French films hit American cinemas, she caused a sensation, causing lines around the block, while her name entered the American pop lexicon (she’s even mentioned in Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire.”)

And God Created Woman and the Breakdown of Film Censorship

Bardot’s fame began when the movie she made with her husband, Roger Vadim, And God Created Woman, caused an international stir. With American financing and nude scenes, it broke French films out from the art-house circuit and paved the way for the French New Wave to go mainstream a few years later. The film flagrantly violated the Hayes Code (although it’s quite innocent nowadays and would barely muster a PG-13) and was banned in parts of the U.S, but it helped pave the way for an eventual breakdown of that antiquated system. In the sixties, American movies became more mature, and eventually became revolutionized in the late sixties, and it a lot of ways Bardot was responsible.

Brigitte Bardot’s Limited Hollywood Presence

Bardot never really put much focus on the American market, with her roles in American films limited to a cameo in a James Stewart movie called Dear Brigitte. In that one, she (briefly) played herself, as the film was about the son of Stewart’s character sneaking into one of her movies and developing a crush on her. In this regard, she wasn’t unlike a lot of other french stars of the era, including Jean-Paul Belmondo, who never made a movie in English, and Alain Delon (her former co-star) who had limited success in American films (despite making several of them).

Major European Films and Career Decline

Instead, Bardot focused on the lucrative European market. Most of her movies, including Jean-Luc Goddard’s Contempt or Louis Malle’s Viva Maria were in French but imported American and international stars. She also co-starred with Sean Connery in his first post-007 movie, the western Shalako in 1968. By this point though her career was cooling off, as movies had steadily grown more provocative, and her films lost their naughty appeal.

Retirement and Animal Welfare Activism

In 1973, at the age of thirty-nine, she retired from acting, and began to focus on Animal welfare, with her becoming a noted activist who raised millions for the cause through the Brigitte Bardot Foundation. As she famously put it, “I gave my youth and beauty to men, I give my wisdom and experience to animals.”

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