Brigitte Bardot, dead at 91

Brigitte Bardot, actress, singer, screen icon, sex symbol, activist, and, late in life a controversial figure, has died at age 91. The news came via her foundation: “The Brigitte Bardot foundation announces with immense sadness the death of its founder and president, Madame Brigitte Bardot, a world-renowned actress and singer, who chose to abandon her prestigious career to dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare and her foundation.”

Born in Paris in 1934, Bardot began modelling in her teens which led to film roles. She hit worldwide stardom in 1956 a run of four films: Naughty Girl, Plucking the Daisy, The Bride Is Much Too Beautiful, most famously And God Created Woman. As her film career continued into the ’60s — including Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt — Bardot launched a music career most famously in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg. Her songs with Gainsbourg include thier iconic duet “Bonnie and Clyde,” plus “Harley Davidson,” “Contact,” and more. Serge actually wrote “Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus” for her — they were having an affair — and they recorded it but she asked him not to release it (he recorded it with Jane Birkin and it became an international hit), though it would finally come out in the 1970s.

Bardot great tired of stardom by her late ’30s and retired from acting, and devoted her life to what would be her true passion, animal activism, founding the Brigitte Bardot Foundation in 1986 for the “protection of wild and domestic animals in France and internationally.” She said, “I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I’m going to give my wisdom and experience to animals.”

Later in life, Bardot’s political views became more militant and right-wing. In her 2004 nonfiction book A Cry in the Silence she referred to Muslims as “cruel and barbaric invaders,” along with other racist and homophobic comments, which resulted in her being convicted and fined for inciting racial hatred. She would be convicted of similar charges more times over the years, and in 2018 dismissed the #MeToo movement as hypocritical.