Brigitte Bardot: disappearance of an icon

And God… created woman, Le Mépris, through La Vérité and Viva Maria… She will have crossed the cinema like burning evidence. Absolute icon of the 1950s and 1960s, global fantasy and symbol of a new female freedom, BB died at the age of 91, leaving behind much more than a filmography: a myth.

She was more than an actress. Brigitte Bardot was a breath of freedom that crossed cinema and all of society. An absolute icon that is eternally elusive. This Sunday, BB left us. She was 91 years old.

Muse of filmmakers, global fantasy, burning incarnation of liberated female desire, Brigitte Bardot died at her home in the south of France, as confirmed by Bruno Jacquelin, of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Protection of Animals. No cause of death has been specified. Hospitalized last month, the former actress had long since retired from the screens, without ever leaving the collective imagination.

Born Camille Javal into a wealthy Parisian family, the one who dreamed of being a classical dancer would light up the screens of the 1950s and 1960s. Becoming Brigitte Bardot, she embodied like no one before her a historic shift: that of a cinema which finally dared to show female desire, head-on, without detour or guilt. Setting screens alight with And God… created womana film written and directed by her first husband Roger Vadim, in just a few months it became a global phenomenon.

If her domination of the box office was brief – she retired from cinema for good in the early 1970s – her influence was colossal. Bardot imposes a new image of women on the screen: young, luscious, sensual, instinctive. A carnal, adolescent blonde, the opposite of the more mature sophistication of Marilyn Monroe. With Audrey Hepburn, she permanently anchored in the collective imagination a feminine sexuality associated with youth – a tropism from which she was never really able to shake off. In the meantime, Bardot established herself as a “serious” actress, notably with Contempt by Jean-Luc Godard, without ever completely escaping its image of a living fantasy.

While And God… created woman establishes the Frenchwoman as an international star – the film will bring in more than 8.5 million dollars worldwide – Brigitte Bardot has a string of popular triumphs in France: The Bride is so beautiful, The Parisian (where she reveals a lighter sense of comedy), but also In case of misfortune, The Woman and the Puppet Or Night falls on Manhattan.

In 1959, Simone de Beauvoir published a noted essay, Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita syndrome. The machine of myth is launched. BB becomes a cultural symbol far too powerful to be deconstructed. The actress looks to prove her dramatic worth in Babette goes to war, Privacy by Louis Malle or The Truth by Henri-Georges Clouzot in 1960. She continued to work with Vadim, even after their separation, while she married the actor Jacques Charrier, father of her only son.

In 1963, Contempt de Godard plays brilliantly with his image, exposing it as much as he questions it. Bardot also tours internationally like the western Shalako with Sean Connery or Viva Maria de Malle – alongside Jeanne Moreau, who earned her a BAFTA nomination.

BB will finally withdraw from the sets quite quickly. His last two films, released in 1973, The very good and very joyful story of Colinot Trousse-Chemise by Nina Companeez and Don Juan 73mark a twilight end to his career.
Alongside the cinema, Bardot recorded nearly 80 songs, including “La madrague”, “Tu toi toi ou tu voir pas” and “Bonnie and Clyde” with Gainsbourg.

Permanently retired from the screens, she nevertheless remains an omnipresent media figure, notably for her radical commitment to animals – she founded the Brigitte Bardot Foundation in 1986 – but also for her controversial political positions, which earned her several convictions for inciting racial hatred.

Brigitte Bardot leaves behind her husband, the industrialist Bernard d’Ormale, her son born from her union with Jacques Charrier, and two granddaughters. But above all, an indelible imprint: that of a face, a body, a freedom which will have forever redefined the representation of desire in cinema.