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Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot (born 28 September 1934) is a French actress, former fashion model, singer and animal welfare/rights activist.
In 2007 she was named among Empire's 100 Sexiest Film Stars.
Also known as B.B. or Bri-Bri when was child.
In her early life Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer.
Brigitte Bardot started her acting career in 1952 and after appearing in 16 films became world-famous due to her role in controversial film And God Created Woman.
During her career in show business Bardot starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, recorded 80 songs.
After her retirement from the entertainment industry in the 1973, Bardot established herself as an animal rights activist.
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Roger Vadim was not content with this light fare. The New Wave of French and Italian art directors and their stars were riding high internationally, and he felt Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in And God Created Woman (1956) with Jean-Louis Trintignant. The film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a big international success. It is often (wrongly) described as her first film (it was her seventeenth) and said that it launched her to overnight stardom, but it did help move her towards the cinematic mainstream.
In hindsight, light comedies suited Brigitte Bardot's acting skills best. A fine example is her 'Une Parisienne' from 1957, one of the few of her films of which she has said she feels proud.
In Hollywood, Bardot was considered too risqué to handle — erotica like Bardot's Cette sacrée gamine (That Crazy Kid, 1955) was not typical of the American cinema of the time, and it was considered acceptable at the box office so long as it was clearly labeled "European." The Doris Day era was in full swing, and Jane Russell in The French Line (1953) was thought to have been going too far by showing her midriff. Furthermore, Bardot's limited English and strong accent, while beguiling to the ears of men, did not suit rapid-fire Hollywood scripts. In any event, staying in Europe benefited her image when the 1960s began to swing and Hollywood slipped into the background for a while, and Bardot was voted honorary sex-goddess of the decade. In fact, there was a widely popular claim that Brigitte Bardot, as an actress, did more for the French international trade balance than the entire French car industry.
In Bardot's early career professional photographer Sam Levin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Levin's pictures show Brigitte from behind, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960 postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower[citation needed].
She divorced Vadim in 1957 and in 1959 married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette Goes to War in 1959. The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career. Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world.
Vie privée (1960), directed by Louis Malle has more than an element of autobiography in it. The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names, was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century.
Soon afterwards Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.
In 1963, she starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Contempt.
Brigitte Bardot was featured in many other films along with notable actors such as Alain Delon (Famous Love Affairs, Spirits of the Dead), Jean Gabin (In Case of Adversity), Sean Connery (Shalako), Jean Marais (Royal Affairs in Versailles, School for Love), Lino Ventura (Rum Runners), Annie Girardot (The Novices), Claudia Cardinale (The Legend of Frenchie King), Jeanne Moreau (Viva Maria!), Jane Birkin (Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman).
She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including "Harley Davidson", "Je Me Donne A Qui Me Plait", "Bubble gum", "Contact", "Je Reviendrais Toujours Vers Toi", "L'Appareil A Sous", "La Madrague", "On Demenage", "Sidonie", "Tu Veux, Ou Tu Veux Pas?", "Le Soleil De Ma Vie" (the cover of Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life") and notorious "Je t'aime... moi non plus".
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Brigitte Bardot is recognised for popularizing bikini swimwear in early films such as Manina (Woman without a Veil, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots.
Bardot also brought into fashion the choucroute ("Sauerkraut") hairstyle (a sort of beehive hair style) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier.[26][27] The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her and she joined Marilyn Monroe and Jackie Kennedy in becoming a subject for Andy Warhol paintings.
In addition to popularizing the bikini swimming suit, Bardot has also been credited with popularizing the city of St. Tropez and the town of Buzios, Brazil, which she visited in 1964 with her boyfriend at the time, Brazilian musician Bob Zagury.[28] A statue by Christina Motta[29] honours Brigitte Bardot in Buzios, Brazil.
Brigitte Bardot was idolized by young John Lennon and Paul McCartney[30][31]. They made plans to shoot a film featuring The Beatles and Bardot, similar to A Hard Day's Night, but the plans were never fulfilled.[9] Lennon's first wife Cynthia Powell lightened her hair color to more closely resemble Bardot, while George Harrison made comparisons between Bardot and his first wife Pattie Boyd, as Cynthia wrote later in A Twist of Lennon. Lennon and Bardot met in person once, in 1968 at the Mayfair Hotel, introduced by Beatles press agent Derek Taylor; a nervous Lennon took LSD before arriving, and neither star impressed the other. (Lennon recalled in a memoir, "I was on acid, and she was on her way out.")
According to the liner notes of his first (self-titled) album, musician Bob Dylan dedicated the first song he ever wrote to Bardot. He also mentioned her by name in "I Shall Be Free", which appeared on his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.
She dabbled in pop music and played the role of a glamour model. In 1965 she appeared as herself in the Hollywood production Dear Brigitte (1965) starring James Stewart.
In 1970 the sculptor Alain Gourdon used Bardot as the model for a bust of Marianne, the French national emblem.
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