The French actress and film icon Brigitte Bardot shaped a new type of woman in the fifties and sixties: liberal, hedonistic and self-confident. Bardot has now died in Saint-Tropez at the age of 91.
Bardot’s career began in the early 1950s. She achieved her international breakthrough in 1956 And the woman always beckons (Et Dieu… créa la femme). This film made Bardot famous worldwide and established her as a sex symbol of the 1950s and 1960s. During this time she not only shaped the cinema, but also fashion, ideals of beauty and the image of the modern woman.
Her career reached its peak in the 1960s. Bardot made numerous successful films and worked with well-known directors such as Jean-Luc Godard. At the same time, her private life, with several marriages and relationships, was the subject of strong public interest, which increasingly put a strain on her.
In 1973, Brigitte Bardot retired completely from the film business at the age of just 39. In the following decades she devoted herself primarily to animal protection and founded the Fondation Brigitte Bardot in 1986. To this day she is best known for her commitment to animals.
