Brigitte Bardot, the French actress who set the standard for a generation of female sex symbols in the 1960s and devoted her later life to animal rights, has died. She was 91.
Agence France-Presse reported her death on Sunday, citing a statement from her foundation that did not provide details.
The archetype of beauty to millions of men, Bardot spawned an era of curvy, pouting, insouciant actresses with her role as a self-assured small-town sexpot in And God Created Woman (1956). Throughout the 1970s, she was the model for “Marianne”, the female incarnation of the French republic whose profile adorns stamps and coins.
French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to Bardot, calling her a “legend”.
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“With her films, her voice, her dazzling glory, her initials (BB), her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, and her face that became Marianne, Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom,” Macron wrote on social media. “We mourn a legend of the century.”
But Bardot stopped making films at age 39 and she courted controversy with comments about marginalised members of society.
A Paris court fined her €5,000 (about US$6,100 at the time) in 2004 for expressing “disgust” with France’s tolerance of Muslim immigrants in her 2003 autobiography, A Cry in the Silence. The book also referred to gay people as “freaks” and said the unemployed do not want to work.
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