A serial seductress and once dubbed as ‘France‘s most ogled export’, Brigitte Bardot married four times and is said to have bedded more than 100 lovers – including women – in her lifetime.
Known as the original ‘Sex Kitten’, the actress was forthright about her feelings towards men, saying: ‘I knew my career was based only on my looks, so I decided to leave movies the way I always left men – before they could leave me.’
In her book Larmes de combat, Bardot candidly revealed why she had so many affairs: ‘With each relationship, I would constantly go back in search of other loves when the present became lukewarm. I don’t like the in-between, the less good.
‘I have always sought passion. That is why I have often been unfaithful. And when passion was coming to an end, I would pack my bags.’
Bardot was born into a wealthy Parisian family on September 28, 1934, and lived in the elegant 16th arrondissement of Paris, a stone’s throw from the Eiffel Tower.
Her parents enrolled her in a ballet school, and in May 1949 she was given her first modeling assignment where she appeared on the front cover of Elle magazine.
By 1952, when she was 18 years old, her modelling style began to evolve into the ‘sex kitten’ image for which she’d soon be known; opting for flat ballet shoes, a thick-cut fringe, lipstick and clothes that accentuated her figure.
It was in her early modelling days that Bardot met the man who would become her first husband; Roger Vadim. Vadim was an assistant of the filmmaker Marc Allégret, who is credited with discovering the biggest stars in French cinema in the 1930s.
The pair met when Vadim went to see the then-16-year-old to scope her out for Allégret’s next project and; although Bardot didn’t get the role, she stole Vadim’s heart from the first meeting.
Author Ginette Vincendeau revealed Bardot once wrote of Vadim: ‘He looked at me, scared me, attracted me, I didn’t know where I was anymore.’
Known as the original ‘Sex Kitten’, Bardot shot to international notoriety with her role in 1956 film And God Created Woman, which was directed by her first husband Roger Vadim
Known as the original ‘Sex Kitten’, the actress was forthright about her feelings towards men. saying: ‘I knew my career was based only on my looks, so I decided to leave movies the way I always left men – before they could leave me’
They became lovers meeting secretly and then openly against the wishes of her parents, who threatened to send their daughter away from Vadim to England.
However, they eventually gave in and consented to the relationship when Bardot attempted suicide because she could not be with Vadim. Their condition was that the couple would wait until Bardot was 18 before they got married.
Eventually, the couple walked down the aisle in Paris on 21 December 1952 in a Catholic ceremony.
Bardot shot to international notoriety with her role in 1956 film And God Created Woman, which was directed by Vadim, and starred Jean-Louis Trintignant.
Despite the Hollywood censors’ cuts, it became the highest-grossing foreign film ever released in the US.
She evolved out of these early modelling days when she met Vadim, assistant to filmmaker Marc Allégret, who had discovered French cinema’s biggest stars of the 1930s.
Vadim was sent by his boss to see the sixteen-year old girl in consideration for Allégret’s next film project.
Bardot didn’t get the assignment but she and Vadim instantly fell madly in love.
Pictured: Playboy Roger Vadim with Bardot on set. After meeting the model, the French film producer helped her become a star
Bardot’s parents did not initially approve of her union with Vadim but agreed to her marriage after she attempted suicide. Above: Being walked down the aisle by her father, December 19, 1952
Brigitte with her second husband, Jacques Charrier, with whom she had a son, Nicolas
Charrier and Bardot on the set of ‘Babette S’en Va-T-En Guerre’ (Babette Goes to War). The couple divorced in 1962
Four years after their illustrious wedding at Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral, Vadim and Bardot separated and a year later, in 1957, divorced. Both had been unfaithful.
‘I knew what was happening and rather expected it,’ Vadim said. ‘I would always prefer to have that kind of wife, knowing she is unfaithful to me rather than possess a woman who just loved me and no one else.’
‘I wanted a woman with spirit, with joie de vivre…a woman with a sense of adventure and sexual curiosity.’
Bardot was crazy about Trintignant, who also got a divorce from his wife. They lived together for two years but the fickle sex goddess moved on to singer Gibert Bécaud, who was married.
One affair following another became a pattern in her life and she was always the first to leave a relationship. Bardot herself admitted to have more than 100 lovers – some of them women.
A liaison with singer Sacha Distrel followed Bécaud, to be followed by Jacque Charrier, her co-star in Babette Goes to War. He became her second husband in 1959 and the father of her child.
She did not want the pregnancy but Charrier’s parents convinced her to carry the child. It was a difficult birth at home. She couldn’t leave her house and get to the hospital in time with the number of paparazzi out front.
She never bonded with her son, Nicholas, born in January 1960 and Charrier took custody of the child. The couple divorced in 1962.
Bardot would say: ‘I’m not made to be a mother.
‘I don’t know why I think this because I adore animals and I adore children, but I’m not adult enough – I know it’s horrible to have to admit that, but I’m not adult enough to take care of a child.
Bardot’s third husband was German industrialist Gunter Sachs. The couple were married between 1966 and 1969
One affair following another became a pattern in her life and she was always the first to leave a relationship. Bardot herself admitted to have more than 100 lovers – some of them women
Bardot is said to have rejected Sean Connery’s advances while the duo filmed 1968 Western movie Shalako, with the actress telling Vanity Fair he came into her bed ‘stark naked except for his socks’
In 1992 Bardot married her husband Bernard d’Ormale, a former adviser to Jean-Marie Le Pen of the Front National
‘I need somebody to take care of me. I’m sad to have had that baby. What will be his life? People who are making babies and families now are mad. It is such a bad world.’
In a searingly painful account, Bardot’s autobiography revealed how she repeatedly punched herself in the stomach and tried to convince doctors to prescribe her a lethal dose of morphine when back-room abortionists refused to operate on her.
The actress added she would have preferred to ‘give birth to a little dog’.
Speaking about the day she learnt she was pregnant, Bardot wrote: ‘I looked at my flat, slender belly in the mirror like a dear friend upon whom I was about to close a coffin lid.’
Another passage described her son’s foetus as being like a ‘cancerous tumour’ growing inside her.
Following the publication of the memoir, Jacques and Nicolas-Jacques Charrier successfully sued Bardot for £28,000 over the hurtful remarks she had made about them.
Affairs with co-star Mike Sarne, Warren Beatty, singers Serge Gainsbourg, Nino Ferrer, Brazilian musician Bab Zagury occurred before marrying her third husband, German millionaire playboy, Gunter Sachs in Las Vegas in 1966.
Sachs romanced her by showering her house in Saint Tropez with roses dropped from a helicopter just hours after they met.
‘It’s not every day that a man drops a tonne of roses in your yard,’ the actress later wrote.
They divorced in 1969 after Bardot reportedly began an affair with singer Mike Sarne just days after they returned home from their wedding.
‘I’ve always done what I wanted… I know I’ve got bigger balls than a lot of men. They could learn a lot from me,’ Bardot once said.
Sachs and Bardot, though, remained on good terms with the playboy once saying of the actress: ‘A year with Bardot was worth 10 with anyone else.’
Bardot is said to have rejected Sean Connery’s advances while the duo filmed 1968 Western movie Shalako, with the actress telling Vanity Fair he came into her bed ‘stark naked except for his socks’.
Bardot was born into a wealthy Parisian family on September 28, 1934, and lived in the elegant 16th arrondissement of Paris, a stone’s throw from the Eiffel Tower
‘It didn’t last long because I wasn’t a James Bond girl! I have never succumbed to his charm!’ she said.
Lonely and unhappy at times in her forties, wondering what to do with her future, she married her fourth husband Bernard d’Ormale in 1992. The one-time businessman was a former adviser to the far-right Front National.
The couple remained married until the announcement of her death today, aged 91.
Her foundation did not say when or where she died.
‘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,’ it said in a statement.
Bardot had rarely been seen in public in recent months but was hospitalised in October and in November released a statement denying rumours that she had died.
