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| Born As |
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Camille Javal |
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Female |
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| Height |
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5' 7" |
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| Nationality |
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FR - France |
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| Date of Birth |
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September 28, 1934 |
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| Place of Birth |
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Paris, France |
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| Address |
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La Madrague |
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F-83990 St. Tropez |
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France |
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Biography |
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Brigitte Bardot was born on September 28, 1934 in Paris, France. Her father had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father and they married in 1933.
Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance which she proved to be very adept at it. By the time she was 15 years old, Brigitte was attempting to model, finding herself in the French magazine Elle.
Her beauty readily apparent, Brigitte soon attempted films. In 1952, she appeared on screen for the first time as Javotte Lemoine in "Le Trou norman" in 1952. Two others followed and it was also the same year she married Roger Vadim.
The two had known each other years earlier and she wanted to marry him when she was 15, but her parents squashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. The union lasted only five years.
Before Bardot was a star she was a dancer-in-training from the age of five, and at thirteen she studied alongside future dance legend Leslie Caron. At age eighteen a brunette Bardot became famous when she strutted in front of photographers at the '53 Cannes Film Festival.
Based upon her success in French films she made her first US production in that year in "Un acte d'amour" in 1954 with Kirk Douglas. Back in France afterwards Brigitte continued to star in French productions. The fascination of her in the US consisted of magazines photographs and dubbed over French films.
At 22 she became the very symbol of sexual temptation when the world saw her nude and lying on her stomach in the first thirty seconds of "And God Created Woman" in 1956; that shot, the movie's later undressing scenes, and the erotic five minutes of dancing at the climax thrust Bardot into two decades of sexy films and three decades of scandalous news stories.
Ironically, her own country didn't immediately accept her - the French censors branded "And God Created Woman" as being immoral and demanded edits before it could be shown. The movie got terrible reviews in France and lost money; internationally, however, her career spurted to new heights In '57 English and American reviewers praised "And God Created Woman", and for months audiences flocked to see it. Since the Statue of Liberty, wrote Life, no French girl has ever shone quite as much light on the United States.
To American audiences her near-mythic status as the embodiment of steamy sexual desire eventually would be attributable more to her liberated lifestyle than to her movies. Even so, for the next few years Bardot was responsible for bringing new attention to the French cinema, and if not a great actress, she was always riveting, able to seduce audiences with both untrammeled sexuality and an appealing naivete. She was and always would be a totally French product.
Nonetheless, she was extremely popular in the USA. In 1965, she appeared as herself in the US made "Dear Brigitte" (1965) with James Stewart. She only appeared in one scene. Just before she turned 40, Brigitte retired from movies after filming "L'Histoire très bonne et très joyeuse de Colinot Trousse-Chemise in 1973. She prefers life outside of stardom.
In '73 she retired from the movies, though she has continued to speak in public and appear in documentaries to promote animal rights. A major animal-rights advocate, she fills her home with pets.
She's also written two volumes of memoirs: the first, "Initiales BB" in '96, takes her from birth to her last movie, and the second, "Le Carre de Pluton" in '99, focuses on her campaigns for animal rights and her efforts to "erase the Bardot legend."
In '84 she was officially recognized as a French institution with the prestigious "Legion d'honneur" award; for many people, she will always be the truest definition of the 20th-century woman, simply, and eternally, Bardot.
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