Brigitte Bardot, French screen legend, dies aged 91

"Brigitte Bardot, the French actor and singer who became an international sex symbol before turning her back on the film industry to become an animal rights activist, has died aged 91. Bardot shot to international fame with the 1956 film And God Created Woman, written and directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim, and for the next two decades embodied the idea of the archetypal sex kitten. In the early 70s, however, she announced her retirement from acting and became increasingly active politically."

"Born in 1934 in Paris, Bardot grew up in a prosperous, traditional Catholic family but excelled enough as a dancer to be allowed to study ballet, gaining a place at the prestigious Conservatoire de Paris. At the same time she found work as a model, appearing on the cover of Elle in 1950 while still 15. As a result of her modelling work, she was offered film roles; at one audition she met Vadim, whom she would marry in 1952, after she turned 18."

"Bardot was cast in small roles, with increasing prominence; she played Dirk Bogarde's love interest in Doctor at Sea, a big hit in the UK in 1955. But it was Vadim's And God Created Woman, in which Bardot played an uninhibited teenager in Saint-Tropez, that consolidated her image and turned her into an international icon. The film was a huge hit in France, as well as internationally, and catapulted Bardot into the front rank of French screen performers. As well as for cinema audiences, Bardot swiftly became an inspiration for intellectuals and artists; not least the young John Lennon and Paul McCartney, who demanded their then-girlfriends dye their hair blond in imitation of her."

Brigitte Bardot rose from a Parisian ballet student and teenage model to international film stardom after starring in And God Created Woman (1956). She became an archetypal sex symbol through the late 1950s and 1960s and influenced artists and celebrities. Bardot retired from acting in the early 1970s and redirected her public life toward animal-rights activism. Over time she made incendiary public statements about ethnic minorities and openly supported France's Front National, resulting in convictions for racial hatred. She died aged 91.

Read at www.theguardian.com