Brigitte Bardot
By Edward Quinn
The Brigitte Bardot myth still remains a phenomenon. Why? There are many different explanations. A French film historian explains that “Brigitte Bardot was not so much an actress, but personified the youth of her generation, and in this respect her career was as much ‘social mythology’ as dramatic art. Nevertheless, her talent as an actress should not be scorned and in any case, she was ‘irreplaceable’ in most of her roles.”
During the Fifties, Brigitte Bardot – known as “BB” – was one of the most celebrated film stars in the world. Her type represented the new vogue of sexy, shapely beauties. Up until then, the popular type of femininity was personified by stars who had great style and elegance, like Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly or Michèle Morgan. But in the Fifties, as morals were changing, the public’s taste in feminine beauty also changed. A new wave of film stars came along: the denuded beauties. These alluring women were lauded as sex symbols, and especially in America, the public began to admire and idolise the glamorous women with prominent, shapely busts and sleek figures.
This was the time when a woman’s figure was her fortune. It was also the time when “gentlemen began to prefer sizzling blondes”. Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe were the American beauties who typified these “femmes fatales”. In England Diana Dors, and in France Martine Carol and Brigitte Bardot were the uncontested stars of the glorious era of the buxom and curvaceous female.
Brigitte Bardot had an advantage over the other screen favourites: her youth. She was a teenager who had the sensuality of a “femme fatale” but looked and behaved like a “jeune-fille fatale”. Brigitte was one of the first of that kind of precocious, seductive adolescents who became known as “nymphets” – the Lolitas of the Fifties.
She had come to the Riviera to make one of her first films, Manina, la fille sans voiles. I noticed straight away that she was an excellent model; her movements were very lithe, and she walked and posed gracefully. She quite naturally got into poses which showed her body off advantageously, and it was obvious why she became known as a “sex kitten”. At the beginning of her career Brigitte was just a beautiful body, but as the years went by, she had a way of getting onto the front page of the newspapers. Her love life was talked about by the newsmen, and she became the European Marilyn Monroe.
Brigitte did not seem to have the temperament to settle down to married life. When she divorced Jacques Charrier, she already had a new companion, the actor Sami Frey, and after him she had many other young boyfriends. Later she had a runaway marriage in Las Vegas with Gunter Sachs, but it did not last long. After that Brigitte preferred to continue to lead the life of a bachelor girl.
When the time came for Brigitte to decide whether to continue acting, she made up her mind that she would not go from playing the ingénue to doing matronly roles. Like Greta Garbo, Brigitte practically gave up the cinema at the height of her career. She once said: “I suppose I was the type of girl who personified an epoch.” And that epoch was gone.
Quinn wrote in 1956:
The impossible has happened. Brigitte Bardot, the sex kitten of French films, now refuses to be photographed except by her own special photographer. Brigitte, who is now one of the most highly paid stars in France and Europe and whose fame has come mostly from her being photographed in sexy clothes and poses, has now become a second Greta Garbo and while off the set wears a heavy woollen shawl to cover her well-known features. Her present film is called La Parisienne and in spite of all her precautions, the candid camera was able to get these exclusive photographs on the film set. But outside the studio, while she was being accompanied to her dressing room, she immediately hid her face as soon as she spotted the camera ...