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Brigitte
Bardot - Beyond the Age Bar - By Bill Harry
Brigitte
Bardot, now in her Sixties, is one of the most beloved stars cinema
has ever produced. An icon of the Sixties, BB rivalled Marilyn Monroe
in glamour despite the fact that she turned her back on filmmaking at
an early stage in her career.
Brigitte
Bardot is arguably the most potent female movie star, after Marilyn
Monroe. Her appeal has been imitated for over three decades, with
contemporary supermodels such as Claudia Schiffer adopting the Bardot
image.
Even
now, BB remains a
Hollywood
icon – despite the fact that she terminated her film career almost
30 years ago. Now she lives, not in
Beverly Hills
, but in her native
France
where she works to protect animals and insists on keeping her life
private.
In
the Sixties, Bardot was regarded as one of the most alluring screen
stars – but she lacked confidence in her looks. When she entered
films she said, “My nose is a very bad nose. It is not shaped well.
When I meet a man, it wrinkles up as though I were sniffing a bowl of
milk. My mouth is not a good mouth; the lower lip is heavier and more
swollen than the other.”
Director
Roger Vadim, who ‘discovered’ Bardot and then married her,
recalled coming home to see his wife on her 21st birthday,
only to find her in tears in front of a mirror, saying she was ugly
and hideous.
Years
later she still denigrated her features, saying her mouth was too
large, her eyes too small, her cheeks too round, adding, “I have
never thought I was beautiful, even when I was at the height of my
fame.”
Bardot
was born in her parent’s apartment in
Paris, and was named Brigitte after a doll her mother had when she was a
child. Wearing wire-rimmed spectacles and nicknamed Bri-Bri by her
family, she attended a private school for young ladies until she was
16. Her French and Latin teacher, Pierre-Marie Quervelle said she was
“a terrible student, bottom of the class,” and added, “She
won’t go anywhere.”
Brigitte
appeared on the front cover of Elle magazine in
France
on 2 May 1949 when she was only 14, although her mother requested that
her name not be used. The initials BB were used for the first time.
French
director Marc Allegret spotted the cover and considered she had
potential. He instructed his assistant Roger Vadim to write to her
parents requesting a screen test. Her parents would have refused, but
her grandfather told them, “Going into films will not make her a
lost child.”
Vadim
arranged a screen test for a projected film called ‘The Laurels Are
Cut’, which never got made. But Vadim was convinced of his protégé’s
star quality. “Two things struck me about her. First, her
style…the way she would walk, move, look at people, sit….She was
also, for a little bourgeois, in a certain way very revolutionary. She
would approach life, any kind of problem, with a really free mind.”
Vadim
and Bardot married in 1952, after which the up-and-coming director got
to work on her career, sending her to Rene Simon’s drama school,
which led to her finding roles in her first two films.
Brigitte
made her film debut in ‘The Norman Hole’ in 1952. “My first film
– it was terrible!” she said. Her second film ‘Manina, Girl
Without A Veil,’ also in 1952, disappointed her as well. In fact,
she decided to get out of films.
She
said, “What had I got that no one else had got? Why should I
succeed? Millions of girls far better than me have failed.”
What
made her persevere was the presence of Vadim. She said, “Vadim
changed my mind. Vadim was the only man who was certain I had
something special to offer on the screen. I marvelled at his
confidence and laughed at his conceit. His trust gave me fresh hope. I
would do whatever he told me….I placed myself entirely in his hands.
“We
went back to the beginning and he taught me how to speak, how to
remember my lines and tried to show me how to act. Love was the
driving force. The experience improved and rewarded me.”
Vadim
continued shaping BB’s career, determined to make her an
international star. The major breakthrough came when he directed her
in ‘Et Dieu Crea la Femme’, (And God Created Woman), filmed at a
small fishing village, St Tropez. Although the movie was initially a
flop in
France
, it created a sensation abroad and established her name.
But
as fame grew, Roger and Brigitte’s private life fell apart. During
the filming of ‘And God Created Woman’ she began a relationship
with her co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant, while Vadim moved in with
Danish actress Annette Stroyberg who gave birth to his daughter the
day after he divorced Bardot.
There
were scores of offers to appear in
Hollywood
films, which Bardot refused, although her name continued to attract
headlines – particularly due to her relationships and suicide
attempts.
She
had initially tried to kill herself at the age of 15, but her mother
had a presentiment and returned home early to find her daughter with
her head in the gas oven. The day after her 26th birthday
she swallowed an entire jar of sleeping pills and cut her wrists –
she would have died but a 13-year-old girl found her lying in the
garden.
She
had a relationship with guitarist Sacha Distel but although she said,
“He has brought music into my life,” the relationship didn’t
last and in 1959 she married Jacques Charrier, her co-star in
‘Babette Goes To War.’ On 11 January 1960 she gave birth to a boy,
Nicolas Jacques Charrier, but when she was divorced in 1962 she
allowed her ex-husband to have custody of her son. In 1966 she married
millionaire Gunther Sachs and they were divorced in September 1969.
Despite
the fact that they had divorced, Vadim continued directing her in
several further films, none of which had as much impact as the first.
Arguably, apart from ‘And God Created Woman’, her most outstanding
films were ‘La Verite, En Cas De Malheur’, based on a Simenon
story and co-starring Jean Gabin and ‘Viva Maria.’
Bardot
generally expressed dissatisfaction with her film career, threatening
to abandon it on several occasions and finally did so in 1973 after
completing her 48th film, ‘The Gay and Joyous Story of
Colinet.’
“This
will be my final film,” she said and retired to St. Tropez, the
setting of her first major movie hit, which had become a popular
resort due to the film.
Since
then, the reclusive star has devoted her time to animal welfare,
shunning publicity and refusing all offers to make a comeback.
Many thanks to
Bill Harry for this article
Mersey
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