As a girl, Bardot trained as a classical ballet dancer and dreamed of performing onstage at the Paris Opera.
Photo: Paris Match/Walter Carone.
At the beginning of her career, Bardot was a brunette. It wasn't until 1956's And God Created Woman that she bleached her hair to her signature blonde.
Photo: Paris Match
In 1952, the 18-year-old Brigitte Bardot married journalist Roger Vadim. They are shown here together in Saint-Tropez, where they came to film her breakthrough role in the Vadim-directed And God Created Woman.
Photo: Paris Match/Michou Simon
Bardot's films, tame sex farces by today's standards, were regularly restricted to audiences 18 years and older in her native France.
Photo: Sam Levin
Bardot's natural charisma drew her roles with some of her age's most influential filmmakers, including Jean-Luc Godard and Louis Malle. Here, she is on the set of Malle's A Very Private Affair.
Photo: Paris Match/François Pages
Bardot is credited with changing her day's definition of sexy--instead of buxom, over-endowed sophisticates, now the vogue was for lithe, youthful feline women.
Photo: Sam Levin
A tireless supporter of animal rights since girlhood, Bardot has saved donkeys, calves, dogs, cats, turkeys and hens from film sets and adopted them. In 1986, she began a foundation that has become France's leading NGO for animal protection.
Photo: Jacques Héripret
Bardot's tousled hair and pouty chic have inspired the style of generations of glamour girls such as Kate Moss.
Photo: Sam Levin
In 1970, Charles de Gaulle immortalized Bardot as the first living person to be the model for Marianne, the female symbol of France. Though successive women such as Catherine Deneuve have posed as Marianne, Bardot's bust in the role still holds a place of honor in the Saint-Tropez city hall.
Photo: Sam Levin
