Brigitte Bardot, a disruptive figure of French cinema and a cultural icon of the 20th century, died today at the age of 91, as announced by the Fondation Brigitte Bardot in an official statement.
Born in Paris in 1934, Bardot became famous with key roles in the auteur and social cinema of the 1950s and 1960s – from Et Dieu… créa la femme to Le Mépris – embodying a free and transgressive beauty that rewrote the code of desire in world popular culture.
Starting from 1962, Brigitte Bardot also combined cinema with a musical career that was anything but ancillary, publishing singles and albums that intercepted the libertarian spirit of French song of the Sixties. The point of maximum exposure came in 1967 with the artistic and sentimental meeting with Serge Gainsbourg, who wrote some of the most emblematic songs of her repertoire for her: Bonnie and Clyde, Comic Strip and Je t'aime… moi non plus. The latter was born in a single night, together with Bonnie and Clyde, as a response to Bardot's request to have “the most beautiful love song” that Gainsbourg could conceive. Recorded in the winter of 1967 during their brief relationship, the song was broadcast only once on Europe 1, sparking an immediate scandal.
The opposition of Bardot's husband, Gunter Sachs, and the threat of legal action pushed the actress to ask Gainsbourg not to publish the song, which would only see the light in 1986 in a remixed version. A year later, Gainsbourg re-recorded it with Jane Birkin, transforming it into a global success that was as censored as it was definitive in the history of pop music.
Her path did not end behind the scenes: singer and style muse, she was also the protagonist of heated controversies for her political positions in recent decades, while consolidating her legacy with activism for the protection of animals through the foundation of the same name founded in 1986.
Bardot's health had retained media attention in recent months, with hospitalizations and concerns followed by denials of premature reports of her death.
The disappearance of BB marks the end of an aristocracy of popular myth: a presence whose memory – including cinema, music, customs and civil commitment – will continue to be the subject of critical debate and cultural re-enactments.
THE PLAYLIST
A “Brigitte Bardot” playlist cannot be a simple retro exercise: it must oscillate between the icon and the fracture, between the body-myth and the voice that slips away, between the glamor of the Nouvelle Vague and its most ambiguous shadow. Bardot is not just a face: she is a cultural device that has rewritten desire, femininity and European pop song.
