Ten minutes into Vadim's
And God Created Women,
it becomes clear. No one else could have played sex-starved Juliette better than Bardot. With sensuality oozing from every pore, and an unbridled appetite for pleasure, the young Juliette shakes up all of St. Tropez, much to the chagrin of her long suffering husband. Not surprisingly, Bardot would become an overnight sensation and the very definition of the South of France.
Poster pin-up beauty aside, she was also known for having caught the attention of French intellectuals, not excluding Simone de Beauvoir who made her the subject of the 1959 essay, "The Lolita Syndrome", in which she described Bardot as the "Locomotive of Women's History". She went on to pronounce her the first and most liberated woman of post-war France.
Today, Bardot continues making waves as a staunch animal welfare activist and outspoken critic on several pertinent issues. She has gone as far as to call vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin, "stupid" and a "disgrace to women", evidently deeply troubled by Palin's stance on global warming, gun control and her indifference to the protection of polar bears...
And the following lesser-known images of BB in her heyday, courtesy of Life...
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| Cannes, 1953 |
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| Cannes |
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| Shopping in Rome |
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| A young Bardot in 1956 |
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| Bardot watches Pablo Picasso at work in 1956 (Cannes Film Festival) |
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| A scene from En Effeuillant la Marguerite. |
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| Bardot and third husband Gunter Sachs leave Maxim's restaurant in Paris in 1967. |
