Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer in early life.

She was the subject of Simone de Beauvoir's 1959 essay, The Lolita Syndrome, which described Bardot as a " locomotive of women's history " and built upon existentialist themes to declare her the first and most liberated woman of post-war France.

Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris to Anne-Marie ' Toty ' Mucel ( 1912 – 1978 ) and Louis ' Pilou ' Bardot ( 1896 – 1975 ).

In 1947, Bardot was accepted to the Conservatoire de Paris, and for three years she attended the ballet classes of Russian choreographer Boris Knyazev.

( One of her classmates was Leslie Caron ; fellow ballerinas nicknamed Bardot: Bichette Doe ).

Although Bardot got the role, the film was cancelled, but it made her consider becoming an actress.

Although the European film industry was then in its ascendancy, Bardot was one of the few European actresses to have the mass media's attention in the United States, an interest which she did not reciprocate by rarely, if ever, going to Hollywood.

The New Wave of French and Italian art directors and their stars were riding high internationally, and he felt Bardot was being undersold.

Bardot was awarded a David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign actress for the role.

Bardot was featured in many other films along with notable actors such as Alain Delon ( Famous Love Affairs ; Spirits of the Dead ); Jean Gabin ( In Case of Adversity ); Sean Connery ( Shalako ); Jean Marais ( Royal Affairs in Versailles ; School for Love ); Lino Ventura ( Rum Runners ); Annie Girardot ( The Novices ); Claudia Cardinale ( The Legend of Frenchie King ); Jeanne Moreau ( Viva Maria!

In 1973, Bardot announced that she was retiring from acting as " a way to get out elegantly ".

The version with Bardot was issued in 1986 and became a popular download hit in 2006 when Universal Records made its back catalogue available to purchase online, with this version of the song ranking as the third most popular download.

Brigitte Bardot and Sami Frey in Saint-Tropez, 1963. On 21 December 1952, aged 18, Bardot was married to director Roger Vadim.

The 9 February 1958 edition of the Los Angeles Times reported on the front page that Bardot was recovering in Italy from a reported nervous breakdown.

After she and Charrier divorced in 1962, Nicolas was raised in the Charrier family and did not maintain close contact with Bardot until his adulthood.

" Bardot's book was also against miscegenation ; made attacks on modern art, which Bardot equated with " shit "; drew similarities between French politicians and weather vanes ; and compared her own beliefs with previous generations who had " given their lives to push out invaders ".

On 10 June 2004, Bardot was again convicted by a French court for " inciting racial hatred " and fined € 5, 000, the fourth such conviction and fine from a French court.

In 2008, Bardot was convicted of inciting racial / religious hatred in relation to a letter she wrote, a copy of which she sent to Nicolas Sarkozy when he was Interior Minister of France.

The prosecutor stated that she was tired of charging Bardot with offences related to racial hatred.

Bardot was idolized by young John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

Bardot performed at the 2000 ARIA Awards at which they were nominated in three categories.

He showed an issue of the magazine to director and screenwriter Marc Allégret who offered Bardot the opportunity to audition for " Les lauriers sont coupés " thereafter.

In the 1970s, Bardot lived with sculptor Miroslav Brozek and posed for some of his sculptures.

In 1986, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals.

In August 2010, Bardot addressed a letter to the Queen of Denmark, Margrethe II of Denmark, appealing for the sovereign to halt the killing of dolphins in the Faroe Islands.

In the letter, Bardot describes the activity as a " macabre spectacle " that " is a shame for Denmark and the Faroe Islands ...

Bardot expressed support for President Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s.

In her 2003 book, Un cri dans le silence (" A Scream in the Silence "), she warned of an “ Islamicization of France ”, and said of Muslim immigration: In May 2003 the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples ( MRAP ) announced they would sue Bardot for the comments.

Bardot popularized this style which is especially used for knitted sweaters or jumpers although it is also used for other tops and dresses.

Bardot is recognized for popularizing bikini swimwear in early films such as Manina ( Woman without a Veil, 1952 ), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots.

In 1970, sculptor Alain Gourdon used Bardot as the model for a bust of Marianne, the French national emblem.

During the 1950s, Bogarde came to prominence playing a hoodlum who shoots and kills a police constable in The Blue Lamp ( 1950 ) co-starring Jack Warner and Bernard Lee ; a handsome artist who comes to rescue of Jean Simmons during the World's Fair in Paris in So Long at the Fair, a film noir thriller ; an accidental murderer who befriends a young boy played by Jon Whiteley in Hunted ( aka The Stranger in Between ) ( 1952 ); in Appointment in London ( 1953 ) as a young Wing-Commander in Bomber Command who, against orders, opts to fly his 90th mission with his men in a major air offensive against the Germans ; an unjustly imprisoned man who regains hope in clearing his name when he learns his sweetheart, Mai Zetterling, is still alive in Desperate Moment ( 1953 ); Doctor in the House ( 1954 ), as a medical student, in a film that made Bogarde one of the most popular British stars of the 1950s, and co-starring Kenneth More, Donald Sinden and James Robertson Justice as their crabby mentor ; The Sleeping Tiger ( 1954 ), playing a neurotic criminal with co-star Alexis Smith, and Bogarde's first film for American expatriate director Joseph Losey ; Doctor at Sea ( 1955 ), co-starring Brigitte Bardot in one of her first film roles ; as a returning Colonial who fights the Mau-Mau with Virginia McKenna and Donald Sinden in Simba ( 1955 ); Cast a Dark Shadow ( 1955 ), as a man who marries women for money and then murders them ; The Spanish Gardener ( 1956 ), co-starring Michael Hordern, Jon Whiteley, and Cyril Cusack ; Doctor at Large ( 1957 ), again with Donald Sinden, another entry in the " Doctor films series ", co-starring later Bond-girl Shirley Eaton ; the Powell and Pressburger production Ill Met by Moonlight ( 1957 ) co-starring Marius Goring as the German General Kreipe, kidnapped on Crete by Patrick " Paddy " Leigh Fermor ( Bogarde ) and a fellow band of adventurers based on W. Stanley Moss ' real-life account of the WW2 caper ; A Tale of Two Cities ( 1958 ), a faithful retelling of Charles Dickens ' classic ; as a Flt.

The oil was naved " BB " for Brigitte Bardot.

The release of the French film Et Dieu … créa la femme ( And God Created Woman ) in November 1956 was a major event for the Riviera, making an international star of Brigitte Bardot, and making an international tourist destination of Saint-Tropez, particularly for the new class of wealthy international travellers called the ' jet set.

Her interpretation of Brigitte Bardot in the movie Gainsbourg ( Vie héroïque ) revealed the actress who received her first nomination at the César Award.

During her career in show business, Bardot starred in 47 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs.

After her retirement, Bardot established herself as an animal rights activist.

British photographer Cornel Lucas made iconic images of Bardot in the 1950s and 1960s that have become representative of her public persona.

Bardot pleaded with Gainsbourg not to release this duet and he complied with her wishes ; the following year, he re-recorded a version with British-born model and actress Jane Birkin, which became a massive hit all over Europe.

Bardot had an affair with her And God Created Woman co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant ( married at the time to actress Stéphane Audran ) before her divorce from Vadim.

In 1974, Bardot appeared in a nude photo shoot in Playboy magazine, which celebrated her 40th birthday.

In 1973, before her 39th birthday, Bardot announced her retirement.

On 25 May 2011 the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society renamed its fast interceptor vessel, MV Gojira, as MV Brigitte Bardot in appreciation of her support.

In her 1999 book Le Carré de Pluton (" Pluto's Square "), Bardot criticizes the procedure used in the ritual slaughter of sheep during the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha.

In her own defence, Bardot wrote in a letter to a French gay magazine: " Apart from my husband — who maybe will cross over one day as well — I am entirely surrounded by homos.

On 13 August 2010, Bardot lashed out at director Kyle Newman regarding his plans to make a biographical film on her life.

In fashion, the Bardot neckline ( a wide open neck that exposes both shoulders ) is named after her.

Bardot also brought into fashion the choucroute (" Sauerkraut ") hairstyle ( a sort of beehive hair style ) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier.

In addition to popularizing the bikini swimming suit, Bardot has also been credited with popularizing the city of St. Tropez and the town of Armação dos Búzios in Brazil, which she visited in 1964 with her boyfriend at the time, Brazilian musician Bob Zagury.

Lennon's first wife Cynthia Powell lightened her hair color to more closely resemble Bardot, while George Harrison made comparisons between Bardot and his first wife Pattie Boyd, as Cynthia wrote later in A Twist of Lennon.