Few cinema sex goddesses can lay claim to the kind of transcendent global impact made by pert Parisienne Brigitte Bardot, whose unique brand of spontaneous sensuality made her one of film’s foremost fantasy objects from the late ’50s on. Born to a successful industrialist, young Brigitte’s passion from girlhood was ballet; by the time she was 15, she was a cover girl for Elle magazine. Her image caught the eye of future husband Roger Vadim, who arranged for her first screen test. Bardot made her screen debut in 1952’s Le Trou Normand (Crazy for Love), a vehicle for the comic Bourvil.
A string of bit roles followed, and by the mid-’50s, she was headlining such sensational fare as Cette Sacrée Gamine (Naughty Girl) and En Effeuillant la Marguerite (Plucking the Daisy). It was at this point that the Vadim-helmed scorcher Et Dieu…Créa la Femme (And God…Created Woman) received worldwide distribution and made Bardot a point woman for the Sexual Revolution. Through the mid-’60s, Bardot mixed trademark vehicles with weightier fare such as En Cas de Malheur (Love Is My Profession), La Vérité (The Truth), Le Mépris (Contempt) and Viva Maria. Her vogue as a box-office draw waned by the early ’70s, however, and she turned her back on filmmaking in 1973 to devote her energies and clout to her notoriously passionate pursuit of animal rights.
As Bardot turns 90 years young Saturday, her catalog of film appearances remains as desired as ever, and here are a few that have recently resurfaced to meet fans’ constant demand:
Naughty Girl (1956): Ideal early vehicle offers Bardot as a finishing school student whose club owner dad (Bernard Lanctret) orders his star singer (Jean Bretonnière) to distract the young innocent from his surveillance by the gendarmes.
Les Femmes (1969): Fun offering finds Brigitte hired as a personal assistant to a blocked author (Maurice Ronet), who only finds himself distracted further.
Two Weeks in September (1967): Bardot puts the “Swing” in Swinging London, as a model whose staid marriage to an older spouse (Jean Rochefort) is threatened when she eyes a younger man (Laurent Terzieff).
Please, Not Now! (1961): Vadim-directed favorite farce finds Brigitte getting mad—and determined to get even—when her boyfriend (Jacques Riberolles) dumps her for a wealthy American chick (Josephine James).