Brigitte Bardot

As of 2017 Brigitte, 83, and husband Bernard d'Ormale, 76, both still smoke.

Threatens to sue St. Tropez boutique selling items with her face on them. [June 2015]

Ranked #75 in Men's Health 100 Hottest Women of all Time. [2011]

Recorded a special audio performance for the classic "Velveteen Rabbit", produced by Pierre Patrick for Connecticut Family Theatre. [2007]

Was charged with inciting racial hatred in her best-selling book "Un cri dans le silence" ("A cry in silence"), expressing worries about the "infiltration" of France by Islamic extremists. She could have faced a maximum prison term of one year, but was finally fined EUR 5,000. [2004]

Ranked #49 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]

Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#9). [1995]

In 1994, scandalized by Sophia Loren's posing in furs in several printed ads for the Italian fur tailor company Annabella, Bardot published an open letter to Loren, in which she accused her of selling her name and her image "to the most despicable of all advertising: promotion of furs". It is, said Bardot, "degrading, repugnant, lamentable and unworthy to accept money stained with the blood of animals". Added France's leading animal-rights campaigner, Loren should boycott "this abominable trade" and "never forget that wearing a fur is wearing a cemetery on your back". On holiday at the time, Loren did not respond.

She is one of the five surviving people mentioned by name in Billy Joel's 1989 song "We Didn't Start the Fire". The other four are Queen Elizabeth II, Chubby Checker, Bob Dylan and Bernard Goetz.

She has two granddaughters from her estranged son Nicolas' marriage to Anne-Line Bjerkan (daughter of a Norwegian diplomat): Anna (born 1985) and Thea (born 1990). As of 2009, Brigitte hasn't seen her son in over a decade and has no contact with her granddaughters; the only time she's ever met them was in 1992 during a family get-together arranged by her husband, Bernard d'Ormale. Brigitte became a great-grandmother in February 2014, when Anna gave birth to a girl.

Took a handful of tranquilizers, washed them down with red wine and then wandered out to the Les Canoubiers beach, where she was later pulled from the surf. She was rushed to the nearby L'Oasis clinic, where her stomach was pumped before she was released that evening. [September 1983]

Parodied by Kate McKinnon on Saturday Night Live (1975).

Just before she turned 40, Brigitte retired from movies after filming The Edifying and Joyous Story of Colinot (1973). She prefers life outside of stardom. While it enabled her to become internationally famous, it also carried with it annoyances. It was not anything for her to have "fans" enter her house or wander around the grounds of her home in the hopes of getting a glimpse of her or to take something that belonged to her. Paparazzi constantly hounded her with their cameras. She has been so soft-hearted that some people even have taken advantage of her generosity. After her life in the spotlight, Brigitte went on to become a leading spokesperson for animal rights and started the "Foundation Brigitte Bardot" dedicated solely to that cause. Her work in that realm is, perhaps, far greater than any film she could have made.

Was Marianne de France, the bust of the most beautiful woman of a decade and she is also the symbol of liberty and the Republic, from 1969 to 1978.

Her January 1968 single "Bonnie and Clyde" with Serge Gainsbourg made a bit of a comeback after being featured in Rush Hour 3 (2007) and Mad Men (2007).

In 1967, Serge Gainsbourg wrote for and recorded with her his most noted song "Je t'aime...moi non plus", but she pleaded him not to release their recording, so her vocals were replaced by Jane Birkin one year later.

In 1965, she appeared as herself in the American-made Dear Brigitte (1965) with James Stewart (she only appeared in one scene).

Sister of Mijanou Bardot. Mijanou has been married to Patrick Bauchau since 1962 and has one daughter, Camille.

On the set of Please, Not Now! (1961), directed by her ex-husband Roger Vadim, she met his new girlfriend, Catherine Deneuve. About Deneuve she said, " . . . behind Vadim lingered a 17-year-old brunette who dressed like me [and] had her hair made like me. Her name was Catherine Deneuve. She had a certain air of a namby-pamby, that was back then unbearable." One night while filming on high mountains the crew got blocked so everybody slept in one room. Among the crew were Bardot, Vadim, Mireille Darc and Deneuve.

Mother of Nicolas-Jacques Charrier (born January 11, 1960), who was raised by his father's family and did not have contact with Bardot until his adulthood. In 1997, Nicolas successfully sued Brigitte over descriptions she included in her memoirs, in which she referred to her son as a "tumor" and said she would have "preferred to give birth to a little dog." (She also revealed that, in an attempt to abort the child, she repeatedly punched herself in the stomach and asked her doctor for morphine.) Nicolas and Jacques Charrier claimed the book's graphic details of marital discord and child-rejection constituted a violation of their privacy - a civil offense in France. A French court ordered Bardot to pay EUR17,000 in damages.

Resided with Jean-Louis Trintignant from 1956 to 1958, Bob Zagury from 1963 to 1965, Patrick Gilles from 1968 to 1971, Jean Blaise from 1975 to 1979, and Allain Bougrain-Dubourg from 1980 to 1985.

Capitalizing on her success in French films, Brigitte made her first American production in Act of Love (1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France. Brigitte's explosive sexuality took the United States by storm, and the effect she had on millions of American men who had not seen a woman like her in a long, long time--if ever--was electric. Rise to the phrase "sex kitten" and fascination of her in the United States consisted of magazines photographs and dubbed over French films--good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences--mainly men--into theaters like lemmings.

In 1952, she appeared on screen for the first time as Javotte Lemoine in Crazy for Love (1952). Two more films followed and it was also the same year she married Roger Vadim (the union lasted 3½ years).

Has attempted suicide at least six times since 1950. Her most recent reported suicide attempt was in 1992.

Brigitte Bardot was born on September 28, 1934 in Paris, France. Her father had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance, and she proved to be very adept at it. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying a modeling career, and found herself in the French magazine "Elle". Her incredible beauty readily apparent, Brigitte next tried films.

Born to Louis Bardot (1896-1975), nicknamed Pilou, who graduated from an engineering school to go into the family business, which manufactured liquid air and acetylene, and Ann-Marie Mucel (1912-1978), nicknamed Toty. Toty had studied theatre and dance as a young lady, while Pilou wrote poetry in his notebook and published several volumes.