EXCLUSIVE: Brigitte Bardot had 100 lovers - including women - and four husbands, but fame led to despair as she tried to end her life four times and abandoned the only child she ever had, reveals new book
- Born into a wealthy Parisian family, Brigitte Bardot was trained as a ballerina
- She was 16 when she met director Roger Vadim and they became lovers
- When her parents forbade them to marry, Bardot turned on the oven and buried her head inside
- She fell in love with And God Created Woman co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant
- ‘I’m not made to be a mother,’ Bardot confessed. ‘I’m not adult enough – I know it’s horrible to have to admit that'
- The out-spoken actress, now 80, has been fined for her racist comments against Muslims.
Serial seductress Brigitte Bardot mesmerized film audiences in the early 1950s as she transformed from sex kitten in modeling shoots to sex goddess in her films.
But her fame also ushered in deep depression, no fewer than four suicide attempts, four marriages, more than one hundred lovers -including women - and an unwanted pregnancy with a difficult birth to follow.
'In the game of love, she is as much a hunter as she is prey’, Simone de Beauvoir is quoted in the stunning, just released book, Brigitte Bardot: The Life, The Legend, The Movies by Ginette Vincendeau and published by Carlton Books.The book, which pays tribute to the star who just turned 80, also contains pull-out replicas of Bardot memorabilia,including the original movie poster for And God Created Woman.
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Troubled waters: In spite of her fame, money and wild abandon, Bardot was often depressed and tried to kill herself at least four times
Puzzled: She was ‘the most photographed woman in the world’ even before she made one film
Tiny dancer: Born into a wealthy Parisian family, her mother enrolled 'Bri' in ballet classes
Born into a wealthy Parisian family on September 28, 1934, she lived in the elegant 16th arrondissement of Paris, a stone’s throw from the Eiffel tower.
The family spent weekends at their cottage west of Paris in Louveciennes, winter holidays in the French Alps and summers at Saint-Tropez on the French Riveria.
‘Bri,’ as Brigitte was called by her parents, was quickly enrolled in ballet classes by her Mama, Marie-Jeanne, ‘Mijanou,’ as well as modeling. She was considered the perfect height at the time, 5’6”, and had no weight problems like her rivals Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor stateside and Martine Carol in France.
Bri appeared on the cover of Elle magazine in May 1949 in her first modeling assignment, dressed in a younger version of what her mother’s friends were wearing. Tailored jackets and full skirts were favored at the time, as French fashion was dominated by designer Christian Dior. Hats, bags and high heels had to match.
Four years later, in December 1952, her image as role model for the younger generation changed to flat ballet shoes, long hair in a ponytail with fringe, lipstick to accentuate her pout, and clothes to highlight her hourglass figure.
The sex kitten evolved out of these early modeling days when she met Roger Vadim, assistant to filmmaker Marc Allégret who had discovered French Cinema’s biggest stars of the 1930s.
Child bride: Bardot was 16 when she met director Roger Vadim. She turned on the oven and buried her head inside when her parents refused to let them marry but she got her way (left). They remained friends for years
Miscast: Vadim’s directorial debut in December 1956, And God Created Woman, starring his wife and Jean-Louis Trintignant on location in Saint Tropez, changed everything. Bardot began an affair with her co-star
Vadim was sent by his boss to see the sixteen-year old girl in consideration for Allégret’s next film project.
Bardot didn’t get the assignment but she and Vadim instantly fell madly in love.
‘He made on her the impression of a ‘wild wolf’’ Bardot wrote, ‘he looked at me, scared me, attracted me, I didn’t know where I was anymore’, writes the author, Ginette Vincendeau. ‘She wanted him’.
Vadim introduced Bardot to his friends in the media, to books such as Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex and to sex.
They became lovers meeting secretly and then openly against the wishes of her parents, who threatened to send their daughter away from Vadim to England.
They relented only when she tried - for the first and not the last time - to kill herself, but decreed that they could not be married until Bardot was 18.
Depressed by the thought of not seeing her lover, Bardot turned on the oven and buried her head inside to be discovered in time by her parents.
Her proper Catholic Church wedding to Vadim took place in Paris on 21 December 1952 and was the last time she appeared in a conservative outfit.
Picture perfect: But the reality was that not long after he was born she gave her then husband. Jacques Charrier custody. ‘I’m not made to be a mother,' Bardot confessed. ‘I’m not adult enough – I know it’s horrible to have to admit that, but I’m not adult enough to take care of a child’
No. 2: A liaison with singer Sacha Distrel was followed by an affair with Jacque Charrier, her co-star in Babette Goes to War. He became her second husband and the father of Nicholas
This was Bardot’s rite of passage into ‘adulthood, independence and the world of cinema’.
Working also as a photographer and journalist, Vadim knew how to use the media and got his wife’s picture into fashion and news magazines and on television.
She had a natural radiance and sexual charisma that seduced photographers in setup shots wearing a bikini on the beach. She was quickly becoming ‘the most photographed woman in the world’, before she made even one film.
Her early roles were minor and could be missed by a sneeze at the wrong moment.
I wanted a woman with spirit, with joie de vivre...a woman with a sense of adventure and sexual curiosity.
Roger Vadim
After four years in the business, Brigitte had made a dozen films that were noticed ‘for her beauty and sexiness’ while her ‘non-acting’ was viewed as false and unprofessional. But she was launched at the box office as a rising star.
Vadim’s directorial debut in December 1956, And God Created Woman, starring his wife and film star Jean-Louis Trintignant on location in Saint Tropez, changed everything.
The film was a meteoric success making the players internationally famous and marking the end of his marriage when Bardot fell in love with Trintignant.
The couple continued kissing long after the director had called cut.
Four years after their illustrious wedding at Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral, Vadim and Bardot were divorced. Both had been unfaithful.
‘I knew what was happening and rather expected it’, Vadim said. ‘I would always prefer to have that kind of wife, knowing she is unfaithful to me rather than possess a woman who just loved me and no one else’.
‘I wanted a woman with spirit, with joie de vivre…a woman with a sense of adventure and sexual curiosity’.
Class act: Brigitte had made a dozen films that were noticed ‘for her beauty and sexiness’ but her acting was viewed as false and unprofessional
Fancy free: ‘I’m not made to be a mother,' Bardot confessed. ‘I’m not adult enough – I know it’s horrible to have to admit that, but I’m not adult enough to take care of a child’
Bardot was crazy about Trintignant, who also got a divorce from his wife. They lived together for two years but the fickle sex goddess moved on to singer Gibert Bécaud, who was married.
One affair following another became a pattern in her life and she was always the first to leave a relationship. Bardot herself admitted to have more than 100 lovers - someof them women.
She attended a Royal Command Performance in London in October 1957 and was introduced to the Queen along with Marilyn Monroe, Joan Crawford and Anita Ekberg.
And God Created Woman marked a turning point in her career. She was now world famous for her taboo-breaking reputation, rich, and a celebrity on a scale never before seen.
A liaison with singer Sacha Distrel followed Bécaud, to be followed by Jacque Charrier, her co-star in Babette Goes to War. He became her second husband and the father of her child.
She did not want the pregnancy but Charrier's parents convinced her to carry the child. It was a difficult birth at home. She couldn’t leave her house and get to the hospital in time with the number of paparazzi out front.
She never bonded with her son, Nicholas, born in January 1960 and Charrier took custody of the child.
On her 26th birthday in 1960, Bardot tried to take her life again, downing a bottle of sleeping pills and slitting her wrists at her villa in Nice, France.
Film director Henri-Georges Clouzot said she did it in a fit of depression. She had snapped at a photographer the day before saying, ‘Leave me in peace. Anyway, I am going to die’.
‘I’m not made to be a mother’, Bardot confessed years later. ‘I’m not adult enough – I know it’s horrible to have to admit that, but I’m not adult enough to take care of a child’.
Cover girl: Bardot first appeared on the cover of Elle magazine in May 1949. It was her first modeling assignment. Over the years her image changed from prim and proper to flat ballet shoes, long hair in a ponytail with fringe, lipstick to accentuate her pout, and clothes to highlight her hourglass figure
‘I need someone to take care of me. I’m sad to have had that baby’.
Her private secretary, Alain Carré sold her ‘sensational’ secrets to France Dimanche in May 1960 but they weren’t as sensational as the public hoped to read.
Carre revealed that ‘Bardot managed her money like a careful bourgeois housewife, scrutinized the butcher’s bills, hated wasting food and that despite earning millions per film, she did not indulge in caviar or diamonds’.
Bardot managed her money like a careful bourgeois housewife,
That went along with her style of dress – ‘workday clothes such as seamen’s sweaters and overalls’ that became glamourous on Bardot.
‘She turned flat ballerina pumps into fashion accessories, making ballet shoe maker Repetto’s fortune; she had them design a lower-cut, more flattering shape showing the beginnings of the toes’, writes the author.
She wore jeans and a duffel coat, preferred a suede coat to mink, simple soft dresses and her long hair worn loose.
She was close to the Barbie ideal that the author suggests was inspired by Bardot and Monroe and based on a German doll, Lilli, created by Mattel.
Her fashions influenced Jane Fonda, Catherine Deneuve, Julie Christie, Faye Dunaway, Britt Ekland, Marianne Faithfull, Virna Lisi among others, writes Vincendeau.
Happy at last: Lonely and unhappy at times in her forties, wondering what to do with her future, she married her fourth husband Bernard d’Ormale in 1992. She is still married to the one-time businessman
Pet project: In 1986 Bardot established the Foundation Brigitte Bardot to take care of ‘suffering animals.' ‘I gave my youth and my beauty to men, I am now giving my wisdom and my experience, the best of myself, to animals'
Lionized by the media, it was also the media that sent Bardot into depression. She hated the hordes of press that followed her every move and mercilessly exposed her.
Despite the adulation, her film roles provoked hostility from the rich and powerful who looked down on her hedonistic lifestyle.
Her beauty reached its zenith in the 1960s and her film career would be in free fall by the end of the decade.
Affairs with co-star Mike Sarne, Warren Beatty, singers Serge Gainsbourg, Nino Ferrer, Brazilian musician Bab Zagury occurred before marrying her third husband, German millionaire playboy, Gunter Sachs in Las Vegas.
Sachs romanced her by showering her house in Saint Tropez with roses dropped from an aeroplane.
Bardot launched a singing career in the early Sixties, after singing in some of her films. Between 1962 and 1982, she recorded some seventy songs.
Bardot exited cinema in 1973 so that, ‘as she put it, the cinema would not leave her. It was very Bardot to take the initiative and move on’.
Lonely and unhappy at times in her forties, wondering what to do with her future, she married her fourth husband Bernard d’Ormale in 1992. The one-time businessman was a former adviser to the far-right Front National in 1992.
The out-spoken actress has been fined for her racist comments against Muslims.
She turned her affection to animals and in 1986, established the Foundation Brigitte Bardot to take care of ‘suffering animals’.
‘I gave my youth and my beauty to men, I am now giving my wisdom and my experience, the best of myself, to animals’! Bardot wrote in 1987.
She lives at La Madrague, a secluded and very private property in St. Tropez she has owned since 1958. She lives there with D’Ormale and the many animals she has rescued from the pound.
She has always refused to exercise, or use cosmetic surgery unlike her ‘age-defying’ contemporaries Jane Fonda and Sophia Loren.
‘In old age, Bardot again finds herself challenging dominant social norms, this time those that demand that women, and especially film stars, should deny their age as long as possible’, writes the author.
She suffers from arthritis and uses a cane but will not submit to hip replacement surgery.
‘I can no longer walk. I can no longer swim. But I’m lucky when I see how animals suffer. Suddenly, I discover that I have nothing to complain [about]’.
Brigitte Bardot: The Life, The Legend, The Movies by Ginette Vincendeau and published by Carlton Books Limited is available on Amazon October 15
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2791264/brigitte-bardot-100-lovers-including-women-four-husbands-fame-led-despair-tried-end-life-four-times-abandoned-child-reveals-new-book.html#ixzz3G9o8eV39
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