Brigitte Bardot Trivia: 35 interesting facts about the french actress!

Brigitte Bardot is a French actress, singer and fashion model. Let’s see some amazing fact and trivia for one of the best known sex symbols!

1.Her full name is Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot.

2.She was born 28 September 1934).

3. Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris, the daughter of Louis Bardot (1896–1975) and Anne-Marie “Toty” Bardot (née Mucel; 1912–1978).

4. Louis had an engineering degree and worked with his father, Charles Bardot, in the family business. Louis and Anne-Marie married in 1933. Bardot grew up in an upper middle-class Roman Catholic observant home.

5. When she was seven she was admitted to the Cours Hattemer, a private school. She went to school three days a week, and otherwise studied at home. This gave time for lessons at Madame Bourget’s dance studio three days a week.

6. Brigitte’s mother also enrolled Brigitte’s younger sister, Marie-Jeanne (born 5 May 1938), in dance. Marie-Jeanne eventually gave up dancing lessons and did not tell her mother, whereas Brigitte concentrated on ballet.

7. In 1947, Bardot was accepted to the Conservatoire de Paris. For three years she attended ballet classes by Russian choreographer Boris Knyazev.

8.One of her classmates was Leslie Caron. The other ballerinas nicknamed Bardot “Bichette” (“Little Doe”).

9. At the invitation of an acquaintance of her mother, she modelled in a fashion show in 1949. In the same year, she modelled for a fashion magazine “Jardin des Modes” managed by journalist Hélène Lazareff.

10. Aged 15, she appeared on an 8 March 1950 cover of Elle]and was noticed by a young film director, Roger Vadim, while babysitting.

11. 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.

12. Although Bardot got the role, the film was cancelled but made her consider becoming an actress. Her acquaintance with Vadim, who attended the audition, influenced her further life and career.

13. 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 enjoy.

14. She debuted in a 1952 comedy film, Le Trou Normand (English title: Crazy for Love). From 1952 to 1956, she appeared in seventeen films; in 1953 she played a role in Jean Anouilh’s stageplay L’Invitation au Château (Invitation to the Castle).

15. She received media attention when she attended the Cannes Film Festival in April 1953.

16. Director (and then soon-to-be ex-husband) Roger Vadim showcased her in And God Created Woman (1956) opposite Jean-Louis Trintignant. The film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a huge success and turned Bardot into an international star.

17. In 1958 the moniker “sex kitten” was invented for her.

18. On 21 December 1952, aged 18, Bardot married director Roger Vadim. They divorced in 1957 after less than five years of marriage; they had no children together but remained in touch, and even collaborated in later projects. The stated reason for the divorce was Bardot’s affair with two other men

19. In early 1958, after her divorce from Vadim followed in quick order by her break-up with Trintignant, Bardot suffered a reported nervous breakdown in Italy, according to newspaper reports. A suicide attempt with sleeping pills two days earlier was also noted, but was denied by her public relations manager.

20. She recovered within weeks, began an affair with the actor Jacques Charrier, and became pregnant well before they were married on 18 June 1959.

21. Bardot’s only child, her son Nicolas-Jacques Charrier, was born 11 January 1960. After she and Charrier divorced in 1962, Nicolas was raised in the Charrier family and had little contact with his biological mother until his adulthood

22. In 1973, before her 39th birthday, Bardot announced her retirement. After appearing in more than forty motion pictures and recording several music albums, most notably with Serge Gainsbourg, she used her fame to promote animal rights.

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

24. Her husband Bernard d’Ormale is a former adviser of the Front National, the main far right party in France, known for its nationalist and conservative beliefs

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

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

27. Bardot popularized the bikini in her early films such as Manina (1952)

28. A modelling pose shot around 1960 where Bardot is dressed only in a pair of black pantyhose and cross-legged over her front and cross-armed over her breasts known as the Bardot pose, is an iconic one and has been emulated numerous times by models and celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, Elle Macpherson and Monica Bellucci, among others

29. Brigitte Bardot was idolized by the young John Lennon and Paul McCartney

30. They made plans to shoot a film featuring The Beatles and Bardot, similar to A Hard Day’s Night, but the plans were never fulfilled.

31. 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.

32. Lennon and Bardot met in person once, in 1968 at the Mayfair Hotel, introduced by Beatles press agent Derek Taylor; a nervous Lennon took LSD before arriving, and neither star impressed the other. (Lennon recalled in a memoir, “I was on acid, and she was on her way out.”)

33. According to the liner notes of his first (self-titled) album, musician Bob Dylan dedicated the first song he ever wrote to Bardot.

34. He also mentioned her by name in “I Shall Be Free”, which appeared on his second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

35. The first-ever official exhibition spotlighting Bardot’s influence and legacy opened in Paris on 29 September 2009 – a day after her 75th birthday