60 Fun Facts About Brigitte Bardot

Brigitte Bardot was born in 1934 in which city?

Paris: she grew up in the wealthy 16th arrondissement in a strict, devoutly Catholic family, then became the star whose films were denounced as immoral.

Which painter welcomed Bardot to his Riviera studio in 1956?

Pablo Picasso posed for photographs with her but never painted her; the blonde in his portraits of those years was a lookalike, his model Sylvette David.

Which art form did the young Bardot study at France's national conservatoire before modelling took over?

Ballet: years of classes, some alongside the future film star Leslie Caron, gave her the dancer's poise and gait that later fascinated cinema audiences.

At 15, Bardot appeared on the cover of which magazine, which led directly to her first film offer?

Elle's cover won her an audition with director Marc Allégret; no part came of it, but there she met his assistant Roger Vadim, her future husband.

Which motorcycle maker shares its name with a 1967 Bardot hit single?

Harley-Davidson: the song gained extra notoriety from a TV clip in which Bardot, dressed in leather, sang it while straddling one of the firm's bikes.

Bardot's second film, Manina (1952), is credited with popularising which garment?

The bikini was still widely thought immodest when the 17-year-old wore one on screen; by its 1958 US release the film had been retitled Manina, the Girl in the Bikini.

Why did Bardot first dye her hair blonde?

A film role: the director of the Italian comedy Nero's Weekend wanted a blonde, so she dyed her hair instead of wearing a wig, liked the result and kept it.

Which singer's 2023 song "Lacy" calls its subject a reincarnation of Bardot?

Olivia Rodrigo began "Lacy" as a poem for a university class about envying another woman's beauty, then turned it into a track on her album Guts.

And God Created Woman was banned in several cities of which country, yet broke its foreign-language box-office record?

United States: Philadelphia officials had prints seized from cinemas, yet the film went on to out-earn every foreign-language release America had seen before it.

And God Created Woman is set in which Riviera town, later Bardot's home for decades?

Saint-Tropez, long a haunt of painters such as Signac and Matisse, became an international jet-set resort after the film's success and Bardot's move there.

Which Danish model became Vadim's second wife after his divorce from Bardot?

Annette Stroyberg gave birth to Vadim's daughter the day after his divorce from Bardot became final, married him in 1958 and starred in his Les Liaisons dangereuses.

Bardot's affair with which And God Created Woman co-star ended her first marriage?

Jean-Louis Trintignant was married too, to actress Stéphane Audran; he and Bardot lived together for about two years, a romance strained by his long absences on military service.

Which 1959 hit comedy was the first film since her stardom in which Bardot kept all her clothes on?

Babette Goes to War: its producer kept her clothed because, he said, everything there was to show had been shown, and the comedy still became one of France's big hits of 1959.

Bardot won Italy's David di Donatello award for which 1960 courtroom drama?

The Truth cast her as Dominique Marceau, on trial for shooting her lover; director Henri-Georges Clouzot bullied his cast and once gave her sleeping pills, telling her they were aspirin.

Godard's Contempt (1963), starring Bardot, was based on a novel by which Italian writer?

Alberto Moravia's novel Il disprezzo was Godard's choice; he first pictured Kim Novak and Frank Sinatra in the leads, and Bardot was cast only after they turned it down.

Which legendary director appears as himself in Contempt, filming an adaptation of the Odyssey?

Fritz Lang, the director of Metropolis, plays himself with Godard on screen as his assistant director, while Jack Palance's crass American producer meddles with the film.

Which Italian star played opposite Bardot in the 1971 Western comedy The Legend of Frenchie King?

Claudia Cardinale's Marie brawls with Bardot's outlaw Louise before the two join forces against the town's men; it was a third Western for each star.

In Viva Maria! (1965), Bardot and her co-star play showgirls turned revolutionaries who accidentally invent what?

Striptease is born when a skirt rips mid-song and the crowd roars, so the two Marias build the accident into their act before taking up arms in a revolution.

Which French star played the other Maria opposite Bardot in Viva Maria! (1965)?

Jeanne Moreau and Bardot were both nominated for the BAFTA for Best Foreign Actress for the film, and it was Moreau who took the award home.

Which American actor starred as the professor in Dear Brigitte (1965), in which Bardot plays herself?

James Stewart's professor has a maths-prodigy son who writes love letters to Bardot; she appears only briefly, when the boy flies to France to meet her and leaves with a puppy.

Bardot starred opposite which James Bond actor in the 1968 Western Shalako?

Sean Connery played the ex-cavalryman who rescues Bardot's French countess from an Apache attack, in a Western shot not in America but in the deserts of southern Spain.

Which French writer's essay 'The Lolita Syndrome' called Bardot a 'locomotive of women's history'?

Simone de Beauvoir argued that by scorning make-up and high heels Bardot asserted herself as the equal of men, which was exactly what made her seem dangerous.

Charles de Gaulle famously compared Bardot's importance as a French export to which company's products?

Renault cars were the yardstick: her films sold so well abroad that she was said to bring France as much foreign currency as the state-owned carmaker.

Bardot became the first celebrity to lend her features to which French national symbol?

The bust of Marianne in town halls had always worn an anonymous face; sculptor Aslan's Bardot version began a tradition of star models that later included Catherine Deneuve.

Which seaside house, bought in 1958, was Bardot's home until her death?

La Madrague was so besieged by fans and paparazzi that Bardot won special permission to extend its walls down to the water's edge, creating a small private beach.

Bardot's pink 1959 wedding dress set off a craze for which fabric?

Gingham: she married in a pink checked cotton dress by Jacques Esterel instead of a white gown, and the look was at once copied by countless women.

Bardot's third husband, married in 1966, was a millionaire from which country?

Germany: Gunter Sachs, an heir to the Opel car fortune, wooed her by having a helicopter shower roses over her home, and they married within weeks of meeting.

In which country did Bardot marry her fourth husband?

Norway: the couple were about to visit her son Nicolas, who lived near Oslo, when she suggested marrying while they were there; they wed in a small wooden church.

Bardot's only child, Nicolas, was born in January 1960 from her marriage to which actor?

Jacques Charrier won sole custody of Nicolas after the 1962 divorce, and in 1997 father and son successfully sued Bardot over hurtful remarks in her memoir.

Who wrote 'Je t'aime... moi non plus' for Bardot in 1967 at her demand for 'the most beautiful love song'?

Serge Gainsbourg wrote it and 'Bonnie and Clyde' in a single night, as the apology she demanded after he lost his nerve on their first date.

Whose objection got the original 1967 Bardot recording of 'Je t'aime... moi non plus' withdrawn?

Her husband Gunter Sachs was furious when news of the steamy session reached the press, so she begged the songwriter to shelve it; the tape stayed unreleased until 1986.

Bardot's belatedly released 'Je t'aime... moi non plus' became a surprise hit in which format in 2006?

Digital download: shelved in 1967 and unreleased until 1986, her version became the third most popular track when Universal put 3,000 deleted recordings online.

Bardot's song 'Le Soleil de ma vie' is a French cover of a hit by which American artist?

Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life' became her 1973 duet with Sacha Distel, the singer she had dated fifteen years earlier, in the year she left show business.

Which Italian star played Bardot's lover in A Very Private Affair (1962), a drama modelled on her own life?

Marcello Mastroianni played the editor who shelters a film star hounded by fans and paparazzi, a plot that mirrored Bardot's own unease with fame.

Which English actress played one of Bardot's lovers in the 1973 film Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman?

Jane Birkin, who had re-recorded the love duet Bardot shelved in 1967, plays Clara, one of the conquests of Bardot's female Don Juan; it was Bardot's last film but one.

Bardot marked her 40th birthday in 1974 with a nude photo shoot for which magazine?

Playboy's shoot came a year after she quit films at 39; she later said she had grown sick of acting and was glad she stopped when she did.

Bardot travelled to Canada's ice floes in 1977 to protest against the slaughter of which animals?

Seal pups: pictures of her lying on the ice beside a white-coated pup went round the world, in the same year France banned imports of seal skins.

Bardot met which environmental activist, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, in 1977?

Paul Watson and Bardot stayed allies for five decades: his group named a ship after her in 2011, and in 2024 she lobbied France to grant him asylum from extradition to Japan.

In 2001 Bardot struck a deal with the mayor of which European capital to sterilise its stray dogs instead of killing them?

Bucharest's mayor had wanted the city's strays exterminated; Bardot's money for sterilisation and adoption won his promise to put down only dangerous, old or dying dogs.

How did Bardot raise the initial funds for her animal foundation?

Auctioning her jewels and belongings meant parting with the dress from her first wedding and gems from all her marriages; the proceeds launched the foundation.

Which spiritual leader became an honorary member of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation in 1995?

The Dalai Lama joined three years after the foundation won public-utility status, which Bardot had secured by donating her own seaside home to boost its capital.

France gave Bardot which decoration in 1985?

The Legion of Honour was hers on paper, but she never went to collect it, saying she dedicated it to the animals that suffer; that put her among refuseniks such as Sartre and Camus.

Bardot was repeatedly fined for inciting racial hatred, largely over remarks about which group?

Muslims in France were her target in a string of open letters and books attacking the ritual slaughter of sheep; her fifth conviction, in 2008, brought a €15,000 fine.

Which garment is known in the fashion world by Bardot's surname?

A wide, shoulder-baring top is still sold as a 'Bardot' neckline: she wore the off-the-shoulder cut so often in her heyday that the fashion trade gave it her name.

Which Beatle finally met Bardot in 1968, having taken LSD beforehand out of nerves?

John Lennon had pinned a giant poster of her to his bedroom ceiling in his youth, but the meeting fell flat; he recalled, 'I was on acid, and she was on her way out.'

Which musician's debut album liner notes say he dedicated the first song he ever wrote to Bardot?

Bob Dylan didn't stop at that teenage tribute: on his second album, in 'I Shall Be Free', he tells President Kennedy that what the country needs is Brigitte Bardot.

Which artist made a series of Bardot portraits in 1974?

Andy Warhol made eight of them on commission from her ex-husband, who, the story goes, tore a Richard Avedon picture of her out of a magazine and posted it to him.

Which Billy Joel hit name-checks Bardot?

We Didn't Start the Fire files her under 1956, the year of And God Created Woman; Joel wrote it after a 21-year-old told him nothing had happened in the fifties.

After Bardot and her sister broke a vase, their father made them address their parents how?

With the formal 'vous', the pronoun kept for strangers: after whipping both girls, their father treated them as outsiders, and she traced her rebellious streak to that day.

Which British star played the ship's doctor who romances Bardot in Doctor at Sea (1955), her first big English-language role?

Dirk Bogarde's young doctor falls for her nightclub singer in a comedy that was Britain's third-biggest film of 1955, so British audiences knew her before And God Created Woman.

Which Brazilian resort town did Bardot help popularise after a 1964 visit with Bob Zagury?

Armação dos Búzios was a small village until her 1964 stay made it known around the world; its seafront walk was named the Orla Bardot and given a bronze statue of her.

Which shoemaker created the Cendrillon flat for Bardot, who wore it in And God Created Woman?

Repetto, until then a small specialist workshop, made the Cendrillon for Bardot in 1956, and the shoe's appearance in the film brought the firm its fame.

The French nicknamed which Bardot trademark 'the sauerkraut'?

Her hairstyle: 'choucroute', French for sauerkraut, was the nickname of her piled-up, back-combed take on the beehive, which was widely copied.

Bardot's third wedding, on Bastille Day 1966, took place in which American city?

Las Vegas hosted the wedding barely two months after the couple met; after a Tahiti honeymoon they kept separate homes and divorced three years later.

Bardot's fourth husband, Bernard d'Ormale, had been an adviser to which French politician?

Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front itself announced the marriage, two months after it had quietly taken place; Bardot later backed his daughter Marine's runs for the presidency.

Which illness did Bardot beat in the mid-1980s after refusing chemotherapy and choosing radiotherapy alone?

Breast cancer struck when she was 49. She said she turned down 'that dreadful chemo' so as not to lose her hair, and she kept the illness secret until it was behind her.

Which pop singer adopted Bardot's 'sex kitten look' on the cover of her 2003 album Body Language?

Kylie Minogue wore tousled blonde hair and smoky eyes on the sleeve, and told reporters that the Bardot era was a fabulous mix of coquette and rock and roll.

Who played Bardot in Joann Sfar's 2010 biopic of a French singer-songwriter?

Laetitia Casta, the model, played her for comic-book artist Joann Sfar, whose first film is a fantasy in which a poster caricature comes to life and becomes the long-nosed double shadowing its hero.

A French court fined Bardot €20,000 in 2021 for insulting the inhabitants of which overseas territory?

Réunion: her open letter to the island's prefect about cruelty to animals said the locals had 'kept the genes of savages', and the overseas minister wrote back that racism is not an opinion but a crime.

In a 2025 BFMTV interview, her first in 11 years, Bardot said which movement "isn't my thing"?

Feminism: 'I like guys,' the 90-year-old added, and she went on to defend film stars accused of groping, saying they should at least be allowed to carry on living.