Бриджит Бардо и скандал, прославивший Сен-Тропе

“The most beautiful woman in the world” may have chosen to leave the limelight in 1973, at the peak of her fame and beauty, to dedicate her life to animals, yet Brigitte Bardot has never ceased to be an iconic figure on the французская Ривьера.

В отличие от других экранных богинь того времени, таких как Джина Лоллобриджида и Софи Лорен, Брижит Бардо не была девушкой из рабочего класса. Она происходила из очень буржуазной, набожной католической семьи, проживая в семикомнатной квартире в шикарном 16-м округе Парижа, недалеко от Эйфелевой башни.

Having studied ballet for three years from the age of 13 at the Paris Conservatory (her fellow dance mate, Leslie Caron, would later be picked up by Gene Kelly to star alongside him in the Technicolor masterpiece An American in Paris), she developed the elegant poise and gait which would soon fascinate the world.

In March 1950, at age 15, Brigitte Bardot appeared on the cover of Elle magazine, and the Earth’s axis shifted. Here was the epitome of grace and style. She was demure, she was a Catholic, she was all curves, and yet her body was toned and strong; an athlete’s build sculpted by intense sessions of entrechats. Она носила хлопковые платья без корсета, без сложной подкладки и бикини с яркими узорами.

With Франсуаза Саган, who penned the bestseller Бонжур Тристесс at 18, she shared an impudent smile, an intelligent gaze and barefoot summers in Сен-Тропе. They were France’s bright prodigies. After Bardot’s early “retirement” from cinema, Sagan wrote a book about her in 1975, both a celebration and a eulogy: “Bardot didn’t apologize for her absolute triumph whereas so many others apologized for their half-victories.”

The innocent jeune fille grew, in just a few years, into a sex symbol. In 1957, age 23, she made cinematic history in И Бог создал женщину, основополагающий фильм ее мужа Роже Вадима, где ее взрывная чувственность так же грациозна, как и всегда, и никогда не похотлива. В знаменитой сцене она танцует, как в трансе, босиком, ее кожа блестит от пота, ее тело подтянуто и загорело, а ее волосы дикие и распущенные.

She was so far from the neat and constructed image of Hollywood stars of the time that, when the film was released in America, it provoked outrage on a continental scale. When they saw those pearls of sweat, American men went wild. Movie managers daring to show such a film were prosecuted, the film was banned in some states and newspaper articles denounced the depravity of it all. As a result, the film proved an even greater box-office success and the furore traveled back to Europe.

«Запретить Бардо!» — ратовали лиги морали, как будто она была каким-то запрещенным наркотиком. Привлекательность Бардо, по сути, не похожа ни на какую другую. Благодаря своей великой красоте, сочетанию ненасытной чувственности и великолепного стиля, она также очаровала по крайней мере два поколения своим образом жизни. Ведь Бардо вела себя в личной жизни так же, как мужчина. У нее не было никаких ограничений; она чувствовала себя чуждой условностям. Она не была ни женой, ни матерью. Она пробовала и то, и другое, была замужем четыре раза и родила ребенка, и решила, что она не создана для этого.

She was not acting out any kind of rebellion, she was just being herself. In the 50s, 15 years before les événements of May 1968, such behavior was both a scandal and a secret aspiration for many other women. In a study of Bardot published in 1959, the other French woman who lived her life outside bourgeois conventions, Simone de Beauvoir, had recognized in Bardot “absolute freedom”. Her lifestyle, for many admirers, amounted to a philosophical manifesto.

John Lennon, mad about the girl, had a giant poster of Bardot pinned on the ceiling of his bedroom. Gainsbourg wrote her a song after they broke up in 1968 called Initials BB in which he sings: “All the way to her thighs, she is booted, and it’s like a chalice to her beauty; she wears nothing other than some essence of Guerlain in her hair.”

Сериальный биограф Мари-Доминик Лельевр говорит, что из всех звезд, на которых она обращала внимание, от Ива Сен-Лорана и Коко Шанель до Сержа Генсбура и Франсуазы Саган, Бардо — самая сложная личность, с которой ей приходилось сталкиваться, а ее известность служила для нее лишь дымовой завесой.

“She is the first woman to have publicly displayed her sexual freedom,” said Lelièvre. “Before Bardot, a woman who changed lover at the slightest whim was called a bitch, a salope. After Bardot, such a woman was simply seen as libérée. Unlike Hollywood actresses who played by the rules, Bardot set her own. She attracted women who wanted to do like her, and men who simply wanted her.”

Sadly, Brigitte Bardot has had a tumultuous personal life of failed marriages, depression, and suicide attempts. She hated the limelight and, after being mobbed by fans whenever shopping in a St Tropez, she stepped back from the public eye at the height of her career, no longer wanting to be famous. Despite that, Bardot is still an icon today.

У ее родителей был дом в Сен-Тропе, а в 1958 году Брижит Бардо купила поместье, примыкающее к ферме, где она живет и по сей день: Мадраг. С тех пор она стала относительно затворницей, выходя только для того, чтобы выступить за права животных.

Although she still lives here, Bardot is rarely spotted in Saint Tropez these days, but many celebrities have taken her place, enjoying wild, champagne-spraying parties and sunbathing on the beach where a young Brigitte Bardot once posed for the cameras and changed the Riviera forever.