Brigitte Bardot

I was saddened by the passing of Brigitte Bardot and thought it inaccurate to dismiss her as a talentlrss bimbo and later eccentric recluse. She was a fine dancer training in the same ballet class as Leslie Caron ( not many people know that). Both Joan Crawford and Rits Hayworth were excellent dancers but only really recognised for their screen beauty. In her breakthrough film ‘And God  Created Woman’   BB dances a superb sequence to a calypso band her footwork rivalling Lionel Messi. With the right script , cast and director she could deliver a fine performance as in Jean Luc Godard’s le Mépris where she was cast alongside Jack Palance and Michel Piccoli playing ghe wife of a scriptwriter on à Fritz Lang film set in Capri.

 

Her later life as an animal lover possibly the result of 3 bad marriages and unease with her own popularity was eccentric but her views even if you didn’t agree with them  were trenchantly and sincerely held. Tbat generation of European actresses did not do Hollywood. Bardot never made a film  there  and Claudia Cardinale and Gina Lollabrigida were not comfortable either in that milieu

She was more than à sex kitten and sex symbol. She was that very precious thing a free spirit