Sometimes, we wonder how many people in this world of ours remember Brigitte Bardot, who died on Sunday, for her performance. The first thing that comes to us is her life away from the camera—which was exciting to the point of being scandalous. She was sexy to the hilt, earning the name kitten. If Marilyn Monroe caused enough flutter with her skirt flying high above her knee and sleeping with two Kennedy brothers in the same period, Bardot found it hard to be satisfied with just one man. She married four times—Roger Vadim (1952 to 1957), Jacques Charrier (1959 to 1963), Gunter Sachs (1966 to 1969), and finally (!) Bernard D’ Ormale (1992 to 2025).

But to narrow down the French star’s achievements to just her personal life would be unfair, even cruel. If she was an actress of enormous talent, she had the guts to channel her oomph towards politics. It was far right and animal welfare. She adored the four-legged creatures and went out of her way to care for them.

But there was a dark side to her. She believed that her beloved France was exclusively for the French and was a strong supporter of Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration National Rally Party. Her racial remarks—mostly against Muslims—tarnished her reputation. She called foreigners invaders, and even worse was her description of the people of the French island of Reunion. She described them as “savages”. She was convicted five times. In fact, her reputation—which some considered impeccable—was ruined by all this.

However, despite her obsession with politics, it was animals that she adored. In fact, she even left the world of glamour and arc lamps at the height of her career to further the cause of the four-legged creatures.

However, all this is not to take away from her the talent she exhibited on screen. She was an actress of great calibre. Her career ran through three decades, and she was a box-office phenomena. Her 1956 outing at 21 with And God Created Woman, debut-directed by her then husband, Vadim, put her under the global spotlight. Bardot became an overnight sensation, and movie after movie came to her. As a femme fatale in The Night Heaven Fell (1958), as a troubled woman who gets into a destructive relationship in Love on a Pillow (1962), and as a revolutionary Viva Maria! (1965), she sparkled and opened the door for sensual movies in an uptight America of the 1950s, signalling the end of censorship.

Yet, Brigitte Bardot could never get rid of her own personal demons. Her image of a saucy, sexy woman bordering on vulgarity, especially in an age of prudishness, shadowed her all along.