From HELEN OF TROY's handmaiden (its on again today) to DOCTOR AT SEA with Dirk and NERO'S LOST WEEKEND, and then those Vadim films which exploded into the mid-50s with AND GOD CREATED WOMAN when she was a sensation. She really was a new archetype, the female James Dean as she scorned convention. I couldn't get to see them at the time, but later I liked the torrid HEAVEN FELL THAT NIGHT. This "B.B." may have been Vadim's invention, but she proved a delightful comedienne with items like UNE PARISIENNE, COME DANCE WITH ME, BABETTE GOES TO WAR etc. and a serious dramatic actress in LA VERITE. If you were an early teen back then in the early 60s BB was THE pin-up, while girls everywhere copied that tousled hair and gingham skirt look.
Unlike Loren, Bardot was never that interested in acting or the trappings of
stardom, and came to hate it all, but then the press hounded her so much, as
captured in Malle's VIE PRIVEE with Marcello in 63, but she was perfect in Godard's CONTEMPT
and a delight in Malle's VIVA MARIA with Moreau. That was a big hit in 1966.
The I like her too in Bourguignon's TWO WEETS IN SEPTEMBER in '67, but she shouldn't have bothered with SHALAKO (where she and Boyd looks trashed and used up a mere decade after their 1958 Vadim hit), and she more or less departed the movies by the early '70s, but was still newsworthy as her romances and life at St Tropez kept the paparazzi busy. But she certainly was a major star - up there with Marilyn - and cultural influence in the '50s, with those books about her which had all those intellectuals in a tizzy.
She leads a different kind of life these days, and her politics may be suspect, but she has done a lot for animal welfare, particularly against seal clubbing etc. so one wishes her well. More on BB at label - we like her a lot now !
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