Brigitte Bardot, one of the world's biggest stars of cinema, has died.
She was 91 and had been in hospital in the southern French city of Toulon since November.
In a statement the Brigitte Bardot Foundation announced her death with "immense sadness", describing her as a "world-renowned actress and singer, who chose to abandon her prestigious career to dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare and her foundation."
Known for her enormous impact on the silver screen in the 1950s, "BB" as she was widely called in France, was an essential ingredient in French culture and soon became an icon after her first role in Le Trou Normand (1952)
From bourgeois Parisian beginnings, she set her heart of becoming a singer and dancer and was picked out as a model at the age of 15.
Two more films followed in 1952 and she also got married at the same time to the film director Roger Vadim. A year later Bardot took Hollywood and the United States by storm, and her status as a teenage "sex-kitten" was firmly established.
When Bardot starred in the 1956 movie “And God Created Woman”, directed by her then-husband, Roger Vadim, it triggered a scandal with scenes of the long-legged beauty dancing on tables naked.
She went on to feature in a total of 28 films over two decades and become a symbole of women's sexual liberation.
In a post on X, the French President Emmanuel Macron said: "Her films, her voice, her dazzling fame, her initials, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, her face that became Marianne—Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom. A French existence, a universal radiance. She touched us. We mourn a legend of the century."
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