Brigitte Bardot was a very carnal incarnation of the new, sexually liberated woman, wrote film critics in the 1950s and 60s. (“I understand your main interest is animals,” said a flustered BBC interviewer. “No,” replied Bardot, “my main interest is sex.”) That was how Bardot, who has died aged 91, was sold as a film star but, in truth, she could have been a character from a novel by Colette, whose subject was always l’amour – love as a transaction, or a madness, seldom a liberation.
All Bardot’s incarnations might have been invented by Colette: Bardot the nubile teen so flattered by the attentions of the film-maker Roger Vadim that at 16 she attempted suicide to blackmail her parents into sanctioning their marriage; the adult Bardot who wept if she slept alone, and found that the sacks of letters from fans could not soothe her woes; Bardot the spirit of Saint-Tropez, who drugged herself with sun (“You can be barefoot and have worries,” she said later). Even Bardot the retired, reclusive star who felt that her love was returned by the animals she championed, was so very Colette.
