Brigitte Bardot: The Legend We Loved—and the Views We Chose Not to Hear
Few stars of postwar cinema burned as brightly—or as briefly—as Brigitte Bardot. To an entire generation, Bardot remains the apotheosis of liberated European glamour: bronzed and sun-streaked hair; bare feet, bare teeth and a bare, sultry come-hither; a demeanor that defied convention with a toss of the head, a toss of the hair, a toss of the hip, a toss of the salad and an insolent pout and laugh. Bardot didn’t just act in movies; she changed the culture’s temperature. In the late 1950s and early ’60s, she became an international icon of erotic freedom at a time when Europe was emerging from the last shadows of war and America was sticking its head through the keyhole.