Brigitte Bardot gave new life to the
popularity of the half-girl, half-woman
nymphet. Pouty, knowing, and somehow
naive, the French sex kitten always seemed
on the verge of striptease. Bardot was
"discovered" by Marc Allegret's assistant,
Roger Vadim, when she appeared on the
cover of Elle magazine in 1950. The two
married in 1952, and Vadim made her an
international phenomenon in Et Dieu créa
la femme. . .(And God Created Woman,
1956). An instant cult following emerged
(she was named "The Girl I'd Most Like To
Go to the Moon With" by one publication);
Bardot became the object of gossip,
adulation, and imitation, and the symbol of
a sexual revolution gone haywire. Vadim,
who remained her close friend even after
their divorce in 1957, remarked of this goddess of love, "Although she had a gift for
infidelity, she always suffered if she had an affair with more than one man at a time."
Bardot retired from the screen in 1973 and has since attempted to "erase the Bardot legend" by devoting herself to militant animal-rights activism.
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