PARIS — Sitting curled up on a sofa, dressed in a short black skirt and white silk blouse, Brigitte Bardot, at 53, is as slim and supple as when she became the world’s first “sex kitten.” Her youthful figure is testimony to her disciplined daily regimen of exercise and a strict vegetarian diet, and her long blond mane still flows down her back. But today it is shot through with gray and the style is less flattering than it was when she adopted it 35 years ago.
It is Bardot’s face and voice, however, that betray how unkind time has been to her. If age is a state of mind, Bardot is older than her American peers Shirley MacLaine and Jane Fonda. Her face is deeply lined, a visible confirmation of the unhappiness she has experienced, and when she speaks it is frequently with bitterness or anger. Her tone softens only when she discusses the animals with which she surrounds herself.
These days, Bardot divides her time between La Garrigue, her farm outside Paris, and a compound that includes her house, La Madrague, near St.-Tropez on the French Riviera. The compound, which overlooks the Mediterranean, is surrounded by a tall bamboo fence. It is Bardot’s jealously guarded private world.
Why has Bardot chosen to become so reclusive? “I am not a recluse,” she insists. “I live like an unsociable person — it is different. People get on my nerves. I am not interested in their little problems, most of them superficial. They leave me cold.”
Bardot’s distaste for her own species is at first disquieting. But perhaps it is an understandable reaction from a woman who has been hurt and used throughout much of her life. Now, Bardot feels, the only creatures she can trust are animals.
“My 15 dogs and 50 cats keep me constantly busy and give me plenty of worries — they get ill, they get old … but they also give me great joy,” she says. “They keep me going.”
To feed her pets, Bardot orders dozens of cans of cat food daily, as well as prime cuts of meat for the dogs, and she spends more than an hour each day cooking their meals. For her it is a small price to pay for their unswerving devotion. “They are my best friends,” she says.
It is a surprising flip-flop for a woman who once posed in ads for Blackglama mink coats. “Yes, it is true; I loved furs,” Bardot admits. “I also used to eat meat. But one day I suddenly understood the horror it all represented. Only very stupid people never change their convictions.”
Today, Bardot has established an international network of shelters for animals, and it was because of her efforts that France has approved a number of animal-protection measures. “I have been hunted like an animal for years and years,” she says, in explaining her passionate interest in animal rights, although in her own case she is referring to being stalked by photographers rather than hunters.
“I understand the sheer terror of being hunted. I have been marked by it. I can smell a camera from a distance. I can certainly identify with an animal.”
The statement is not surprising. At the height of Bardot’s fame, the attention of fans and photographers was unrelenting. A sculpture of her as Marianne, the symbol of the French Republic, was installed in provincial town halls across the country. (Her likeness recently was replaced by that of Catherine Deneuve.)
Bardot receives nearly 400 letters daily from fans and animal lovers even though she has not made a film since 1973. She especially welcomes letters from her “friends” — the children who write to her. “The old people I visit in the rest home in St.-Tropez are friends too,” she says. “Their gratitude warms my heart … to them I am still a girl.”
Bardot says she refuses to dwell on her days as a youthful sex symbol. She almost never bothers to watch her old movies. “I don’t really care for any of them,” she explains. “I get the feeling I am watching a total stranger. I will NEVER make another film!”
What does she think about the quality of today’s movies?
“I don’t give a damn about any of them,” she replies angrily.
Which movie actor does she consider the sexiest?
“I don’t give a damn!”
Well, which actress, then?
“I don’t give a damn!”
Nor does she care to spend much time worrying about her own looks. “I decided long ago to grow old like the average woman — without a face lift,” she says. “I can’t stand the idea of having my face pulled in various directions. If one is 50, it is ridiculous to pretend that one is 30. My face is lined, but I have a wisdom I lacked in my days as a star.”
Much of Bardot’s knowledge was acquired through painful experience. Her relationships with men have rarely been fulfilling. She was never close to her father, an affluent Versailles industrialist, who once whipped her 50 times.
She fell under the control of three successive husbands whom she ultimately divorced, the most notable being director Roger Vadim, her Svengali, who seduced her, married her and launched her to fame in 1956 with And God Created Woman. Vadim recently included a lurid account of their relationship in his book, Bardot, Deneuve, Fonda: An Autobiography.
All Bardot will say is, “I despise him and I don’t give a damn about his book.”
In fact, Bardot has become so disillusioned with the opposite sex that when she is asked what quality attracts her most in a man, she bluntly retorts, “His absence.”
She has twice tried to kill herself; one attempt occurred only a few years ago on her 49th birthday. The first time came at age 26 when she swallowed a bottle of tranquilizers a few months after the birth of her son Nicolas by her second husband Jacques Charrier. When the couple later divorced, Charrier won custody of the boy.
“I couldn’t bring up Nicolas,” Bardot confided later. “I needed a mother.” Today, Bardot rarely sees her son, now 28, married and himself a father.
The legacy of Bardot’s fame and unsuccessful relationships is a bitterness that is reflected in her sharp-tongued advice to aspiring young actresses: “Tell them not to commit suicide,” she says.
It’s little wonder, then, that Bardot identifies with Marilyn Monroe, another troubled sex symbol. “I understand her suicide,” Bardot says. “She was much too fragile to survive in the jungle of men.”
But Bardot has survived, finding strength in the cause to which she now devotes herself. Last year, she sold nearly all her worldly possessions at an auction in Paris that raised more than $700,000 for a new animal humane foundation. “I gave my beauty and my youth to men, and now I am giving my wisdom and experience to animals,” she said at the time.
Although Bardot has been photographed sunbathing topless, she has recently complained about the nudity on the beaches of southern France.
She tosses her head angrily at the implication of inconsistency. “Ah, pardon! I have never undressed on a beach. I have been seen naked in certain films, but these were modest, artistic shots. And when you compare that with what goes on today …
“One has got to retain a certain dignity — be it in St.-Tropez or anywhere else,” she adds. “This charming little part of the world seems to be attracting all the vices: exhibitionism, drugs, pornography, homosexuality. I hate decadence. And God, how I dislike ugliness! One can always find ways to overcome lack of physical attributes; anyone can develop a certain charm, a sense of style. But the people, particularly the punks, that I see around me strive to make themselves hideous — the horrible green hair, shaven heads, black teeth … they look as if they have come out of an insane asylum.”
Bardot is the first to admit that her views are not always popular. But that doesn’t concern her in the least. “I have always done the opposite of others,” she declares proudly. “And I have never courted popularity or fame. Being popular has ruined my life, but now, after all these years, my fame has become useful; it helps in the fight I wage for my beloved animals.”
Bardot insists she does not look back on her life with sadness. “I regret nothing!” she says. “Only the present matters to me now. The past is dead.”
As for the future, Bardot’s friends are convinced she would like to marry again for the fourth and final time. She has let it be known that the man would have to be “good, intelligent, amusing, a bit wild.” But when asked about the one absolutely essential quality such a man would have to possess, Bardot suddenly sounds dejected.
“He would have to love animals as much as I do,” she says, “and I very much doubt that such a man exists.”
