I always get them confused.
Posted on 09/28/2007 11:07:15 AM PDT by traumer
n her heyday she was an international sex symbol who starred in a series of hit films including The Girl in the Bikini.
Nowadays, however, Brigitte Bardot has an altogether more sombre public image.
The former actress and model, who turns 73 tomorrow, was wearing a dark business suit while in her home city of Paris to visit French president Nicolas Sarkozy today.
The star was happy to relinquish her status as sex bomb in 1974 and focus on issues closer to her heart Enlarge the image
Rather than strutting provocatively as she did during a hugely successful screen career, she was on crutches because of a nagging hip complaint.
Gone was the trademark pout and cascading blonde locks, to be replaced by sagging jowls covered in heavy make-up and a wiry, unkempt patch of greying hair.
Miss Bardot still lives close to St Tropez, the beach resort in the South of France where she first shot to fame in 1956 with And God Created Woman, and has often blamed excessive exposure to the sun for her poor skin.
Her torrid private life - including numerous failed marriages and affairs - have also been blamed for her frayed appearance as a pensioner.
"She certainly doesn't look like the Brigitte we all remember from the films," said another visitor to the Elysee Palace, where animal rights campaigner Miss Bardot discussed the plight of Canadian seals with Mr Sarkozy.
"One wouldn't say she's aged well," the source added.
Miss Bardot has also repeatedly shunned plastic surgery, making it clear that her days as an international beauty ended when she made her last film in 1974.
Today she said that all she was concerned about was animals threatened with cruelty around the world. "I've had my best birthday present when I turn 73, and that's the news that France is going to definitely refuse all imports of products derived from seals, as France refuses to be compliant in the annual massacre of seals in Canada," she said.
An embargo on such products was announced by the French government in April.
After becoming a star following "And God Created Women", made by her then husband Roger Vadim, Miss Bardot became known as a French cinematic sex kitten who could rival Marilyn Monroe.
She was also an acclaimed model and recorded pop songs with the singer Serge Gainsbourg.
After divorcing Vadim, Bardot was married three more times, as well as having numerous affairs.
In 1986, she set up the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals, launching legal challenges against governments and other institutions to acknowledge the rights of animals. She later ignited controversy with her marriage to a political activist from the far-Right Front National party.
All I can say is getting old sucks! I guess we are all different people throughout our lives.
I think her appearance speaks to the fact that she’s been “cruel” to herself. I’ve seen 73 year olds who still maintain a sense of beauty in spite of the wrinkles and grey hair.
Father Time is very cruel.
Good for her!
I find little more odd and perverse than an 80 year old trying to look like an 18 year old attempting to keep up a long past career.
Unfortunately for Miss Bardot, scientists just proved that seal meat is Mother Nature’s fountain of youth.
Actually, it’s a little refreshing to see a former starlet not succumb to the pressure to remain the same way she was at the height of fame. She may not have her beauty, but she has some sense of dignity left. The same cannot be said about the anorexic, botoxed, lipo-ed, tummy tucked, face lifted Hollywood crowd trying so pathetically to hang on to their youth.
Yes it is. I'll be seventy-one Wednesday next. I'm sad to say that my "thong" style posing briefs have begun to chafe me. As much as I dislike the thought, I suppose that I'll have to revert to the posing briefs of yesteryear.
Geez people! I hope you all live to see the far side of 74.
Have we all looked at ourselves lately? Eveyone gets old.
Live with it. In the next 20 years, none of us will be anyone’s prize.
Wow, I could watch her jump up and down for hours.
I would rather see Ms. Bardot looking her age than this broad with all that botox and what not.
What happened to “Why French Women don’t get fat?
50 lbs. lighter and she'd still be very pretty for a 70 something.
“Live with it. In the next 20 years, none of us will be anyone’s prize.”
***
I’m already no one’s prize and haven’t been for a long time.
And ya know what? I don’t give a chit.
For committing a female's worst sin: growing old? For heaven's sake, the woman's 73!!!Her eyes are still lovely, in my opinion. But I suppose you all prefer when women nip, tuck and inject their way to permanent youth. Might I remind you, it doesn't always work...
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