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.
My 73-year-old mom doesn’t look anywhere near as old as she does!
She certainly does.
sw
Not me....(chuckle)
49 and I haven’t aged a day since turning 18 I tell ya!
(don’t listen to my wife, she lies)
-that was cruel..........a fusty family of freaks.......LOL
Those pictures prove that God must have twisted sense of humor.
Your post #76: What a bunch of scary looking people!
We live in a society where we want our 13 year old girls to look like 30 year olds and our senior citizen women to look like 18 year olds.
All is vanity.
My, she was beautiful.
I only hit the post button once! Really...
No Kidding! Man that just, well I don’t know, it just...Sh!t. Man, oh man, that’s Thomas material. Thanks a lot!
Just curious — did your mom smoke? I’ll bet not. Cigarette smoke damages the proteins that give skin its elasticity and causes aging to take much more of a toll than it otherwise would. I’m pretty sure Bardot smoked. If the anti-smokers were smart, they’d focus on the cosmetic consequences of smoking rather than the health effects.
Okay. I still see the same kid too. Kinda, you know? LOL
uh...surely I haven’t changed since I was 20.......nah
Getting old isn't a sin, it's a blessing.
sw
Do you stutter?
Do you stutter?
Do you stutter?
I think you are right, smoking does age people a lot! No, my mom never smoked.
Aging sucks.
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