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French actress Brigitte Bardot, one of the most recognizable sex symbols of the 1960s and a later animal rights activist, has died at the age of 91.
“The Brigitte Bardot Foundation pays tribute to the memory of an exceptional woman who gave everything and gave up everything for a world more respectful of animals,” the Brigitte Bardot Foundation said in a statement obtained by CNN. “Her legacy lives on through the actions and struggles the Foundation continues with the same passion and the same fidelity to her ideals.”
Bruno Jacquelin, a representative of her foundation, confirmed that Bardot died at her home in southern France on Sunday (December 28) after being hospitalized last month but wouldn't give a cause of death and said no funeral or memorial services had yet been arranged, according to the Associated Press. Bardot gained international fame playing a teen bride in the 1956 movie And God Created Woman and appeared in more than two dozen films during the height of her film career.
Bardot's blonde hair, voluptuous figure and pouty demeanor made her one of France's most recognizable stars, having been chosen to be the model for 'Marianne,' the national emblem of France and the official Gallic seal in 1969, appearing on statues, postage stamps and coins.
"Her films, her voice, her dazzling glory, her initials, her sorrows, her generous passion for animals, her face that became Marianne, Brigitte Bardot embodied a life of freedom. French existence, universal brilliance. She touched us. We mourn a legend of the century," said French president Emmanuel Macron on his X account.
Bardot retired from acting in 1973 at the age of 39 and spent her later years working as an animal rights activist, which included traveling to the Arctic to protest the slaughter of baby seals, as well as condemning the use of animals in laboratory experiments and Muslim slaughter rituals, receiving the Legion of Honor, France's highest recognition, for her activism in 1985.
“Man is an insatiable predator,” Bardot told the Associated Press on her 73rd birthday, in 2007. “I don’t care about my past glory. That means nothing in the face of an animal that suffers, since it has no power, no words to defend itself.”
