Brigitte Bardot, the doe-eyed beauty whose sensuality brought French cinema to the mainstream, has died aged 91. 

Arriving on screen in the 1950s, Bardot swiftly rose to fame as an era-defining "sex kitten". 

She starred in films such as And God Created Woman, Contempt and Jean-Luc Godard's Masculin Féminin. 

Brigitte Bardot on the set of Contempt (Le Mepris). (Getty: Marceau-Cocinor/Les Films Concordia/ Georges de Beauregard/ Carlo Ponti/ Collection Sunset Boulevard/Corbis )

Discovered by a magazine editor as a teenager, Bardot also proved a designer's darling.

With her bouffant hair and thick eyeliner, few epitomised French chic like Bardot, who became a muse for the likes of Dior, Balmain and Pierre Cardin.

Bardot in 1963. (Getty: John Kisch Archive)

A meditative Bardot relaxes on set. (Getty: Bettmann/ Contributor)

'...but the devil shaped Bardot'

Bardot was born in 1934 Paris into the luxurious world of the 16th arrondissement.

Despite her family's means, behind bourgeois doors, her youth was dominated by strict rules and pious parents. 

A childhood dream of becoming a ballerina soon gave way to modelling, and at age 15, Bardot graced the cover of Elle.

It led her straight into the arms of French playboy Roger Vadim.

Against the protestations of her family, Bardot fell in love and soon married the director.

They would go on to collaborate on 40 films.   

Roger Vadim in studio with Bardot.(Getty: Keystone)

Bardot on the set of Vadim's Le Repos du Guerrier.(Getty: Cocinor/Francos Films/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis)

However, few would prove as big as 1956's And God Created Women. 

Despite being poorly received locally due to its depiction of small-town siren Juliette,  the film was a smash hit in the US and abroad.

"She is a thing of mobile contours, a phenomenon you have to see to believe," raved The New York Times of Bardot. 

Bardot thumbing through a photospread of herself while filming And God Created Woman.  (Getty: John Chillingworth/Picture Post/Hulton Archive)

A poster for the 1956 film, which features Bardot in a sensual dance scene. (Getty: Photo by LMPC )

"I owe everything to the Americans,” the star would later tell Vanity Fair in 2012. 

But as the world became besotted with Bardot, so too did the backlash. 

Movie theatre owners in the US were arrested for screening the foreign film and Bardot faced similar scrutiny back home. 

Bardot once said "there are no nude films, there are only good or bad movies".(Getty: Bettmann/Contributor)

The debate also led to one of feminist theorist Simone de Beauvoir’s leading essays: Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome.

In it, she foregrounds Bardot as France's symbol of post-war liberation — something that may now seem shocking for a star who rejected the #MeToo movement. 

"She walks, she dances, she moves. In the hunting game, she is both hunter and prey," de Beauvoir’s posits. 

"Males are an object for her, as much as she is an object for them. This is precisely what hurts males' pride."

Bardot upon retirement said "I started out as a lousy actress and have remained one". (Getty: Herbert Dorfman/Corbis)

A very French nonchalance 

If Bardot embodied her free-spirit reputation in any way, it was through love. 

She would cheat on Vadim with And God Created Women co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant, before marrying Jacques Charrier in 1959. 

Then too came German millionaire Gunter Sachs in 1966, and former Le Pen advisor Bernard d’Ormale in 1992. 

Sprinkled among them were several high-profile flings.

Bardot with second husband and actor Jacques Charrier. (Getty: Bettmann/Contributor )

Gunter Sachs and Bardot in 1968. (Getty: Marka/Universal Images Group )

Bardot with Bernard d'Ormale. (AFP: / Collection Christophe)

"She loved living barefoot without a care in the world, and certainly without a care of what people might say about her," designer Nicole Farhi told The Guardian in 2009.

"All this is very French."

She also never tried to make it in Hollywood, and rarely starred alongside American men. 

Bardot's devotion to the motherland shocked even co-star Jane Birkin. 

"[Brigitte] never wanted to do a film that was outside France because she didn't want to leave her dear France," Birkin said. 

"She seemed to have no ambition whatsoever, which made her a very curiously attractive creature because she was never seeking any sort of approval."

Brigitte Bardot relaxes in the back of a limousine. (Getty: Central Press/Hulton Archive)

Perhaps then, it was not all that shocking when Bardot retired in 1973. 

"I was really sick of it,” Bardot said later. 

"Good thing I stopped, because what happened to Marilyn Monroe and Romy Schneider would have happened to me."

Bardot, with a bouffant and blue boa in 1960.(Getty: Silver Screen Collection)

Death threats and controversy

Her style alone influenced sweaters, and saw ballerina flats named in her image. 

But if you were to ask Bardot, her favourite namesake may be the Brigitte Bardot Foundation. 

The starlett who picked up stray dogs on sets — sometimes sheltering them in hotel rooms — began earnestly throwing herself into activism after meeting Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson in the late 1970s. 

Bardot would rescue stay dogs around film sets. (Getty: George Rinhart/Corbis )

Bardot appeals to Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin to stop the slaughter of seals.(Reuters: File )

Bardot kisses dog in Bucharest. (Reuters: File )

Often, the only thing to draw her from her St Tropez recluse in later years were animals. 

She faced death threats for telling the French to boycott horse meat; donated thousands of dollars to stop the proliferation of Bucharest's stray dogs population; and even fought Australian politician Greg Hunt's plan to cull two million feral cats. 

"I gave my beauty and my youth to men [and] I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals,"

she explained.

Bardot faces court for writing that France was being invaded by Muslims. (Reuters: File )

It was a bullish nature that proved costly as she courted controversy with anti-LGBTQIA+, misogynistic, anti-Islamic, and anti-Semitic views.

In total, Bardot was fined a total of six times for "inciting racial hatred”, incurring a cost of more than $AU86, 916.

Her near-constant court appearances became so recurrent that a prosecutor in 2008 said she had grown weary of charging Bardot. 

Bardot also endorsed France's far-right leader Marine Le Pen, comparing her to a "modern Joan of Arc". 

A wall of Brigitte Bardot photos. (Reuters: Charles Platiau/File Photo)

Often asked to remark on a legacy so enamoured with her jeune fille looks, Bardot never feared aging.

The other day,” she said in 2012, into her mid-70s. 

“I came across … And God Created Woman on TV, which I haven’t seen in ages. 

"I told myself that that girl wasn’t bad. But it was like it was someone other than me. 

"I have better things to do than study myself on a screen."