French film sensation Brigitte Bardot, a symbol of feminine liberation in the 1950s and 1960s who reinvented herself as an animal rights defender and embraced far-right views, died on Sunday aged 91, her foundation said.
She passed away in her Saint-Tropez home, La Madrague, on the French Riviera.
"The Brigitte Bardot Foundation announces with immense sadness the death of its founder and president, Madame Brigitte Bardot, a world-renowned actor and singer, who chose to abandon her prestigious career to dedicate her life and energy to animal welfare and her foundation", it said in a statement.
It did not give the cause of death. But Bardot was briefly hospitalised in October for what her office called a "minor" procedure. Bardot at the time had lambasted "idiot" internet users for speculation that she had died.
Tributes were immediately paid to the star who was known as "BB" in her home country, with President Emmanuel Macron calling her a "legend" of the 20th century.
An AFP reporter in Saint-Tropez saw a hearse enter and leave her property, as a handful of fans came to lay bunches of flowers near a police car that was blocking the road to her home.
Julia Gangotena, 36, was among the few to have made it up to Bardot's blue front gate, where she left some white roses near a Christmas wreath and a dog's bowl full of water, she said.
"She's a woman who lived as much in the thronging crowd as she did alone — profoundly alone", she said.
Born on September 28, 1934 in Paris, Bardot was raised in a well-off traditional Catholic household.
Married four times, she had one child, Nicolas-Jacques Charrier, with her second husband, actor Jacques Charrier.
Bardot became a global star after appearing in "And God created Woman" in 1956, and went on to appear in about 50 more movies before giving up acting in 1973.
She turned her back on celebrity life to look after abandoned animals, saying she was "sick of being beautiful every day". — AFP
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