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Brigitte Bardot’s funeral was held in St. Tropez, the French Riviera where she lived more than half a century after retiring from film stardom at the height of her fame, with private services and public honors.
The animal rights activist and far-right activist died on December 28 at the age of 91 at her home in southern France.
Her husband, Bernard d’Ormalle, died of cancer after two operations, according to an interview with Paris Match magazine published on Tuesday evening. “She was conscious and concerned about the fate of animals until the end,” he said.
Residents and admirers applauded the funeral as the coffin of Bardot, once one of the most photographed women in the world and the epitome of a 1960s screen siren, was carried through the city’s narrow streets.
The service began with a recording of Maria Callas’ song. Hello Mary at the Catholic Church of Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption in the presence of Bardot’s husband, son and grandchildren, as well as guests invited by the family and the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Protection of Animals.
“Grief is hard, it’s painful,” Max Guazzini, a friend and secretary general of the foundation, told mourners.
Hundreds of people gathered in the small town’s harbor on big screens and in two squares to watch the farewell.
Bardot named it Saint-Tropez after her celebrity retreat that once made her a household name. She was buried “very privately” in a cemetery on the Mediterranean Sea.
The cemetery is the final resting place of many cultural figures, including filmmaker Roger Vadim, Bardot’s first husband, who directed her first film. God created womanThe role that made her a global star.
Bardot settled in her seaside villa La Madrigé decades ago and retired from film work in 1973 at the age of 39; She has done more than two dozen films in international work.
In the year A 1960s French film star traveled to Newfoundland in 1977 to witness the seal hunt in person.
Controversy in life
While retired from the film industry, she remained a highly visible and often controversial public figure associated with animal rights activism and right-wing politics for decades.
She Opposition to seal hunt in Newfoundland blamed for diminishing natives’ way of life She was found guilty of inciting racial hatred in French courts and sentenced five times.
When asked about her xenophobic beliefs and the crackdown on Muslim worship, Bardot told The Associated Press, “It’s true that sometimes I take it, but when I see that it’s slowly moving forward … I’m worried.”