bardot nude inbed with trintignant (photos)

It’s easy to see Bardot merely as a sex object in her breakthrough movie, directed by her then-husband Roger Vadim: The story opens with her sunbathing in the nude and later portrays her emerging from the sea in a clingy wet dress, all the while being coveted by seemingly every man. But it’d be more accurate to say that Bardot was a sex subject, a woman who owned up to her desires and wants.

This stunning black and white image features French actress, singer, dancer, and fashion model, who later became an animal rights activist, Brigitte Bardot. She was one of the best-known sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s and was widely referred to by her initials, B.B. The star is pictured here lying on a bed, nude, looking back with a sultry expression.

This image is credited to Globe Photos.

This is a limited edition fine art C-Print, hand numbered out of an edition of 125 with an accompanying certificate of authenticity. Both Print and Certificate have matching sequentially numbered tamper proof holographic seals.

Around this time, Bardot’s break-up with Trintignant caused the actress to suffer a nervous breakdown in Italy. She recovered a few weeks later and started an affair with actor Jacques Charrier. Bardot quickly became pregnant.

Among her other most memorable films are the comedy La Parisienne (1957); En cas de malheur (Love Is My Profession, 1958), which paired Bardot with the legendary French actor Jean Gabin; Viva Maria!, a comedy in which she costarred with Jeanne Moreau and for which she was nominated for a BAFTA award; and Contempt, Jean-Luc Godard’s jaundiced look at commercial Hollywood filmmaking. He pointedly did not include a nude scene in the film—though after pressure from the film’s financiers, Godard did shoot an opening scene in which Bardot’s nude character asks her husband to rate the different parts of her body. She also appeared as herself in the charming 1964 American family comedy, Dear Brigitte, starring James Stewart and Bill Mumy as a boy who is infatuated with the actress.

Throughout “…And God Created Woman,” the town prudes try to throw a figurative veil over Bardot. But they are more threatened by her than she ever is by them. With the wit of the true subversive, Vadim makes the movie’s greatest affront to conventional morality the one that embraces traditional values. On the way home from the church wedding, Trintignant gets beaten up defending Bardot’s honor when a local tough makes a remark about her. When he arrives at his mother’s house for the wedding feast bloody and bruised, Bardot whisks her new husband upstairs to tend to his wounds and they wind up making love. Vadim describes what follows: