Her flagship shoot, the acquisition of La Madrague, or even her meeting with her last husband: the stories of Bardot and Saint-Tropez are intimately linked to each other. A look back at five key dates which forged the reputation of the Var commune and BB.
Between BB and Saint-Trop’, love has always been there. If Saint-Tropez is today a symbol of France among tourists, the Var city knows it: it owes it largely to Brigitte Bardot. In her private life or on screen, she keeps coming back to this Var village.
Actress, singer or activist: the actress has never left Saint-Tropez. A place that undeniably had a special place in his heart and in his history. A look back at the love story between Brigitte Bardot and the Var town in five dates.
• In 1956, Saint-Tropez on the big screen in “And God… created woman”
When God created woman, Saint-Tropez created BB. Or maybe it was Brigitte Bardot who created Saint-Trop’. In 1956, the actress arrived at the Cannes Film Festival, after her first steps in the cinema, starring in Roger Vadim’s film And God… created woman.
She plays Juliette, a beautiful and sensual young woman with liberated sexuality, for whom all of Saint-Tropez would kneel. The film notably reveals Bardot’s first nudes on screen, and will propel the young woman to the rank of international star. The most Tropezian of Parisiennes then became a true sex symbol, an allegory of the liberated and immodest woman of the 1960s. Many, from France to the United States, then adopted the “Bardot” style, from the little Vichy dress to the blonde color.
The film also highlights the La Ponche district and Pampelonne beach. The cabin converted into a canteen for the film crew even became the famous Club 55. “It was a turning point in the history of cinema”, Brigitte Bardot later admitted on a television set in front of Lucien Bodard, thanking Roger Vadim for leaving it “free” and “natural” on screen. The Bardot myth was thus born.
• The purchase of La Madrague, the inseparable house of Bardot in 1958
It is a small fisherman’s house which will mark the relationship between Saint-Tropez and the actress. Brigitte Bardot acquired La Madrague, located on the Route des Canebiers in 1958. Two years after the first release of And God…created womanthe mystification of the Frenchwoman has not weakened. From then on, this small Var village would become a French legend.
It was BB’s parents, who already owned “La Saravia”, a building in the town, who encouraged her to come and visit this house “with its feet in the water”. A real favorite that she bought for 24 million old francs.
The house becomes an inseparable element of Brigitte Bardot. All the French actors who are friends of the young woman are there. Gunter Sachs, her husband from 1966 to 1969, will shower a shower of rose petals on the house to declare his love for the actress.
To pay tribute to La Madrague, Brigitte Bardot even sang an eponymous song in 1963. The famous house which was to symbolize freedom for Bardot, nevertheless became almost a prison, with the permanent presence of paparazzi for years.
“My life is like a big prison,” she confided after the birth of her only son Nicolas-Jacques Charrier in 1960. “I belong to everyone. (…) We have the impression of no longer to be free.”
Even today, waves of tourists do not fail to come to see what this house looks like. It is also in Saint-Tropez, in La Madrague, that Brigitte Bardot was taken care of on July 19, 2023 after having suffered from illness at the age of 88 or that she convalesced in 1960 after her attempt to suicide.
• The creation of the Brigitte Bardot Foundation in 1986 in Saint-Tropez
It was in the mid-1980s that Brigitte Bardot created her eponymous foundation in the heart of the Var. A turning point in the life of the international star, who rejects her life as an actress and devotes herself full time to the animal cause.
She had the breakthrough during the filming of her latest film The very good and very joyful story of Colinot Trousse-Chemise in the 1970s. “At 38, I left everything for animals,” she said in 2018 in the columns of Le Monde. “It’s the best decision of my life.”
Brigitte Bardot first financed her foundation through an auction of objects, jewelry and personal effects which brought her the three million francs necessary for the FBB. If the foundation’s headquarters were transferred to Paris in 1988, BB would ensure its sustainability by donating La Madrague to it in 1991.
It is thanks to the famous fisherman’s house that the Brigitte Bardot Foundation obtained public utility recognition a year later and can continue all its symbolic actions. Still in Saint-Tropez, BB also organized an event on the Place des Lices in 1994 with the presence of 300 people during a committee between Var hunters and the municipality.
The activist has also already threatened to leave La Madrague to settle in Paris, proof of the strong cultural and symbolic roots that Brigitte Bardot has in Saint-Tropez.
• Her meeting with her husband Bernard d’Ormale in 1992
If the great love of the ex-baby doll is indeed the animal cause, Brigitte Bardot has had four husbands in her life. The last, Bernard d’Ormale, will be the one who shared his life the longest. This is also the one she will meet in Saint-Tropez.
This is not the first time that BB has experienced an idyll in the Var commune. With her first husband, Roger Vadim, they loved strolling the streets of the small town. But it was only years later, and two marriages later, that BB found himself face to face with Bernard d’Ormale in Saint-Tropez. In June 1992, the two animal enthusiasts met at a dinner with a friend, Jany Le Pen, wife of Jean-Marie Le Pen. Bernard d’Ormale was an advisor to the politician at the time.
In her memoirs published in 1996, Brigitte Bardot evokes “a mutual love at first sight”, a man who conquered her with a kiss. They will get married a few weeks later, but far from Saint-Tropez: the couple will say “yes” in Norway.
This final union took place most of the time away from the cameras. The couple lived together for years, surrounded by their animals in La Madrague, in Saint-Tropez. Bernard d’Ormale will nevertheless often represent Bardot, notably during tributes paid to him in the Var.
• BB immortalized thanks to his Saint-Tropez statue in 2017
The city of Saint-Tropez has continued to highlight its timeless muse. Eight years after the creation of her foundation, Brigitte Bardot has shown her legitimacy in the fight for animal protection. In 1995, she received the grand medal from the city of Saint-Tropez.
Regularly, exhibitions retrace the life of the former baby doll in the Var town and continue to attract tourists and fans of Brigitte Bardot. But its anchoring in the city was made official in 2017. On Thursday September 28, the date of its birthday, a statue was inaugurated on Place Blanqui, opposite the gendarmerie and cinema museum. The BB myth is eternal.
“Of all the celebrities who have left a recent mark on our city, (…) Brigitte Bardot is undoubtedly the Saint-Tropez personality who will have had the greatest impact on our contemporaries to the point that Saint-Tropez and BB become confused in terms of image and notoriety”, launched the mayor at the time Jean-Pierre Tuvéri in his inauguration speech.
Inspired by a drawing by Italian artist Milo Manara, the bronze statue measures 2.5 meters and weighs 700 kilos. If her husband Bernard d’Ormale was present during the revelation of the statue to the general public, Brigitte Bardot was not there.
In the summer of 2021, the statue underwent a renovation and was covered with gold leaf, in order to make “the one that God created” shine.
Some are already wondering about the post-Bardot era. La Madrague could notably become a museum upon the death of the artist. In 2018, Brigitte Bardot said in The World wanting to be buried in her garden and keeping La Madrague in its original state to make it a museum at 2 or 3 euros per entry for her foundation.
“I prefer to rest there rather than in the Saint-Tropez cemetery, where a crowd of assholes would risk damaging the tomb of my parents and my grandparents. I want them to be left alone!”, explained she at the newspaper, true to herself and to Saint-Tropez.
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