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Brigitte Bardot, the iconic international screen siren who retired from acting to become an animal rights activist, died Sunday<\/a>, according to a representative from animal protection charity The Brigitte Bardot Foundation. She was 91.<\/p>\n Bardot ranked among the most beautiful women of all time, according to Esquire<\/em><\/a> and legions of admirers. At the height of her fame, her last name was as indelible as Marilyn Monroe\u2019s first. \u201cAlong with General de Gaulle and the Eiffel Tower, I am perhaps the best-known French person in the world!\u201d she once wrote.<\/a> French writer Simone de Beauvoir observed in 1962 that \u201cBardot is as important an export [to France] as Renault automobiles.\u201d In 1970, she was immortalized in sculpture by artist Aslan as Marianne, the personification of the French Republic.<\/p>\n Bardot, also known as B.B., rose to stardom in the 1950s and \u201960s, when foreign films found mainstream success in America, partly because of their more sexually explicit content. In Bardot\u2019s 1956 breakout film, her then husband Roger Vadim\u2019s And God Created Woman<\/em>, she is first glimpsed sunbathing naked. Playing off the film\u2019s title, the provocative tagline for the American release was, \u201cBut the Devil invented Brigitte Bardot.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Vadim\u2019s New York Times<\/em> obituary<\/a>, a climactic scene in that film in which Bardot danced barefoot on a table \u201cis often cited as a breakthrough in what was considered permissible to show on screen.\u201d Vadim is quoted: \u201cThere was really nothing shocking in what Brigitte did. What was provocative was her natural sensuality.\u201d<\/p>\n The luxuriantly blonde Bardot was a fresh, naturalistic departure from the more glamorous and studied stars of the era. She was \u201ca sex symbol, but talked like a woman you could meet on the street,\u201d according to the documentary Discovering Brigitte Bardot<\/em>.<\/p>\n Bardot made roughly 50 films between 1952 and 1973, the year she quit acting. Though none of her films are considered classics, she was a major box office draw, and she herself became a style icon who popularized the bikini and wearing tops off the shoulder. She worked with several distinguished directors, including Anatole Litvak (Act of Love<\/em>, 1953), Henri-Georges Clouzot\u00a0(La V\u00e9rit\u00e9,<\/em> 1960), Jean-Luc Godard (Contempt<\/em>, 1963) and Louis Malle (Viva Maria!<\/em>, 1965).<\/p>\n In her memoir, Initiales B.B.<\/em>\u2014published in France in 1996\u2014Bardot also dished about her many lovers, including actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Warren Beatty<\/strong> and musician Serge Gainsbourg. She wrote<\/a> of gaining entrance to Marlon Brando\u2019s hotel room disguised as a chambermaid, then fleeing because of the room\u2019s smell and slovenliness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n