Brigitte Bardot reportedly struggled with motherhood and later spoke about the difficult relationship she had with her son.

Bardot’s influence was not restricted to acting ability or individual film roles. Her hair, makeup and clothing helped establish trends that were copied internationally during the late 1950s and 1960s. Her tousled blond hairstyle, heavy eye makeup and relaxed approach to fashion became part of a recognizable visual identity. Photographers and magazines helped make her one of Europe’s most visible celebrities. She became associated with a less formal kind of glamour than the carefully polished Hollywood image common at the time. This image contributed significantly to her reputation as a symbol of a changing generation. Decades later, fashion publications and cultural historians continued citing her as an influential figure in twentieth-century style.

Success brought increasingly ambitious film projects. Bardot worked with important directors and actors and appeared in productions that ranged from comedy to drama. Her performance in Henri-Georges Clouzot’s The Truth in 1960 demonstrated a more serious side of her acting and became one of the significant films of her career. In 1963, she starred in Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, a film that would later become regarded as an important work of European cinema. She also appeared in productions including Viva Maria! and continued recording music during the same era. Her public identity therefore extended beyond a simple image of beauty, even though that image frequently dominated discussions about her. She became part actress, part singer, part fashion figure and part cultural phenomenon.