30 Rare Color Photographs of a Young and Beautiful Brigitte Bardot in the 1950s

Brigitte Bardot is a French dancer, model and actress who became an international icon in the 1950s and ’60s with films like And God Created Woman and Contempt.

Bardot was born on September 28, 1934 to wealthy bourgeois parents, and at the age of 15 she posed for the cover of Elle (May 8, 1950).

Roger Vadim, an aspiring director, was impressed and shrewdly fashioned her public and screen image as an erotic child of nature—blond, sensuous, and amoral. In two motion pictures directed by Vadim—Et Dieu créa la femme (1956; And God Created Woman) and Les Bijoutiers du claire de lune (1958; “The Jewelers of Moonlight”; Eng. title The Night Heaven Fell)—Bardot broke contemporary film taboos against nudity and set box office records in Europe and the United States.

Below is a collection of 30 stunning color photographs of a very young Brigitte Bardot in the 1950s: