Brigitte Bardot: The blonde bombshell who revolutionised French cinema

The cocktail of kittenish charm and continental sensuality who swept away the cinematic cobwebs of the 1950s.

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On screen, she was a French cocktail of kittenish charm and continental sensuality. One publication called her "the princess of pout and the countess of come hither", but it was an image she grew to loathe.

Ruthlessly marketed as a hedonistic sex symbol, Bardot was frustrated in her ambition to become a serious actress. Eventually, she abandoned her career to campaign for animal welfare.

Years later, her reputation was damaged when she made homophobic slurs and was fined multiple times for inciting racial hatred. Her son also sued her for emotional damage after she said she would have preferred to "give birth to a little dog".

It was a scar on the memory of an icon, who - in her prime - put the bikini, female desire, and French cinema on the map.