Saint-Tropez bids adieu to Brigitte Bardot with a funeral and public homage

Brigitte Bardot's funeral will be held with a private service in Saint-Tropez and a public homage at the French Riviera resort where she lived.

Brigitte Bardot's funeral was being held on Wednesday with a private service in Saint-Tropez and a public homage at the French Riviera resort where she lived for more than half a century after retiring from movie stardom at the height of her fame.

The animal rights activist and far-right supporter died Dec. 28 at age 91 at her home in southern France.

She died from cancer after undergoing two operations, her husband, Bernard d’Ormale, said in an interview with Paris Match magazine released Tuesday evening. “She was conscious and concerned about the fate of animals until the very end,” he said.

Brigitte Bardot visits her dog refuge in Paris in 2001.Charly Hel / Prestige / Getty Images fileResidents and admirers applauded the funeral convoy as the coffin of Bardot, once one of the world's most photographed women and a defining screen siren of the 1960s, was being carried through the town's narrow streets.

A service started to the sound of Maria Callas' "Ave Maria" at the Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption Catholic Church in the presence of Bardot's husband, son and grandchildren, as well as guests invited by the family and the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the protection of animals.