00:00More on Brigitte Bardot and her career, let's bring in Gade Edery, founder of the Gade Collection Gallery in Paris that hosted an exhibition dedicated to Brigitte Bardot just a couple of years ago.
00:10Good to have you with us. What was your reaction when you heard the announcement from the Brigitte Bardot Foundation?
00:18I mean, I was like any French people. I was devastated. I mean, she's part of our history and she's part of us.
00:27I mean, she's been around for the past 50 or 60 years. So that's quite some time.
00:35And she speaks to all kind of generation from people who are her age to, you know, youngsters, like teenagers.
00:45Everybody knows in France, I mean, in France, everybody knows Brigitte Bardot. She's part of the scene, actually.
00:53She was a brilliant actress, but she was also a model and her photographs are in some cases just as well known as some of her films.
01:01Can you tell us a bit more about that part of her career?
01:03Yeah, of course, Camille. The exhibition I hosted was done by very famous photographer, Douglas Kirkland, who had photographed, I mean, most of the most, all of the most important actors around the world.
01:23And we did that exhibition just a short while ago after Douglas Kirkland passed away.
01:32And he had a very special relationship with Brigitte Bardot.
01:35They've met in 65 on the set of Viva Maria by Louis Mal.
01:41It was in 1965. And along with her on the screen was also Jeanne Moreau and the three, the three get along very, very well.
01:53And the reason I called this exhibition Douglas, my darling, is that because Brigitte Bardot wrote a letter to Douglas Kirkland saying,
02:04Douglas, my darling, I miss you so much. I miss the time we spent together and your photos and so on.
02:11So they had a very strong relationship, professional, you know, real friends that lasted for years.
02:19And it was a blast. I mean, we, I can't remember if I was showing, you know, 15 or 16 or 20 images, but all of those images are, you know, icons.
02:33Icons, I mean, most of the most important images of Brigitte Bardot were done by Douglas Kirkland.
02:41What is it about her that makes her so captivating, whether that be on a cinema screen or in those photographs?
02:48What's this kind of Bardot effect?
02:49That's a very, that's a very tricky question. I mean, you know, some people will have it and some people don't.
02:57She clearly had it. So, so, you know, some people catch the light, are catching the light like no one else.
03:04And she had, in French, we call, we said a frimousse, like, you know, like a teenager face, young, young face.
03:12And people related to that. And, you know, at the time, she was more famous than Marie Monroe.
03:19And, you know, being with us for so long, she's part of France heritage.
03:28And back in the, if I'm correct, back in the 80s or 90s, she even, she was Marianne, you know, the city hall of France.
03:37That was the, the, the, the, the, the, the face of France in every city hall.
03:43Brigitte Bardot, BB, as we, as we call her.
03:46And these, the fact that she catches the light, there is something, you know, about her that when you look at her, look at, you know, I haven't had a chance to, to meet with her personally.
03:59But when you look at the photos, you clearly see that there is something really special about her.
04:04And you don't come across that kind of person on a regular basis.
04:11I've, I'm quite lucky. I've met many actors and many people, you know, with my, with my gallery.
04:19And those ones are so rare that you can't explain it.
04:25You see, you feel that there is something very special about the person and you understand why they went through, they had the career they had.
04:34But you can't really explain that. Something, you know, untouchable.
04:37I mean, you can't, you can't put words on that.
04:40Actually, I cannot. Maybe you can't, but I cannot.
04:43But you, you, when you meet with someone like that, you do understand that it's something different.
04:50I want us to listen to a quick soundbite of a tourist in Paris reacting to the news.
04:55Let's just take a listen.
04:57Yeah.
04:57She was a legend and it's really sad that she's dead, but she also had a really great legacy.
05:08And yeah, she kind of represents France to me as an American.
05:12So there you have it.
05:13She represents France.
05:14How well was Brigitte Bardot known abroad beyond, beyond France?
05:18I mean, beyond France.
05:21I mean, you can't imagine.
05:23I mean, I have requests from people all over the world.
05:28I mean, from people in France, you know, that are willing to buy Douglas Kirkland's work.
05:33But, you know, also in the Middle East, in Japan, in Singapore, in the U.S., in Brazil, in Argentina, it's coming from all over the world.
05:45And that is for, it's been like that for years.
05:49And people, I think, relate to her regardless of where they're from, regardless of their age.
06:01Some time ago, I had, during the exhibition of Brigitte Bardot at the gallery, I had a group of teenagers, and they all knew who was Brigitte Bardot.
06:16They all knew.
06:16I mean, they were like 13, 14.
06:19And normally, their background, I mean, what they look at, what they watch is more like Pokemon and different type of Japanese, you know, comics.
06:29But they all knew who was Brigitte Bardot.
06:32I was quite amazed by that.
06:34Very, very surprising.
06:36And so, people were 13, 15 years old up to people who were 90.
06:43Everybody knows Brigitte Bardot.
06:45That's for a fact.
06:46And also, you have to remember that in France, she also was a very famous singer, singing along on the lyrics of Serge Gainsbourg, who was quite a writer and a singer himself.
07:00So, all that, I mean, between the movies, her career for the protection of the animals in France, she had her own foundation.
07:13And all that, you know, makes her part of France.
07:19I mean, as simple as that.
07:21You know, in the UK, people relate to the Queen, we relate to Bibi.
07:26That's it.
07:28We hear a lot that Brigitte Bardot revolutionized what we show on screen, but even kind of our culture.
07:35Is there a before and an after Brigitte Bardot?
07:37How can you explain that?
07:40You know, the first time in the movie industry where you can spot a part of a naked body, that's Brigitte Bardot.
07:49That's Bibi.
07:50I mean, you can't go much further than that.
07:54I mean, in terms of revolutionizing the movie industry.
08:00You know, you come from a very prude background.
08:05And then comes Brigitte Bardot and everything is just shifting.
08:08Just, you know, it's a new world.
08:10And that's, I mean, it's once in a century, you know, it was how you can show something without being, you know, aggressive or disrespectful.
08:27It was something very simple.
08:29Unity in its best aspect, very simple.
08:33But that changed the world of the movie industry.
08:37Yeah.
08:39Gad Edry, thank you so much for speaking to France 24.
08:41I'm afraid that's all we have time for.
08:43I'm afraid that's all we have time for.
