Brigitte Bardot

Of all the sex symbols France has graciously provided the world, there’s none more quintessentially French than Brigitte Bardot. Her breakout film, And God Created Women, swept in with the New Wave and proved little more than an excuse to show Bardot in various states of undress—more than enough to cement her international reputation. With a sensual persona that bounded between energetic and pouty, she literally defined “sex kitten.” Her lack of inhibition made her a darling of the intellectuals, and not just the men: Simone de Beauvoir called her a “locomotive of women's history.” She never went Hollywood, but worked with some of her country’s greatest directors, including Jean-Luc Godard and Louis Malle. At her peak she was the thinking man's sex symbol: blonde, beautiful, and irresistibly French.