Brigitte Bardot, the pouty, tousle-haired French actress who redefined mid-20th-century movie sex symbolism in films beginning with “And God Created Woman,” then gave up acting at 39 to devote her life to the welfare of animals, died on Sunday at her home in southern France. She was 91.
Ms. Bardot’s film persona was distinctive, compared with other movie sex symbols of the time, not only for her ripe youthfulness but also for her unapologetic carnal appetite. Her director in “And God Created Woman” was her husband, Roger Vadim, and although they soon divorced, he continued to shape her public image, directing her in four more movies over the next two decades.

Nicknamed B.B. (pronounced in French much like the word for baby), she was best known for light comedies like “The Bride Is Much Too Beautiful” (1956), “Babette Goes to War” (1959) and “The Vixen” (1969), but she did work with some of France’s most respected directors.

Although she made several films in English, Ms. Bardot never worked in the United States. The closest she came to Hollywood roles were small parts, when she was still unknown, in Robert Wise’s “Helen of Troy” (1956), a Warner Bros. picture filmed in Italy, and “Act of Love” (1953), a Kirk Douglas film shot in France and directed by Anatole Litvak. “Shalako,” a 1968 western in which she was cast opposite Sean Connery, was a British-German production filmed in Spain and England.
At the height of her popularity, almost everything about Ms. Bardot was copied — her deliberately messy hairstyle, her heavy eye makeup and her fashion choices, which included tight knit tops, skinny pants, gingham and flounced skirts showing off bare, sun-tanned legs.
“I gave my beauty and my youth to men,” she was quoted as saying at the time, “and now I am giving my wisdom and experience, the best of me, to animals.”
Four decades later, the foundation said in a statement on Sunday, it has taken in more than 12,000 animals and worked in 70 countries. It called Ms. Bardot “an exceptional woman who gave everything and sacrificed everything for a world that is more respectful of animals.”
At best, Ms. Bardot was considered eccentric in her later years, prompting observations that this former sex kitten, as she was often called, had turned into a “crazy cat lady.”

She is survived by her fourth husband, Bernard d’Ormale, a former adviser to the right-wing French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died this year, in January; her son, Nicolas Charrier; a sister, Marie-Jeanne Bardot; two granddaughters; and three great-grandchildren.

REAT IN PEACE MS. BARDOT