On September 3rd, local time, French actor Jacques Charrier died in the northwestern coastal town of Saint-Briac at the age of 88. He had worked with many renowned directors, including Claude Chabrol, Agnès Varda, and Miclos Jansou. He was also the second of four husbands of French national treasure Brigitte Bardot, but their marriage lasted only three years.
Jacques Charrière
Jacques Charrière was born in Metz, France, on November 6, 1936. At the age of 17, he entered the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts in Strasbourg, specializing in ceramics. Within a few years, he abandoned his craft to pursue an acting career on the Parisian stage. In 1958, renowned director Marcel Carné cast him in Les Jeunes les rouges (The Young and the Restless). This film, about the lives of young Parisians, was a box office success, catapulting the young Charrière to fame in French cinema.
Jacques Charrière (right) in "The Young and the Restless."
In 1959, Brigitte Bardot, who had risen to fame with her first husband, Roger Vadim's film And God Created Woman, recommended Charrière to director Christian-Jacques, who cast him in the lead role of the World War II comedy, La Babe des Gardes. Bardot played the female lead. They fell in love on the set and married in front of reporters from around the world at the film's wrap party on June 18, 1959.
Jacques Charrière and Brigitte Bardot in "Baby Goes to War."
With the news of Brigitte Bardot's remarriage (she had divorced Roger Vadim in 1957), Les Bains de l'Armement became a huge commercial success. At the time, Jacques Charrière was not yet 23. Handsome and tall, and as Brigitte Bardot's husband, he was already the most popular and iconic actor in French cinema.
Jacques Charrière and Brigitte Bardot at their wedding.
Soon after, director René Clément offered him a role in the thriller Les débutants. Unfortunately, Bardot was pregnant at the time. Charrière wanted to spend more time with his wife, while Bardot didn't want to accompany her husband on location shoots in Italy while pregnant. So, he declined the offer. Consequently, the leading role went to Alain Delon, who was about the same age and had made his acting debut around the same time, marking the beginning of his screen legend.
Jacques Charrière and Brigitte Bardot with their newborn son Nicolas.
In January 1960, Jacques Charrière and Brigitte Bardot's child, Nicolas, was born. A few months later, Bardot accepted a role in renowned director Henri-Georges Clouzot's new film, Les Truths, despite Charrière's opposition. While the film ultimately became a critical success, its production proved challenging. Bardot, suffering from postpartum depression, and the demanding Clouzot frequently clashed. Meanwhile, news arrived from afar that her husband had been diagnosed with a serious illness during a medical checkup for military service. By the time Les Truths wrapped, Bardot had developed a romantic relationship with the newcomer Sami Frey, who played the male lead. After the incident was exposed in the media, Bardot suffered a breakdown and attempted suicide. Fortunately, she was saved, but her relationship with Charrière was clearly irreparable.
In January 1963, the couple, who had long been separated, officially divorced, with Jacques Charrière receiving custody of their son. This change in his marital life did not affect his popularity. He subsequently collaborated with various New Wave directors on approximately twenty films. However, none of these works achieved the critical success of The Young and the Restless.
In 1969, Jacques Charrière and actor Jean-Claude Brialy co-founded Les Films Marquise, a film company dedicated to financing low-budget films struggling to make a mark. In 1975, the company co-financed the heartfelt masterpiece "It Rains in Santiago," directed by Chilean Elvio Soto and set in Chile's military coup two years earlier. Unfortunately, the film failed to resonate with audiences and was a box office failure, leading to the closure of Les Films Marquise.
Disheartened, Charles simply retired from the film industry, picked up his old love again, continued to study sculpture, ceramics, and oil painting, and regularly held solo exhibitions in Paris, Geneva, San Francisco and other places.
Brigitte Bardot's memoir, "BB Truth".
In his personal life, Jacques Charrière later married three more times and had three daughters. In 1996, his ex-wife Brigitte Bardot's memoir, Initiale BB, topped the French bestseller list for seven consecutive weeks. In the book, she discusses her unexpected pregnancy with her son, Nicolas, and reveals that she didn't want the child at all and seriously considered having an abortion, but had to give up without a doctor's consent. "For me, nine months of pregnancy was a nightmare. It was a bit like a tumor that kept eating away at me, hiding in my swollen flesh, and I could only wait for the happy moment when I would finally be free of it... I would have preferred to have a puppy."
This statement caused strong dissatisfaction among Jacques Charrière and his son Nicolas, who sued Brigitte Bardot and eventually won the case for "invasion of privacy" and was awarded 250,000 francs in compensation.
Jacques Charrière's memoir, My Response to Brigitte Bardot.
A few months later, Jacques Charrière published his own memoir, titled "My Response to Brigitte Bardot." In it, he revealed Bardot's love letters to him, refuting her claim that she hated her son. He also criticized Bardot, saying that for her, living things fell into three categories: humans (an inferior and despicable race), animals (worthy of love), and herself (worthy of admiration).
Bardot later sued him for invasion of privacy and won, receiving 50,000 francs in damages. Ten years later, Brigitte Bardot addressed the incident in an interview, complaining that her ex-husband had deliberately embroiled the innocent Nicolas, damaging her relationship with her only child. To be fair, the French paparazzi at the time were incredibly aggressive, hounding the new mother, forcing her to remain secluded in their cramped Paris apartment throughout her pregnancy and birth, ultimately preventing her from even going to the hospital. This experience likely influenced Bardot's perspective on pregnancy and childbirth. Despite two subsequent marriages and several relationships, she remained childless.
