I discovered Brigitte Bardot quite by accident. After a painful divorce I was living in Phoenix, AZ trying to numb myself with alcohol -- organic chardonnay wine is the best, by the way, if you find yourself in such a predicament.
One night I went to a casino in Scottsdale and signed up to play in a poker tournament. A lovely cocktail waitress named Laurie served me my drinks.
“Let's make a deal,” I said. “I love good French movies and wine. If I win tonight, let's make a date to watch a French film on your next day off.”
She told me she thought I was crazy, but agreed to my offer. While I failed to win the tournament, I finished in third place and collected $1,400. Laurie gave me her phone number and address and we agreed to meet the following Monday at noon.
I bought two bottles of Frey's Chardonnay, a wonderful California wine made of organically grown grapes. Then I visited the Phoenix Public Library and after much browsing around I picked up a DVD called ‘And God Created Woman.’ It starred Brigitte Bardot and John-Louis Trintignant and was directed by Roger Vadim.
The film was sensual, very French, and made me a lifelong fan of Bardot. I was also intrigued by Vadim and a couple of days later visited a Barnes & Nobel Book Store where -- lo and behold -- I found Vadim's autobiography, “Bardot, Deneuve and Fonda: My Life With Three of the World's Most Beautiful Women.”
The title was so intriguing I had to buy it. I took the book home with me and immediately started turning the pages.
Vadim met Bardot when she was 15 and an aspiring actress in Paradise. Her father was a judge and he was able to talk her parents into letting her appear in one of his movies. Over the next couple of years, she appeared in three of his films and Vadim, in his early 20s, began a relationship with her.
Vadim knew her father was a strait-laced judge so he began visiting her at night by climbing a tree outside her bedroom. Things went fine until he received a frantic phone call from her.
“Roger, you are in trouble,” said the 17-year-old Bardot. “My father found out about us and he is looking for you with a gun!”
Vadim was petrified. “What will I do if he finds me?”
Bardot was quiet for a moment. “Well, you'll have to kill him, I suppose. You said you wanted to marry me and I would rather be an orphan than a widow.”
Fortunately, Vadim and the judge reconciled and became friends. Vadim and Bardot wed in a marriage that lasted five years. He also wrote the screenplay for ‘And God Created Woman’ and directed Bardot in a hugely successful film that drew audiences around the world.
Their marriage was very open and Bardot fell in love with her co-star Trintignant. She divorced Vadim and married the actor, but remained friends with Vadim for the rest of their lives.
Vadim met Deneuve, voted one of the world's most beautiful women, and married her. Their marriage lasted three years.
While in America working on a film, he met Fonda. She was 24 years old and they became attracted to each other. Once they began a relationship, Vadim discovered he was impotent during their first couple of times together. That didn't harm their relationship, he said. In her eyes he became human and more vulnerable. They remained together eight years before their divorce.
Vadim directed many films during his career, including ‘Pretty Maids All In A Row’ with Rock Hudson and Angie Dickinson. The film was a bomb at the box office. He also directed a successful film starring Bardot, ‘The Night Heaven Fell.’
Half French and half Russian, Vadim was born in Paris. His father was a White Russian military officer and pianist while his mother was an actress. He studied journalism and writing at the University of Paris. He was 72 when he died of a heart attack in Paris.