Brigitte Bardot, who has died at the age of 91, swept away cinema's staid 1950s' portrayal of women - coming to personify a new age of sexual liberation.

On screen, she was a French cocktail of kittenish charm and continental sensuality. One publication called her 'the princess of pout and the countess of come hither', but it was an image she grew to loathe.

Ruthlessly marketed as a hedonistic sex symbol, Bardot was frustrated in her ambition to become a serious actress. Eventually, she abandoned her career to campaign for animal welfare.

Years later, her reputation was damaged when she made homophobic slurs and was fined multiple times for inciting racial hatred. Her son also sued her for emotional damage after she said she would have preferred to 'give birth to a little dog'.

It was a scar on the memory of an icon, who - in her prime - put the bikini, female desire, and French cinema on the map.