Bridget Bardot Pictures

Halle Berry, Angelina Jolie, Tyra Banks & Other Sex Symbols Who Made The ...

Today is the 60th Anniversary of the bikini.

We guess it all depends on who you ask because some people are saying the two piece garment has been around since Antiquity, appearing on Roman pottery depicting games. 

The modern bikini, however, made its debut after World War II and was invented by two French guys, Jacques Heim, a fashion desinger at Cannes and engineer Louis Reard, who responded to Hein's claim that the garment was the smallest swimsuit in the world. Reard cut the outfit in half and named it after Bikini Atoll, the nuclear testing site. Heim called his piece the Atome, French for Atom (get it?).

The bikini didn't really take off until after WW2 when women had to sacrifice material to aid the war effort. French women refused to wear Reard's creation because it appeared immodest; a nude dancer by the name of Micheline Bernadini didn't care less and modeled the suit.

Following her was Bridget Bardot who wore and popularized the suit in the film "And God Created Woman" in the late 1950s, thus creating the first bikini clad sex symbol. 

In America, the bikini craze didn't explode until the late '60s launching movies, songs and a little ol' TV sitcom about a beach and boy crazy girl named Gidget.

After the break, iconic bikini babes!

Above: Halle Berry as Jinx in the James Bond film, "Die Another Day.

photos box Hollywood: bridget bardot makeup Photos at 2011 top news

In her early life, Bardot was an aspiring ballet dancer. She started her acting career in 1952 and, after appearing in 16 films, became world-famous due to her role in her then-husband Roger Vadim's controversial film And God Created Woman. She later starred in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 cult film, Contempt. She was nominated for a Award for Best Foreign Actress for her role in Louis Malle's 1965 film, Viva Maria!. Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris to Anne-Marie 'Toty' Mucel (1912–1978) and Louis 'Pilou' Bardot (1896–1975). Her father had an engineering degree and worked with his own father in the family business. Toty was sixteen years younger and they married in 1933. She grew up in a middle-class observant Roman Catholic family Brigitte's mother enrolled Brigitte and her younger sister Marie-Jean (born 5 May 1938) in dance. Marie-Jean eventually gave up dancing lessons to complete her education, whereas Brigitte decided to concentrate on a ballet career. At the invitation of her an acquaintance of her mother, she modeled in a fashion show in 1949. In the same year, she modeled for a fashion magazine "Jardin des Modes" managed by journalist Hélène Lazareff. Aged 15, she appeared on an 8 March 1950 cover of ELLEand was noticed by a young film director, Roger Vadim, while babysitting. He showed an issue of the magazine to director and screenwriter Marc Allégret who offered Bardot the opportunity to audition for "Les lauriers sont coupés" thereafter. Although Bardot got the role, the shooting of the film was cancelled but it made her consider becoming an actress. Moreover, her acquaintance with Vadim, who attended the audition, influenced her further life and career Although the European film industry was then in its ascendancy, Bardot was one of the few European actresses to have the mass media's attention in the United States, an interest which she did not reciprocate, rarely if ever going to Hollywood. She debuted in a 1952 comedy film Le Trou Normand (English title: Crazy for Love). From 1952-56 she appeared in seventeen films; in 1953 she played a role in Jean Anouilh's stageplay L'Invitation au château (Invitation to the Castle). She received media attention when she attended the Cannes Film Festival in April 1953 Her films of the early and mid 1950s were generally lightweight romantic dramas, some of them historical, in which she was cast as ingénue or siren, often in varying states of undress.

Film and the nuclear age, representing cultural anxiety

Weekly World News

The women of Afghanistan under the Taliban

Understanding Death, The Most Important Event of Your Life

You decide, controversial cases in American politics