Roger Vadim, the famed French director whose films and life revolved around female beauty and whose romances included Brigitte Bardot, Jane Fonda and Catherine Deneuve, died today after a long struggle with cancer. He was 72.
Vadim died in a Paris hospital, RTL radio said. A family friend and the National Cinema Center confirmed Vadim's death.
Vadim was best-known for the 1956 groundbreaking And God Created Woman about a young married woman's quest for sexual freedom. The film brought his new wife Bardot instant fame and enjoyed commercial success around the world.
The scene of Bardot dancing barefoot on a table remains one of the most titillating scenes in French cinema.
"There was really nothing shocking in what Brigitte did, what was provocative was her natural sensuality," Vadim told The Associated Press in a 1988 interview.
The film defined the content and set the tone for many of Vadim's films, including the 1968 Barbarella, an avant-garde sci-fi romp starring his new blond wife, Jane Fonda.
Vadim also earned praise as a producer, writer and theater director in a career that spanned half a century. His most recent work included several made-for-television mini-series. His films sometimes were superficial in content, but always technically strong and full of visual elegance.
Mostly, though, his films were known for their beautiful women.
"You wouldn't ask Rodin to make an ugly sculpture, or me to make a film with an ugly woman," Vadim told AP. "That's my style, that's my nature."
Vadim cast 26 movies with leading ladies ranging from the elegant Deneuve to earthy Angie Dickinson, intellectual Jeanne Moreau and Susan Sarandon. In 1988, he did a remake of And God created Woman, starring Rebecca DeMornay.
But he was best know for And God Created Woman, in which Bardot played a woman who marries a man in order to escape an orphanage, only to fall for the man's younger brother.
"I wanted to show a normal young girl whose only difference was that she behaved in the way a boy might, without any sense of guilt on a moral or sexual level," Vadim said.
Vadim was born Roger Vladimir Plemiannikov on Jan. 26, 1928, in Paris, the son of a diplomat. He met Bardot when she was 15. He was behind her early career as a fashion model, and later introduced her to the cinema. They married in 1952 when she was only 18. He was 24.
His other films include Sait-On Jamais? (No Sun in Venice) (1957), Les Bijoutiers du Clair de Lune (Night Heaven Fell) (1958), Les Liaisons Dangereuses, (1959), Et Mourir de Plaisir (Blood and Roses) (1960), Pretty Maids All in a Row in the United States (1971), Dom Juan (1973) and The Hot Touch (1981) .
Recent television productions include Mon Pere Avait Raison (1996), La Nouvelle Tribu (1996), and Amour Fou (1993).
Vadim also wrote several books including his autobiography, D'Une Etoile a l'Autre (From One Star to the Next) in which he described his marriages to Bardot and Fonda. He was also married to Annette Stroyberg and Catherine Schneider.
His is survived by his wife, actress Marie-Christine Barrault, and four children, Vanessa, born to Fonda, Christian, born to Deneuve, Nathalie, born to Stroyberg, and Vania, born to Schneider.
Funeral arrangements were pending.