Annie Boulat, the wife of the famous French society photographer Pierre Boulat, discovered an old, dusty brown envelope when she was clearing out the cellar at her family home, and she almost trashed the old envelope.
In the dusty, brown envelope there were contact sheets of Brigitte Bardot as an innocent school girl in the early 1950s.
Pierre Boulat, who died in 1998 at the age of 73, sold the negatives to a French newspaper that later closed down.
“My husband always spoke about having photographed Brigitte Bardot but we could never find the photos or the negatives,” Mrs Boulat, 72, told The Sunday Telegraph.
“Then recently I was sorting out the cellar at our home and throwing lots of stuff out when I came across an unremarkable brown envelope. I was going to throw it on the pile with the other stuff I was getting rid of, but when I looked inside I saw the contact sheets of around 30 photos of Brigitte Bardot.”
Annie believes the photos were taken in 1951 when her husband lived in Rue de la Pompe in the chic 16th arrondissement of Paris, where Bardot was also living with her parents and younger sister Marie-Jean.
“I think Pierre came across here in the building, told her he was a photographer and asked if she would post for him. The photos were all taken in one sitting.” she told Telegraph.
Bellow you can check the mesmerizing photos of the innocent schoolgirl before she became famous.
Bardot grew up in an upper-middle-class Roman Catholic observant home.When she was seven she was admitted to theCours Hattemer, a private school. She went to school three days a week and otherwise studied at home. This gave time for lessons at Madame Bourget’s dance studio three days a week.Brigitte’s mother also enrolled Brigitte’s younger sister, Marie-Jeanne (born 5 May 1938), in dance. Marie-Jeanne eventually gave up dancing lessons and did not tell her mother, whereas Brigitte concentrated on ballet. In 1947, Bardot was accepted to the Conservatoire de Paris. For three years she attended ballet classes by Russian choreographer Boris Knyazev. One of her classmates was Leslie Caron. The other ballerinas nicknamed Bardot “Bichette” (“Little Doe”).
At the invitation of an acquaintance of her mother, she modelled in a fashion show in 1949. In the same year, she modelled for a fashion magazine “Jardin des Modes” managed by journalist Hélène Lazareff. Aged 15, she appeared on an 8 March 1950 cover of Elle and 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. Although Bardot got the role, the film was cancelled but made her consider becoming an actress. Her acquaintance with Vadim, who attended the audition, influenced her further life and career.
H/ T Vintage Everyday, Telegraph