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Pablo Picasso

Short stories – for a quick break

Aenigma is all about images from the the worlds of fashion and the movies and the stories behind them.

Short stories is a good place to come if you don’t have time for one of the longer pieces. Below you’ll find a selection of shots that illustrate the range of subjects covered by aenigma. It’s a deliberately eclectic mix with, hopefully, something for everybody.

Use the filter buttons to home in on topics that might interest you, and then the Read more button to go to the whole story.

AllBehind the scenesEventsFashionFilmsPhotographersPressStars
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Bull shoots Gardner

Bull shoots Gardner

1945. Clarence Sinclair Bull, head of MGM's stills department, with his thumb on the shutter-release button, looks intently at Ava Gardner. The year is 1945, Ava is 23 years old...

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Marilyn Monroe nude

Naked and glistening

May 1962. Marilyn Monroe sits on the edge of a swimming pool on the set of Something’s Got To Give. In the film she swims naked, and to generate advance...

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Age after beauty

Age after beauty

1956. Odile Rodin is well aware of her greatest assets and dresses to set them off to perfection. Born Odile Bérard, she has adopted the artistic name of Rodin to...

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Photography as a sex act

Photography as a sex act

1966. David Hemmings, as Thomas, straddles the writhing Veruschka in a scene from Michelangelo Antonioni's cult film, Blow-Up. It's about a hip fashion photographer who believes he has unwittingly caught...

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Halloween in Hollywood

Halloween in Hollywood

1941. Ava Gardner and friends at an MGM Halloween party. This is Ava's (front left) first year in Hollywood and it will be another six until she makes her breakthrough...

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Picasso chats up Bardot

Picasso chats up Bardot

April 1956. Brigitte Bardot takes time out from the Cannes Film Festival to visit Pablo Picasso in Vallauris. In the sunny garden outside his studio, Picasso, one of the 20th...

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Marriage on the rocks

Marriage on the rocks

November 1945. Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth, at the zenith of their careers, are out on the town. But things aren't going well. He is giving her the most furious...

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Romantically linked

Romantically linked

1963. One of the 20th century's greatest, most glamorous and tempestuous romances, played out in the glare of the media spotlight. Lust, booze, ­diamonds, yachts, jealousy – it had them...

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Dressed to thrill

Dressed to thrill

1999. Sophie Marceau steals the show as Elektra King in The World Is Not Enough, the 19th James Bond film. Beautiful, elegant, sophisticated, complex – really just your average Bond...

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Sylvia (Anita Ekberg) cools off in the Trevi Fountain in Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita

Midnight fantasy

1959. Dawn has yet to break as Anita Ekberg (as Sylvia in Federico Fellini's iconic movie, La Dolce Vita) wanders into the Trevi fountain in Rome. This iconic scene in...

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Gene Tierney and Oleg Cassini at a fancy-dress party

Gene Tierney and Oleg Cassini at a fancy-dress party

26 January 1941. Gene Tierney, dancing with Oleg Cassini, exchanges smiles with actress Ruth Hussey (dressed as a rag doll) and producer Raphael Hakim (a sheik), reputed to be...

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Ludmilla Tchérina with Salvador Dali

Truly, madly…

11 December, 1969. Salvador Dali and Ludmilla Tchérina attend The Paris Lido's new show, The Grand Prix. Dali, the mad surrealist artist, attributed his "love of everything that is...

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Not what the studio ordered

Not what the studio ordered

8 April 1937. Two Tinseltown stars are caught off guard – no artful lighting, considered poses, careful composition. A true candid and not what the studio ordered. Here's the story,...

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Fashion and film

Fashion and film

May 1956. Richard Avedon looks over photographs with Arlene Dahl. Avedon, one of the 20th century's greatest photographers, is in Hollywood as technical advisor for Funny Face, starring Fred Astaire...

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Other topics you may be interested in…

Donyale Luna – the fashion world’s wayward moon-child
Movie stars of the 1940s – talent, savvy, looks and luck
Barbara Stanwyck in The Two Mrs Carrolls
Unsafe sex – the starlet’s dilemma

Filed Under: Behind the scenes, Events, Fashion, Films, Photographers, Press, Stars Tagged With: Anita Ekberg, Ann Rutherford, Ava Gardner, Barbara Stanwyck, Bill Josephy, Blow-Up, Brigitte Bardot, Clarence Sinclair Bull, David Hemmings, Elizabeth Taylor, Gene Tierney, La Dolce Vita, Ludmilla Tcherina, Marilyn Monroe, Mickey Rooney, Odile Rodin, Oleg Cassini, Orson Welles, Pablo Picasso, Raphael Hakim, Richard Avedon, Richard Burton, Rita Hayworth, Robert Taylor, Ruth Hussey, Salvador Dali, Sophie Marceau, The World Is Not Enough, Veruschka, Virginia Field, Virginia Hill

Picasso and Bardot – the artist and the sex kitten

Picasso and Bardot at Vallauris
I’m going to pout if you won’t paint my picture. Photo by Jérome Briere. Read more.

1956 was Brigitte Bardot’s breakthrough year – the year that saw the release of Et Dieu Créa La Femme and, with it, the creation of her persona as a sex kitten.

In April that year,  21 years old and already with over 10 films to her credit, she attends the Cannes Film Festival. The Jury Special Prize goes to The Mystery of Picasso by Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Perhaps that’s what prompts Bardot to visit Picasso at his studio at Vallauris in the hills above Cannes. After all, it’s less 15 minutes’ drive away. In her memoir, Bardot writes:

He showed me his canvases, his ceramics, his studio. He was simple, intelligent, a bit indifferent and lovely. That was our first and last encounter. I often wanted to ask him to make a portrait of me, but I never dared…

Well, that’s her version of the story. A rather different one comes from Lydia Corbett, his neighbour and muse at the time (you may recognise her as Sylvette). It sounds like there might have been a bit of needle between the two girls. Here’s Corbett’s account:

I only had one, brief meeting with Brigitte Bardot, when we passed each other on the promenade at Cannes during the film festival of 1954. She was on Vadim’s arm and I was on Picasso’s, and of course we took a long look at each other and the men took a long look at us…

Then, two years later:

…Bardot came [to Picasso’s studio] with another neighbor, the film director Roger Vadim… She really wanted to be painted by him but Picasso refused, saying he would only have one model at a time…

Or perhaps he didn’t want to upset Vadim – who had a house nearby and was married to Bardot at the time.

Want to know more about Picasso and Bardot?

  • The big picture: Brigitte Bardot visits Pablo Picasso in Cannes, 1956
  • Bardot meets Picasso
  • Cannes: Picasso’s Muse Claims ‘Brigitte Bardot Stole My Look’
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It looks so easy

It looks so easy

April 1956. Brigitte Bardot with Pablo Picasso at Vallauris. Photo by Jérome Brierre.

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Bardot and Picasso in the garden of his studio

Bardot and Picasso in the garden of his studio

April 1956. Brigitte Bardot with Pablo Picasso at Vallauris. Photo by Jérome Brierre.

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Try me

Try me

25 April 1956. Brigitte Bardot, at the opening of the Cannes Film Festival, has an irresistibly mean look about her. This lady means business.

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Posing for the cameras

Posing for the cameras

April 1956. Brigitte Bardot and Kim Novak at the Cannes Film Festival in contrasting outfits but in competition for the broadest smile. Spring might be in the air but it's still a bit chilly judging by the fur wraps. In the background are the press photographers and a gendarme. Two years later, Kim will make Vertigo. Photo by Léo Mirkine.

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Brigitte goes for a walk

Brigitte goes for a walk

April 1956. Brigitte Bardot taking a walk in Cannes. With the dark shadows you can almost feel the heat of the day. Love the off-the-shoulder top, nipped-in waist and full skirt with big patch pockets. But even in the mid-1950s Cannes can't have been that deserted. This shot MUST have been set up. Photo by Willy Bern.

One more thing…

Picasso had come to live in Vallauris in 1949. That year, Paul Haesaerts made Visite Picasso, a documentary that shows the artist painting on glass. Watch Picasso conjure up wonderful images with just a few, simple brushstrokes.

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picasso at work

Picasso at work

Click on the Play button to watch the video.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Jean Simmons and Claire Bloom – adventures of two north London girls
Paris after World War II – fact, fashion and fantasy
The paparazzi – shock horror birth of a monster

Filed Under: Stars Tagged With: Brigitte Bardot, Cannes Film Festival, Lydia Corbett, Pablo Picasso, Roger Vadim

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