They said she was the successor of Brigitte Bardot. Few people know that her grandfather was a famous Polish poet.

Gillian Hills was born on June 5, 1944 in Cairo, Egypt. Her parents were Denis Hills, a teacher and traveler, and Wanda, the daughter of the outstanding Polish writer and prose writer Bolesław Leśmian. Due to her father’s profession, she often changed her place of residence. In her teenage years, she spent several years in Nice, where she met Roger Vadim by chance. This meeting changed her life and gave rise to a promising career.

She was spotted by Brigitte Bardot’s ex-husband. That’s how Gillian Hills landed on screens

The director, who had such titles as “And God Created Woman” and “Barbarella” under his belt, was immediately enchanted by her extraordinary beauty and striking resemblance to , from whom he had divorced less than 2 years earlier. He even claimed that Gillian was the successor of the famous sex bomb and offered her a role in his version of the melodrama “Dangerous Liaisons”. She agreed without a second thought and made her big screen debut in September 1959. The 15-year-old was immediately admired not only by viewers and critics, but also by filmmakers, who eagerly offered her roles in their next productions.

Only a year later, the actress decided to try her hand at music. Together with Frenchman Henri Salvador, she recorded several songs, including “Près De La Cascade” and “Cha Cha Stop”, and then released the EP “Allo Brigitte? Ne coupez pas!”. The real hits came much later, however, and they were “Zou Bisou Bisou”, which was even used in the soundtrack of the 5th season of the series “Mad Men” in 2012, and the famous “Tut Tut Tut Tut”, which resounded in the hit Netflix “The Queen’s Gambit”.

She was pigeonholed because of her beauty. This is what happened to Gillian Hills

Although Hills was a huge hit and enjoyed worldwide popularity, it did not make her a star. Nevertheless, she left her mark on the film industry with a cameo in Michelangelo Antonioni’s British-Italian-American feature film Blow-Up and the cult film A Clockwork Orange directed by . Some even claimed that she had more to offer, but her acting potential was overshadowed by her beauty, which caused her to be pigeonholed.

Eventually, in 1972, Hills decided to give up on pursuing a career in the film industry and focus on her other artistic passion. She became a professional illustrator for magazines and magazines, such as Alice Munro’s Girls and Women and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple. She also married celebrity manager Stewart Young, with whom she still shares her life between the UK and the US. If you’d like, please vote in our poll below.