[1] His best-known works are visually lavish films with erotic qualities, such as And God Created Woman (1956), Blood and Roses (1960), The Game Is Over (1966), Barbarella (1968), and Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971).

Although Vadim lived as a diplomat's child in Northern Africa and the Middle East in his early youth,[5] the death of his father when Vadim was nine years old caused the family to return to France, where his mother found work running a hostel in the French Alps, which functioned as a way-station for Jews and other fugitives fleeing Nazism.

Vadim was one of several writers on Allegret's French-British The Naked Heart (1950), aka Maria Chapdelaine, starring Michèle Morgan, as well as serving as assistant director.

Blackmailed (1951) was another film Allegret directed in England, starring Mai Zetterling and Dirk Bogarde; Vadim was credited as one of the writers.

Vadim did the screenplay and commentary for a documentary, Le gouffre de la Pierre Saint-Marti (1953), and was assistant director on Allegret's Julietta (1953), a popular romance with Jean Marais, Dany Robin and Jeanne Moreau.

However the next collaboration between Allegret, Bardot and Vadim, Plucking the Daisy (1956), aka Mam'selle Striptease, was a huge success at the French box office.

Vadim followed it with No Sun in Venice (1957) starring Françoise Arnoul and Marquand, produced by Levy, which was considerably less popular than And God Created Woman.

It starred Moreau, Gérard Philipe (in his final film) and Annette Stroyberg, a Danish model who became Vadim's second wife.

Vadim had another success writing and directing for Bardot, Love on a Pillow (1962), but found less favour with Nutty, Naughty Chateau (1963) starring Monica Vitti.

Dino de Laurentiis wanted Fonda to star in a science fiction sex comedy, Barbarella (1968) and she agreed provided Vadim would direct.

She was also in La Nouvelle tribu (1996) and its sequel Un coup de baguette magique (1997), which Vadim wrote and directed.

[11] Later, he cohabited with screenwriter Ann Biderman for several years, announcing their engagement in 1984,[12] but the couple never wed.[8] He also had two stepsons from his marriage to Schneider (younger sister of novelist Dominique Schneidre and heiress to the Schneider-Creusot steel and armaments firm) as well as adult stepchildren from Barrault's first marriage to Daniel Toscan du Plantier, also a friend of Vadim's, who called him "a happy man.

"[8] Nathalie, his eldest daughter, told Fonda biographer Patricia Bosworth: "Jane was the love of my father's life.

"[13] In addition to Vadim's theatre and film work, he also wrote several books, including the memoirs "Memoires du Diable", "Le Gout du Bonheur: Souvenirs 1940–1958" and an autobiography, D'une étoile à l'autre (From One Star to the Next) as well as a tell-all about his most famous exes, Bardot, Deneuve & Fonda: My Life with the Three Most Beautiful Women in the World, published in 1986.

Widow Barrault and ex-wives Bardot, Fonda, Schneider and Stroyberg were all in attendance at his funeral; ex-girlfriends Biderman and Deneuve were not.