Gunter Sachs, the playboy who married Brigitte Bardot, kills himself at 78

By Daily Mail Reporter
Updated: 20:51 EDT, 9 May 2011

• Found dead at his Swiss chalet with shotgun wounds
• Couldn't live with brain disease that was affecting his memory
  

Millionaire playboy Gunter Sachs, the German-born former husband of Brigitte Bardot, has killed himself at the age of 78.

He is reported to have shot himself at his home in the Swiss resort of Gstaad.

In a note distributed to Swiss and German media by his family, Sachs said he had been suffering from a 'hopeless illness' and that he felt he was losing his memory, ability to think and communicate clearly.

'That menace was for me always the lone criteria for putting an end to my life,' Sachs said in the note. His family said it had been Sachs' 'expressed wish' to have the note published after his death.

'I have always stood up to big challenges,' the statement added.

Flower in hand, the French actress and Gunther Sachs on their wedding day in Las Vegas. The ceremony lasted eight minutes and the marriage three years

After their Las Vegas wedding the couple flew to Tahiti for their honeymoon. Here they are pictured shortly after their arrival in French Polynesia

The German millionaire was Bardot's third husband: Here they are pictured on a yacht during their honeymoon

The family did not provide details on his death. But German media quoted police saying he shot himself to death on Saturday at his chalet in Switzerland. Sachs became a Swiss citizen in 1976.

The manner of his death is the same as his father's, Willy Sachs. The Nazi party member and honorary SS officer died in a hunting hut in 1958.

Gunter Sachs was the great-grandson of Adam Opel, the founder of the Opel car company and was born into the wealthy industrialist family in 1932.

He used his inheritance and business acumen to fund a glamorous lifestyle that fascinated many in post-war Germany of the 1960s and 70s and was a high-profile member of the 'jet set'. He once boasted of 'never having worked a day in my life'.

German tabloids reported extensively on his affairs with celebrities and friendships with artists such as Andy Warhol.

Sachs was romantically linked in the early 1960s with Iranian queen Soraya Esfandiary. He married French actress Bardot in 1966 in an eight-minute ceremony in Las Vegas, just weeks after they met.

He said after they first met in a restaurant: 'It was love at first sight and when we spoke, it was as though lightning had struck. I knew the minute I saw her, I was going to marry her.'

In the early 1960s Sachs was romantically linked with Iranian queen Soraya Esfandiary (left). She is seen here with the Shah of Iran and was his second wife

Gunter Sachs, centre, with the mayor of Leipzig and the director Leipzig Museum. They are standing in front of an Andy Warhol painting of Sachs at retrospektive of his collection called 'Art Is Female'. The playboy was a renowned art collector as well as photographer

Shortly after their divorce three years later, Sachs married a former Swedish model, Mirja Larsson, in 1969.

His first marriage in 1955 had been to Anne-Marie Faure and a few months later their son, Rolf, now a London-based furniture designer, was born. But when he was two she was involved in a serious car accident and died on the operating table.

His last marriage to Swedish model Mirja Larsson produced two sons, Christian Gunnar and Claus Alexander.

Sachs, who was born in the southern German town of Schweinfurt, also made a name for himself as a documentary filmmaker and art collector. Swiss business magazine Bilanz estimated his fortune at 300-400 million Swiss francs (£207million-£277million).

He also pursued a career in photography ('I had to film a hippo coming out of the water once and it took so many days, I decided to photograph women from that moment on') and even owned a chain of fashion boutiques.

As a young man he was a keen sportsman and in 1959 was junior European champion in the two-man bobsleigh.

He was also fascinated by astrology, founding in 1955 an institute to research the links between the planets and the human character. He also published a book called The Astrology File claimed to present statistical proof that star signs really do work.

To do this his team of researchers gathered data from the official statistics office in Switzerland (which has recorded the hour of birth of every citizen since 1875) as well as from the UK and Germany, and had two statisticians from Munich University double-check his results.

Proceeds from its sales went to his wife's foundation for children.

Interviewed at the age of 66 he declared that golden days when an elite breed of professional pleasure-seekers fascinated the world was over.

He said: 'There were only 12 playboys - not more - in the world.

'They were charming and spoke languages and behaved well with women. I think that today most of the fun has gone. To go with a girl to Tahiti was incredible. Now everybody goes to Tahiti. This generation can do anything, but it's less fun.'

Sachs, here posing for the press at an exhibition of his art and photography in 2003. He shot himself at his Swiss chalet in Gstaad this weekend