Say what you will about blondes, but as France's most famous flaxen-haired vixen proved yesterday, even at 75, they're still good for a little fun... and gossip.

Just a quarter of a century shy of 100, Brigitte Bardot marked her birthday with a public appeal to fellow legend, actress and sex symbol Sophia Loren (who celebrated her own 75th on September 20), by telling the AFP that Loren giving up wearing fur would be the "best gift she could offer me," as reported by The Telegraph.

Always one to court controversy, Bardot rose to fame via risqué roles, like her portrayal of seductress Juliette in 1956's "And God Created Woman".

She became an icon of '50s and '60s women's sexual liberation -- something she shared with curvy brunette counterpart Loren.

For more than a decade, the French and Italian screen sirens followed similar paths, charming audiences and males worldwide -- Bardot with her bikini and bouffant, Loren with her glamorous getups and feline eyes.

But in 1973, at the age of 39, Bardot abandoned it all, settling in Saint-Tropez, France and committing her life to animal protection.

Instead of posing in corsets, she began posing on icebergs with baby seals. Loren, meanwhile, maintained the movie star life.

According to the paper, in 1990 the divergence of their paths first became public when Bardot wrote Loren: "[you're] wearing a cemetery on your back" (in reference to the latter's anti coats).

Not one to rise to the bait, the Italian kept mum; the same reaction she's had to Bardot's latest statement.

For more celeb controversy, read up on fur flip-flopper Naomi Campbell.