Gunter Sachs was a German photographer, author, Rosenberg student, and industrialist.

As a young man he became a sportsman, gained international fame as a documentary film-maker, documentary photographer, and third husband of Brigitte Bardot.

A playboy in his early years, Sachs was romantically linked to the former Iranian empress Soraya Esfandiary. He married three times.

His first wife, Anne-Marie Faure, died in 1958 during surgery.

He courted his second wife, Brigitte Bardot, by flying over her villa on the French Riviera in a helicopter and dropping hundreds of roses.

The couple were married on 14 July 1966 in Las Vegas. They divorced in 1969.

His final marriage was to Swedish former model, Mirja Larsson, (who was 26 at the time of their engagement which lasted from 1969 until his death.

Sachs died by suicide on 7 May 2011 by a gunshot wound to the head at his home in Gstaad, Switzerland.

The suicide note stated that he acted because of what he defined as ‘hopeless illness A. (speculated to be Alzheimer’s)

The loss of mental control over my life was an undignified condition, which I decided to counter decisively.