JANE BIRKIN . ACTRICE . CHANTEUSE . DEAUVILLE . 12 SEPTEMBRE 1985 .
At the age of 76, singer, actress and beauty icon Jane Birkin passed away at her home in Paris yesterday, Sunday July 16 2023.
In France, Birkin was the “little English girl” who came to Paris in the 1960s, met the legendary French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg and with him became one of the era’s most fêted celebrity couples, gaining international notoriety with the erotic song Je t’aime … moi non plus.
Birkin sang, wrote, acted and composed and was regarded in her adopted homeland as an icon of French music in her own right. She was married to John Barry, a British composer.
Le Monde wrote: “Birkin’s life, apart from Gainsbourg, was a seamless adventure – records, films, theatre, love at first sight and hard knocks.”
It was the start of a 13-year on- and off-screen relationship that made them France’s most famous couple, in the spotlight as much for their bohemian and hedonistic lifestyle as for their work.
She is survived by two daughters the singer and actress Charlotte, born in 1971, and Lou Doillon (with Jacques Doillon, film director), also an actress, born in 1982. She also had a daughter, Kate, who was born in 1967 and died in 2013.
heir relationship was frequently described as “tumultuous”, and Birkin reportedly wrote in her 2020 diaries that there had been violence. During one of their rows, Birkin launched herself into the River Seine after throwing a custard pie in Gainsbourg’s face.
But she frequently defended the man with whom she became so closely associated, including against charges by one singer that he was a “harasser”, in an interview in the Times in 2020.
“He and I became the most famous of couples in that strange way because of Je t’aime and … he went on being my friend until the day he died. Who could ask for more?” Birkin told CNN in 2006. “So Paris became my home. I’ve been adopted here. They like my accent.”
She had lived in her adopted France since the late 1960s and apart from her singing and roles in dozens of films, she was a popular figure for her warm nature, stalwart fight for women’s and LGBT rights.
The „most Parisian of the English has left us,” said Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. „We will never forget her songs, her laughs and her incomparable accent which always accompanied us.”Her first child, Kate Barry, a fashion photographer who worked for Vogue, died in 2013 at the age of 46.
