Jane Birkin, the Anglo-French actress, singer and fashion icon known in part for her decade-long romantic and artistic partnership with musician Serge Gainsbourg, died Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron announced. She was 76.
It was first reported in Le Parisien and BFM television that Birkin had been found dead at her home in Paris. The actress suffered a mild stroke in 2021, but her cause of death has not yet been revealed.
“Because she embodied freedom, because she sang the most beautiful words of our language, Jane Birkin was a French icon. A complete artist, her voice was as sweet as her engagements were fiery. She bequeaths us tunes and images that will never leave us,” Macron wrote in a statement posted on Twitter.
Born in 1946 in London, Birkin began her career while still a teenager as part of the “Swinging London” scene of the 1960s. She appeared mainly in small roles in art and counterculture films, most notably Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni’s groundbreaking film “Blowup” (1966), which featured Birkin in a (for-the-time) controversial nude scene.
When she was 17, Birkin met 32-year-old composer John Barry; they married in 1965 and had a child, Kate Barry, in 1967, but divorced in 1968.
The next year, Birkin shot to stardom after landing the lead female role in the French romantic dramedy “Slogan,” where she met and became involved with her 40-year-old co-star Gainsbourg. That same year the couple collaborated on her first music album “Je t’aime… moi non plus.” The album’s title track, a sexually explicit duet cowritten by Birkin and Gainsbourg, was banned in some countries and criticized by the Vatican, but also became an international hit and enduring symbol of that pop culture moment. It remains her most well-known song internationally.
Birkin at this point moved to France permanently. She sang primarily in French and acted primarily in French cinema, though she did occasionally appear in English language films, such as the 1978 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s “Death on the Nile.” She was nominated three times for César Awards (France’s equivalent of the Oscars), the first time in 1976 for “Je t’aime moi non plus,” a film directed by Gainsbourg and inspired by their song, and the last time in 1991 for “La Belle Noiseuse.”
Birkin’s relationship with Gainsbourg ended in 1980, due largely to his alcoholism and abusive behavior, though the two remained close. She old CNN during an interview in 2006: “He and I became the most famous of couples in that strange way because of ‘Je t’aime’ and because we stuck together for 13 years, and he went on being my best friend until the day he died.”
Birkin and Gainsbourg had one child together, the actress and musician Charlotte Gainsbourg, in 1971.
In the 1980s she was in a relationship with director Jacques Doillon, with whom she often collaborated. They had one child together, actress, singer, musician and model Lou Doillon. The couple split in 1991.
Birkin was of course also a fashion icon, and today might be best known for the namesake handbag created by Hermès in 1984, still a highly prized (and very expensive) accessory.
Birkin is survived by her daughters Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon, and her grandchildren. Kate Barry, who became an acclaimed fashion photographer, died in 2013 at age 46.