Jane Birkin Is Dead at 76

The Anglo-French singer and actress who inspired the Hermès Birkin bag, has died at the age of 76, according to French media. Birkin had a mild stroke in 2021 after suffering heart problems in previous years.

Birkin was best known around the world for her relationship with the late French musician Serge Gainsbourg following their 1969 hit song “Je t’aime… moi non plus.” Birkin was a style icon of the 1960s and 70s.

She had lived in her adopted France since the break-up of her marriage to British composer John Barry in the late 1960s. Apart from her singing and roles in dozens of films, she was a popular figure in France for her warm nature, stalwart fight for women’s and LGBT rights.

“This departure is so sad. She was a beautiful person,” former culture minister Roselyne Bachelot told BFM.

Jane Mallory Birkin was born in London in December 1946, the daughter of British actress Judy Campbell and Royal Navy commander David Birkin.

Before venturing across the Channel aged 22, she achieved notoriety in the controversial 1966 Michelangelo Antonioni film “Blow-Up”, appearing naked in a threesome sex scene.

But it was in France that she truly shot to fame, as much for her love affair with tormented national star Gainsbourg, as for her tomboyish style and endearing British accent when speaking French, which some said she cultivated deliberately.

She had a daughter, Charlotte, with Gainsbourg.

Following the breakup of that relationship in 1981, she continued her career as a singer and actress, appearing on stage and releasing albums such as “Baby Alone in Babylone” in 1983, and “Amour des Feintes” in 1990, both with words and music by Gainsbourg.

She wrote her own album, “Arabesque” in 2002, and in 2009 released a collection of live recordings, “Jane at the Palace”.

By John Irish; Editors David Goodman and Frances Kerry

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