British-born actor and singer Jane Birkin, a 1960s wild child who became a beloved figure in France, has died in Paris aged 76, the French Culture Ministry said on Sunday.
Le Parisien newspaper and BFM television reported she had been found dead at her home, citing people close to her. Birkin had a mild stroke in 2021 after suffering heart problems in previous years.
Birken was best known overseas for her 1969 hit in which she and her then-lover, the late French singer and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, sang the sexually explicit Je t’aime ... moi non plus.
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.
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“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, daughter of British actor 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. – Reuters
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