Jane Birkin, who helped define the chic female sex of the 1970s as an actress in art and erotic European films and in her relationship – two parts romance and art – with singer Serge Gainsbourg, who died on Sunday in Paris. Birkin, who would later become known for inspiring one of the most famous luxury handbag lines, was 76 years old.
Her death was confirmed by President Emmanuel Macron of France, who called her “an icon of France” in a Twitter messages. The French media reported that Mrs Birkin was found dead at her home but the cause was not immediately determined.
The child of a famously beautiful actress and a socially connected British naval officer, Miss Birkin had a life guided by many happy opportunities.
While she was on a flight in 1984, a plastic bag in which she carried her belongings broke, prompting her to loudly complain that Hermès did not produce a bag that could hold all of her belongings. she. The man sitting next to her happened to be Jean-Louis Dumas, then chief designer of Hermès (and later its chief executive officer). The company released its line of Birkin bags the same year – just in the large size she requested.
Standard Birkin bag now for sale for $10,000, and the difficulties to get one – due to the complex manufacturing process and deliberately distributed sourcing to stores – give the bag its signature mark of exclusivity.
Her relationship with Mr. Gainsbourg also began by chance in 1968. When she was in her 20s, her first marriage fell apart, as she was not well known as an actress. cast and without speaking a word of French, she managed to be cast in the role. a French film, “Slogan,” starring Mr. Gainsbourg.
The two fell in love, but Mrs. Birkin saw no way to stay in France for long. Then, during a night out for dinner, she ran into a French director Jacques Deraywas hired to act in one of his films, staying in the country and strengthening her relationship with him Gainsbourg.
She lived in France for the rest of her life, and her relationship with Mr Gainsbourg and his music was equally enduring.
The most notable product of their collaboration and romance was the 1969 recording of Mr. Gainsbourg’s hit song. “Je t’aime… moi non plus” (“I Love You… Neither Do”).
In the song, a duet, Mr Gainsbourg talks about sex in a low-pitched voice as Mrs Birkin confesses her love with erotic whispers and groans and the soaring vocals of a singer. ingenue.
The song has been condemned by the Vatican and banned in several countries as well as the BBC television network. But it sold millions of copies.
Nearly 50 years later, in 2018, Mrs. Birkin is still singing Mr. Gainsbourg’s music, then on a world tour with orchestral versions of his songs.
“If I sing in Argentina in two weeks,” she speak The Guardian, “it’s because of ‘Je t’aime.’”
Jane Mallory Birkin was born in London on December 14, 1946, to Judy Campbell, an actress best known for performing for the British army with Noël Coward during the Second World War, and Cmdr. David Birkin of the Royal Navy.
In 2021, her father’s feat in World War II is told in “A Dangerous Enterprise,” a book by Tim Spicer, a former British Army officer. Commander Birkin’s duties included navigating moonless ships across the English Channel to safety for Allied spies, stranded pilots, and escaped prisoners of war. find themselves in France.
Birkin, 18, is married to British composer John Barry, known for staging the themes featured in James Bond films, and they have a daughter, Kate. At the age of 20, Birkin appeared in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 hit, “Blow Up,” an erotic story by a London fashion photographer. She plays a fashion model – the credits only list her as The Blonde – and has garnered some attention thanks to a risky nude scene.
“If all goes well with John Barry, I’ll never be curious to know what’s going on anywhere else,” said Birkin. speak The Guardian 2017. “I will continue to be his wife. I will be very pleased. But since he went with someone else, and I stayed with Kate, I had to find a job pretty quickly.”
That led to her audition for “Slogan.”
The movie that kept her in France was “La Piscine” (“Swimming Pool”), starring Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. (It finds unexpected innovation popular in the United States in 2021.) A film rife with sex and jealousy with plenty of scenes of revealing actors, the film proved to be an effective display of her leggy beauty. Birkin.
Her romance with Mr Gainsbourg captivated the French public. She is a young foreigner with deer eyes, he is an old but still strong artistic genius. The relationship lasted more than a decade, ending when she left him in the early 1980s for French film director Jacques Doillon. Mr. Gainsbourg die in 1991 at the age of 62.
Although Mrs. Birkin would later speak self-deprecatingly about Gainsbourg’s role as Mr. Gainsbourg’s muse, she accepted to be “the keeper of the Gainsbourg flame,” as The New York Times said. Labeling her in 2018.
She described to The Times the connection between the music he wrote for her and the work of classical composers such as Chopin and Brahms.
“I thought he was probably the most modern French writer,” she said. “He invented a new language, he cut words in half like Cole Porter.”
Ms. Birkin released “Oh! Pardon tu dormais…,” her first album of songs written in English, in 2021. “The result is an emotional journey from an artist who has never received musical work. their own outside of France,” composer Ben Cardew Written in a review for Pitchfork.
Ms. Birkin also continued to act, including in films by Agnes Varda and plays by Patrice Chéreau. She is also well known in France as a women’s and LGBTQ rights activist as well as her British accent when speaking French, which the French find endearing.
“The most British of Parisians have left us,” the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, wrote in an article. Twitter messages on Sunday. “We will never forget her songs, her laughter, and her one-of-a-kind voice.”
Mrs Birkin suffered a minor stroke in 2021 and recently had to cancel a series of concerts due to health issues.
She has two daughters, one with Mr Gainsbourg and the other with Mr Doillon: singer-actress Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon, each of whom, like their mother, have inspired designers and fashionista. Her other daughter, Kate Barry, a photographer, passed away at the age of 46 in 2013 during a fall from the window of her 4th-floor Paris apartment.
Mrs Birkin found that her romantic distance from Mr Gainsbourg did not diminish their cooperation. He continued to write new songs for her until his death.
After breaking up, “you can talk to him again,” she speak Guard. “You’re not just his creation anymore.”
Trebay guy Contribution reports from New York.
