Actress and singer Jane Birkin dies age 76

Anglo-French actress, director and singer Jane Birkin has died at the age of 76.  

Born and brought up in the UK, Birkin rose to fame in France in the 1960s with a parallel acting and singing career and became a global fashion icon and a woman’s rights activist. France claimed the naturalised citizen as their own.

Birkin starred in around 70 films including Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 film Blow Up, 1969’s The Swimming Pool opposite Alain Delon and Romy Schneider, Roger Vadim’s Don Juan, Or if Don Juan Were A Woman in 1978 alongside Brigitte Bardot, 1978’s Death on the Nile and Guy Hamilton’s 1982 mystery Evil Under the Sun. She was nominated for a Cesar award for films including La Pirate in 1985 and also starred in films for Bertrand Tavernier, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, James Ivory and Agnès Varda.

Birkin was recently the subject of the documentary Jane by Charlotte directed by her daughter actress, singer and filmmaker Charlotte Gainsbourg that world premiered in Cannes in 2021 and was nominated for a Cesar award. Agnès Varda also devoted a feature film to her, namely 1988’s Jane B. par Agnès V.

Birkin made her directorial debut in 2007 with Boxes that was showcased as a Special Screening in Cannes. 

In 2016, she starred in the Oscar-nominated short film La femme Et  Le TGV, which she announced as her final film role.

Birkin was awarded an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2001 for her services to acting and British-French cultural relations. 

Shockwaves

She was also known around the world for her tumultuous relationship with French singer Serge Gainsbourg and their steamy duet ’Je t’aime… moi non plus’ in 1969.

Birkin’s death sent shockwaves throughout France on the Sunday of the long Bastille Day holiday weekend. France’s cultural ministry said that her “collaborations with the greatest (Serge Gainsbourg, Etienne Daho and Agnès Varda) made her a timeless, French-speaking icon.” Reactions have begun to pour in from former cultural minister Roselyne Bachelot who called Birkin “an immense singer and an immense actress” and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo wrote: “We will never forget her songs, her laughs and her incomparable accent which always accompanied us.”

Singer Etienne Daho wrote : “Unimaginable to live in a world without your light.” Actress Juliette Binoche wrote: “Merci Jane. Your freedom, your beauty, your voice, your daughters, your loves, your follies.”

In May, Birkin cancelled concerts planned for major Paris venues l’Olympia and La Cigale in June citing health concerns. 

In addition to Charlotte Gainsbourg, she is survived by Lou Doillon, also an actress, singer and artist. Her daughter Kate Barry died in 2013.