JANE BIRKIN

From Gallic songs to Euro-cinema, activism to fashion, Jane Birkin brought style, daring and charm to all she did. The French Ministry of Culture called her a ‘timeless Francophone icon’, Emmanuel Macron a ‘complete artist’. When Birkin died aged 76 on 16 July 2023, stars from Brigitte Bardot to Iggy Pop paid reverential tribute: testimonies all to the cross-Channel multi-hyphenate’s multi-stranded talents.

The daughter of an actress and a Naval officer-turned-spy, the London-born Birkin started acting early. As a teenager, she appeared in stage productions of Graham Greene’s Carving a Statue and the musical Passion Flower Hotel, scored by Bond composer John Barry. She married and had a daughter with Barry, before gaining notoriety after appearing naked in Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 talking point Blow-Up. An of-themoment role in psychedelic Brit film Wonderwall followed.

When Barry left Birkin, she relocated to France, meeting louche grumbler/songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. With him, Birkin recorded breathy duet Je T’aime… Moi Non Plus, which was condemned by the Vatican, banned in several countries and – duly – sent to the UK No.1 spot by enraptured record-buyers.

Synonymous with late 60s/early 70s Anglo-French chic, Birkin began a 12-year relationship with Gainsbourg, had another daughter (the actor/singer Charlotte Gainsbourg) and acted in some farces she later disparaged: ‘They were funny if you like Benny Hill.’ She also featured in Gainsbourg’s sexually frank feature film, named after Je T’aime…, which stifled her acting career briefly.

She reasserted her value as the maid in the starry 1978 Agatha Christie adaptation Death on the Nile, before returning to Christie for another turn opposite Peter Ustinov’s Poirot in Evil Under the Sun in 1982. Besides inspiring a famously pricey bag for design house Hermès in 1984, she then effectively reinvented herself when she banked a César nom for French drama The Pirate (1984), whose director Jacques Doillon she had a relationship (and a third daughter) with.

Also notching up a Venice Film Festival award for J.M. Coetzee drama Dust (1985), she went on to act for arthouse heavyweights including Jacques Rivette (Love on the Ground, 1984), Jean-Luc Godard (Keep Your Right Up, 1987) and Agnès Varda (Kung-Fu Master, 1987). Birkin maintained this form into the 90s, with films by Bertrand Tavernier (These Foolish Things, 1990), James Ivory (A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries, 1998) and Alain Resnais (Same Old Song, 1997) asserting her worth, alongside further work for Rivette and Varda.

She continued making music, releasing often underrated albums of original material and songs by Gainsbourg (they remained friends after breaking up). Tired of her pin-up image, she began performing live at the age of 40, cutting her hair off and cutting loose. ‘It was,’ she’d say, ‘fantastic.’

In later life, Birkin multi-tasked impressively, campaigning for women’s and LGBTQ rights, writing plays, directing (2007 family drama Boxes) and publishing (Munkey Diaries 1957-1982). She consolidated her iconic standing playing herself in Hong Sang-soo’s Nobody’s Daughter Haewon (2013), though suffered from ill health in recent years, including a minor stroke in 2021. In 2020, she released her final album, Oh! Pardon tu Dormais…, a sometimes heartbreaking set of reflections on her losses. ‘Catch me if you can,’ she sang, ‘I’m almost gone from view.’ But not forgotten.