Openness, boldness, twig size, delicious accent mistakes: Jane Birkin, who died at the age of 76, will remain the favorite Englishwoman of the French, inseparable from Serge Gainsbourg, whose muse and ambassador she was.
“When I see how the French listen to songs that are forty years old, I know that they are part of their history. But they also belong to me,” the artist summarized the publication of his diary “Munkey diaries” in 2018. Jane Birkin was found dead in her home in Paris on Sunday.
With the androgynous silhouette and pout of a childish woman, bohemian chic incarnated, this icon had a successful career as an actress and singer and also inspired fashion designers.
Long after the death of Serge Gainsbourg in 1991 and despite adversities such as the disappearance in 2013 of her daughter Kate, who at the time was suffering from leukemia and whose recovery was taking a long time, she always sang the work of the person with whom she formed a mythical couple. in the 70s.
She was born in London on December 14, 1946 to David Birkin, the great resistance fighter who died on the day of Serge’s funeral, and Judy Campbell, the famous actress. She is noticed at the cinema in “Blow up” by Michelangelo Antonioni (Palme d’Or 67 in Cannes), where her nudity causes a scandal.
She was under 20 when she married English composer John Barry, 13 years her senior. The couple have one daughter, Kate. He leaves her and she decides to try her luck in Paris. In 1968, she met Gainsbourg on the set of Pierre Grimblat’s film Slogan.
Forever united in the collective imagination, they embody the unbridled creativity of an era. You have a daughter, Charlotte.
Jane brings her voice to the sulphurous “Je t’aime, moi non plus” in 1969 – the “erotic year”. Brigitte Bardot had banned the publication of the first version, of which she was the interpreter, at the time of her affair with The Man with the Cabbage. It’s a success. 1971 saw the release of Histoire de Melody Nelson, a concept album designed by Gainsbourg around Jane, which was a commercial failure upon release and went on to become a classic.
In 1980 she left “Gainsbarre”, drunk, sometimes violent. “She threw me and it was good for my face, me who broke hers,” he dropped in the Inrocks in 1987.
She became the partner of filmmaker Jacques Doillon for 13 years and had a daughter, Lou, with him.
Often confined to the roles of Nunuchen, she began her regression into auteur cinema. “Despite appearances, I have something infinitely sad inside me, a terrible sense of guilt that has not left me since childhood. Jacques suspected that about me,” she explained.
In the credits of around 70 films, he was chosen by artists such as Jacques Rivette, Bertrand Tavernier, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, James Ivory and Agnès Varda. Never straying from her modesty, she claims to have “instinct” as an actress but no “talent”.
His relationship with Doillon does not prevent him from continuing to sing Gainsbourg. And he should continue to write for her. She notably recorded Baby Alone in Babylon (1983), which went gold.
But it wasn’t until she was over 40 that she made her stage debut at the Bataclan in Paris in 1987, followed by performances at the Casino de Paris and the Olympia. Performer of the year at the Victoires de la musique 92 in France (then rewarded with an honorary victory for her career in 2021), she is present on all fronts: she acts in the theatre, gives concerts in France and elsewhere a first film “Oh! Sorry, you were sleeping” (about a broken-up couple, inspired by her relationship with Barry).
In 1999 she released her first CD without Gainsbourg with songs written for her by French singer-songwriters such as Françoise Hardy or Alain Souchon. In 2008 the first album for which she wrote all the lyrics, “Enfants d’hiver”, was released. She’ll do it again in 2020 with the great “Oh!” Pardon tu dormais’, a CD created with French composer and performer Etienne Daho.
In addition to brands (Hermès even has a Birkin bag), the artist is also committed to humanity and ecology. But she always returned to Gainsbourg and in 2018 she performed her pieces with classical orchestra: “Birkin Gainsbourg, the symphonic”.
“Coming back to Serge, I couldn’t find anything better,” confided the “little baby doll” who knew how to sublimate her lyrics so well.