Actor, singer and style icon Jane Birkin dies in Paris at the age of 76
PARIS – Actor and singer Jane Birkin, who made France her home and enchanted the country with her English grace, natural style and social activism, has passed away at the age of 76.
The London-born star and fashion icon was known for her musical and romantic relationship with French singer Serge Gainsbourg. Their songs notably include the steamy “Je t’aime moi non plus” (“I love you, neither do I”). Birkin’s ethereal British-accented singing voice intertwined with his gruff baritone in the 1969 duet that made her famous and banned in Italy after being denounced in the Vatican newspaper.
The style that Birkin showcased in the 1960s and early 1970s – long hair with bangs, jeans paired with white tops, knitted mini dresses and basket bags – still embodies the pinnacle of French chic for many women around the world.
Birkin was also synonymous with a Hermes bag that bore her name. Created in her honor by the Parisian fashion house in 1984, the Birkin bag became one of the world’s most exclusive luxury items, with a stratospheric price tag and a years-long waiting list to buy it.
In her adopted France, Birkin was also celebrated for her political activism and campaigning for Amnesty International, Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement, the fight against AIDS and other causes.
“You can always do something,” Birkin said in 2001, while rallying support for an Amnesty International campaign against torture. “You can say, ‘I don’t agree with that.'”
She accompanied five monks in a march through the 2008 Cannes Film Festival to demand that Myanmar allow foreign aid workers into the country to help victims of the cyclone.
In 2022, along with other movie and music stars in France, she cut off their hair in support of protesters in Iran. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Birkin’s daughter with Gainsbourg and an actor herself, cut a bob from her mother’s hair for the “HairForFreedom” campaign when Iran was engulfed in anti-government protests.
French President Emmanuel Macron hailed Birkin as a “complete performer,” noting that her soft voice went hand in hand with her “fiery” activism.
“Jane Birkin was a French icon because she was the incarnation of freedom, singing the most beautiful words of our language,” he tweeted.
French media reported that Birkin was found dead in her home in Paris. The French Ministry of Culture tweeted that Birkin died on Sunday. It praised her as a “timeless francophone icon.”
Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak called Birkin “the most Franco-British person” and “the emblem of an entire era that never went out of style.”
Outside Birkin’s home on Paris’s Left Bank, fans mourned her death.
“She was a poet, a singer, an artist,” said Marie-Jo Bonnet. “She gave the best of herself and that’s great.”
Birkin’s early film credits include “Blow-Up” in 1966, credited with helping to introduce the French public to her “Swinging Sixties” style and beauty.
Birkin and Gainsbourg met two years later. She remained his muse even after the couple split in 1980.
She also had a daughter, Kate, with James Bond composer John Barry. Kate Barry died in 2013 at the age of 46. Birkin had her third daughter, singer and model Lou Doillon, with French director Jacques Doillon.
Birkin suffered from health problems in recent years that prevented her from performing and her public appearances became scarce.
French broadcaster BFMTV said Birkin suffered a mild stroke in 2021, forcing her to cancel shows that year. In March, she canceled her shows again due to a broken shoulder blade.
A return to performing was postponed in May, with the singer saying she needed a little more time and promising her fans she would see them again in the fall.
Despite her decades-long screen and music career, Birkin suspected that for some people, the bag named after her could be her most famous legacy.
The fashion accessory originated from a chance encounter on a flight to London in the 1980s with the then head of Hermes, Jean-Louis Dumas. Birkin recounted in later interviews that they got talking after she spilled some of her stuff on the cabin floor. She asked Dumas why Hermes hadn’t made a larger handbag and sketched on an airplane puke bag the kind of bag she would like.
Dumas then had a sample made for her and, flattered, she said yes when Hermes asked if it could commercialize the bag in her name.
In a 2018 CBS Sunday Morning interview, Birkin joked that she might be best known for that.
“I thought, ‘Oh God, my obituary will say, ‘Like the bag,’ or something like that,” she said. “Well, it could be worse.”
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AP journalists Mallika Sen in New York and Elaine Ganley in Paris contributed.
