Jane Birkin, Actress, Singer and Fashion Icon Known for ‘Je t’aime… Moi Non Plus,’ Dies at 76
thewrap.comreported in Le Parisien and BFM television that Birkin had been found dead at her home in Paris. The actress suffered a mild stroke in 2021, but her cause of death has not yet been revealed. .“Because she embodied freedom, because she sang the most beautiful words of our language, Jane Birkin was a French icon.
A complete artist, her voice was as sweet as her engagements were fiery. She bequeaths us tunes and images that will never leave us,” Macron wrote in a statement posted on Twitter.Born in 1946 in London, Birkin began her career while still a teenager as part of the “Swinging London” scene of the 1960s.
She appeared mainly in small roles in art and counterculture films, most notably Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni’s groundbreaking film “Blowup” (1966), which featured Birkin in a (for-the-time) controversial nude scene.When she was 17, Birkin met 32-year-old composer John Barry; they married in 1965 and had a child, Kate Barry, in 1967, but divorced in 1968.The next year, Birkin shot to stardom after landing the lead female role in the French romantic dramedy “Slogan,” where she met and became involved with her 40-year-old co-star Gainsbourg.
That same year the couple collaborated on her first music album “Je t’aime… moi non plus.” The album’s title track, a sexually explicit duet cowritten by Birkin and Gainsbourg, was banned in some countries and criticized by the Vatican, but also became an international hit and enduring symbol of that pop culture moment.
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