If we know well the love life of Serge Gainsbourg, the subject of the documentary Gainsbourg a lifetime, broadcast this Thursday evening, some sides are still dark for the general public. Of course everyone knows his first marriage with Béatrice and his first two children, his daughter Charlotte with Jane Birkin and his son Lulu with Bambou. What we know much less is that before all that, before Brigitte Bardot and her other liaisons, the singer was married to a woman, Elisabeth Levitsky.
A woman who followed him… until death. The latter, now 96 years old, rarely speaks about this love. It must be said that at the time, all of this was very badly seen by their respective families, in particular because of religion.When I met Lucien (Gainsbourg’s real first name) at the Académie Montmartre, he was a little Russian Jew. I too was Russian, but from a horribly anti-Semitic family of aristocrats (his father was in the SS during the war, editor’s note). Our love has been an extraordinary celebration. Our two families did not like each other“, she confided to West France.
A love that grows, at the start “in the style of Sartre and Beauvoir“but which is marred by regular adulterous relationships.”He was 21 and I was 23. Little by little, free love turned into deception. Lulu had 24-hour adventures and I had long stories“. Their story then becomes tense and the two lovers, who have married in the meantime, are no longer on the same wavelength: they will end up divorcing.
Their marriage, which lasted six years, eventually crumbled, marred by jealousy and numerous deceptions. However, this is not the end of their story, since they will meet again by chance and will be in contact all their lives: “One day, in May 68, on the Louis Philippe bridge, we came face to face. The beginning of a long ‘come back’. It’s his turn to be depressed after Bardot leaves him. But everyone is free, it’s great fun“.
“There was such a parade of good women, I had to represent a fixed point in his life. Even later, older, I always felt valued with him. As soon as he returned, what a party! We were old friends, like brother and sister too. One day when I asked him what he thought of our relationship, he replied: “It is perennial and incestuous.“, she says, still so touched. She will then have him regularly on the phone until the morning of his death.
If she describes him today as “the most amazing man i have seen“, she mostly gets her respect from him.”I’ve never known someone looking so much to please, to have such an egalitarian relationship with a woman. No authoritarian gesture, one word too much or a bit of ribaldness. Lulu is total respect, the opposite of misogynist. His voice also always touched me, he could say any bullshit with it, it passedt”.
In 2010, she released a book about their relationship, titled Lisa and Lulu and declares that the song Eliza was written for her. A beautiful story, discreet in the eyes of the public, which will remain in his heart all his life.