What sad news. Jane Birkin, the most French of the English, was found lifeless this Sunday, July 16, 2023 at her Parisian home, at the age of 76. The singer and actress had been struggling with her health for a while, which prevented her from performing as she would have liked. “Following a fracture of the artist, Diogène Productions and Les Visiteurs du Soir are forced to cancel the Jane Birkin concert scheduled at Espace Avel Vor in Plougastel on Thursday March 2, 2023 at 8:00 p.m. and that of Nantes (already canceled previously) on March 03, 2023 at La Cité des Congrès”, said a cancellation press release last March. “I’m not well at all, I broke my shoulder blade and I’m in a lot of pain”, she herself declared to the Telegram on March 1, then forced to cancel her planned dates in Brittany and Loire-Atlantique. Health problems that had been linked since his stroke in 2021, “I know intensive care by heart”she confided in January 2022 to the Parisian.
She knew, very young, what she wanted…
Jane Birkin had three children, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Lou Doillon (whose father is the director Jacques Doillon) and Kate Berry, her eldest daughter who committed suicide in 2013, whose father was the famous composer John Barry. Born in 1946 in swingin’ London, this pretty girl, whose dad is a commander in the Royal Navy, was charmed by the sirens of the 7e Art, from 1964. And not without a dazzling success! With roles in movies like Death on the Nilealongside Peter Ustinov, blow-up by Michelangelo Antonioni or even The swimming pool by Jacques Deray, with Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. Her androgyneity, her big romantic eyes and her slender size allow her to chain the castings and front pages of prestigious magazines. After her divorce from John Barry, the beauty decides to fly to France and dreams of settling there. His meeting with Serge Gainsbourg, on the set of the film Slogan, will make his dearest wish come true. His destiny was beginning to be written…
VF