Actress with Grantham links, Jane Birkin, dies aged 76

From left are actresses Judy Campbell, her daughter Jane Birkin, and family friend from Grantham, Winnifred Lawrence.Judy was in town to unveil a plaque to her father John Campbell outside the Isaac Newton Centre in 1996.

France’s favourite “petite Anglaise”, the British-born singer and actor Jane Birkin, has died at her home in Paris aged 76.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, paid tribute to Birkin, saying she “embodied freedom and sang the most beautiful words in our language”.

“Jane Birkin was a French icon. A complete artist, her voice was as gentle as her commitments were ardent. She bequeaths us a legacy of songs and images that will never leave us,” Macron tweeted.

Yet the actress-singer once described as the sexiest woman on the planet, has Grantham roots.

In France, Birkin was the “little English girl” who came to Paris in the 1960s, met the legendary French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg and with him became one of the era’s most fêted celebrity couples, gaining international notoriety with the erotic song Je t’aime … moi non plus.

Birkin sang, wrote, acted and composed and was regarded in her adopted homeland as an icon of French music in her own right.

Le Monde wrote: “Birkin’s life, apart from Gainsbourg, was a seamless adventure – records, films, theatre, love at first sight and hard knocks.”

She was found dead at her home in Paris, French media reported.

Birkin was born in London on 14 December 1946 to an actor mother Judy Campbell and naval officer father. At 17 she married the James Bond composer John Barry, a marriage that lasted only three years.

Grantham-born Judy was a major West End star in the 1940s and was the first performer to sing Eric Maschwitz’s A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square – in the London revue New Faces in 1940.

She had made her stage debut in 1935 at the Theatre Royal, Grantham, in The Last of Mrs Cheyney. After that she joined several repertory companies and made her West End debut in 1937. Her films include Green For Danger, Convoy and East of Piccadilly.

She was greatly admired by Noel Coward, who having heard her sing said: “It takes great talent to put over a number when you don’t have a voice.”

Her father – Jane Birkin’s grandfather – owned the Picture House, Central Cinema and Empire Theatre in the town.

Jane catapulted to fame after appearing in the 1966 film Blow-Up before crossing the Channel in 1968, at the age of 22, to star in the satirical romantic comedy Slogan alongside Gainsbourg, who was 18 years her senior.

Despite being banned on radio in several countries and condemned by the Vatican because of its overtly sexual lyrics, their song Je t’aime … moi non plus (“I love you … me neither”), released in February 1969, achieved worldwide success and reached No 1 in the UK singles chart.

Their relationship was frequently described as “tumultuous”, and Birkin reportedly wrote in her 2020 diaries that there had been violence. During one of their rows, Birkin launched herself into the River Seine after throwing a custard pie in Gainsbourg’s face.

But she frequently defended the man with whom she became so closely associated, including against charges by one singer that he was a “harasser”, in an interview in the Times in 2020.

Birkin and Gainsbourg were together for 12 years and never married. In 1971 they had a daughter, Charlotte, who is an award-winning actor and singer.

She appeared in 70 or so films under some of France’s leading directors, including Bertrand Tavernier, Agnès Varda, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais and James Ivory.

Some of her most famous acting credits included the 1966 crime comedy Kaleidoscope, a 1978 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile and the 1982 mystery Evil Under the Sun.

Her first child, Kate Barry, a fashion photographer who worked for Vogue, died in 2013 at the age of 46. Birkin had another daughter, the singer Lou Doillon, from her 13-year relationship with the director Jacques Doillon.

She was made an OBE in 2001 for her services to acting and British-French cultural relations.

One recorded visit to Grantham was in 1996, when she came to town with her mother to unveil a blue plaque in honour or her grandfather, John Campbell, on St Peter’s Hill.