Jane Birkin
he second child of Major David Birkin and actress/singer Judy Campbell, Jane was born in London on December 14th, 1946. With a happy family, a childhood spent in the countryside, vacations to the Isle of Wight and boarding school classes, Jane was tame and well-behaved until the sixties revolution . . .
As a teenager, a miniskirted Chelsea girl, Jane embraced the pop excitement of « Swinging London ». Following in her mother’s footsteps, she started auditioning. Noticed by Binky Beaumont, she made her acting debut at seventeen at the Haymarket Theater playing a young deaf-mute in Carving a Statue by Graham Greene.
But it was in a musical, Passion Flower Hotel, at the Prince of Wales Theater, that she made her singing debut. She auditioned for the part encouraged by composer John Barry, author of the James Bond 007 theme and whom she ended up marrying at nineteen. After a first movie experience in Richard Lester’s The Knack, she was hired by Antonioni who was shooting Blow Up, which later received the Palme d’Or Award at the Cannes international film festival. This movie also created her first controversy brief scene, where she appeared naked; it was the talk of London.
After the failure of marrying too young and the birth of her daughter Kate in 1967, she decided to move to France. Recruited by French filmmaker Pierre Grimblat to star in his movie Slogan, it was love at first sight between Jane and her costar Serge Gainsbourg, a popular singer and musician.
A fashionable couple on the Paris scene, they made the headlines in 1969 with a artfully disturbing song, “Je t’aime moi non plus” Offending to some people, a delight to others, Jane’s sensuous lovemaking sighs became a hit around the world.
A fragile, thin voice always on the verge of breaking remained her lasting trademark and was cleverly used by Gainsbourg who adapted his songwriting to Jane’s timbre. He composed especially for her and shaped her according to his desires. They stayed together for twelve years, becoming a popular couple, adulated by the public and the media. In 1971, they had a daughter, Charlotte, who is now an actress.
During this happy period, Jane played in some thirty movies, including many comedies, a few detective films and one masterpieceCthe first movie directed by Serge, Je t’aime moi non plus (1975). At the same time, she went on with her singing career, recording four albums which built her image as a sometimes sexy sometimes wistful Lolita, best showcased in her 1978 hit LP Ex-fan des sixties. In the early eighties, her personal life and career came to a watershed as she separated from Serge Gainsbourg and wanted to break away from her image of a “funny English girl”. Behind her laughing, scatty naivet? and her British accent so delightfully amusing and sexy to French ears, there was an anxious, distressed and insomniac woman trying to come out. This facet of her personality was reflected in several films d’auteur, especially those by Jacques Doillon, from La Fille prodigue to La Pirate. From Doillon she had her third daughter, Lou, born in 1982.
Serge Gainsbourg continued composing for her, but his songs became solemn, complex and subtle. Their album Baby alone in Babylone was a smash hit in 1983. Meanwhile, Jane pursued her movie career, but the films she played in were few and far between. She was in search of new experiences: she directed a TV feature film and ventured on stage for recitals.
In 1987, she gave her first gig at Le Bataclan, a former Parisian music hall, and, gradually, by establishing a rapport with her audiences, she developed a taste for the stage. She dreamt of acting and singing in a musical. She performed at Le Casino de Paris in 1991 two month after Gainsbourg’s death and dedicated the concert to him. She also paid tribute to him in London in September 1994 at a charity event at the Savoy Theater, to give him recognition in her home country.
She wanted to do away with the “scandal Jane” image she had had in England since her infamous debut, and, in 1995, she played Andromache in The Trojan Women by Euripides at the National Theater.
In 1996 the album Version Jane is a final tribute to Gainsbourg including a potpourri of his songs, which Jane performed at the Paris music temple L’Olympia. She took them on tour in the spring of 1997, with a stop at the London Royal Festival Hall.
In 1998, she released her first album without Serge Gainsbourg “A la legere” with songs written by 12 contemporary French song writers, such as Daho, Art Mengo, Chamfort, Lavoine, Zazie, Souchon/Voulzy, Francois Hardy…. This album is followed in 1999 by the release of "The Best of Jane Birkin".
In 1999, Jane Birkin met the musician Djamel Benyelles show “orientalised” a few of Gainsbourg’s titles such as “Elisa”, "Couleur Caf'e" or “Comment te dire adieu”. This project is first presented at the Festival d’Avignon in 1999. This concert was presented a few weeks ago at the legendary Theatre de l’Odeon. The success was phenomenal.
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