Singer and actress Jane Birkin has died aged 76.
The English-French icon, who lent her name to the Hermes Birkin designer handbag, was found at home by her caregiver, French media has reported.
She first emerged in the showbiz world during the 1960s through an uncredited role in The Knack …and How to Get It.
She gained notoriety through her small role in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup in 1966 following her brave nude scene as a blonde model.
Birkin went on to have a bigger role in 1966’s Kaleidoscope and starred as a fantasy-like model in 1968 film Wonderwall.
She famously auditioned for the lead female role in 1969 French film Slogan and, despite not speaking French, won the role and co-starred alongside Serge Gainsbourg.
The pair performed together on the film’s theme song ‘La Chanson de Slogan’ and went on to collaborate together many more times.
They famously released duet ‘I love you … me neither’, which was banned by radio stations in Italy, Spain and the UK due to its sexual explicitness.
However, it became – at the time – the biggest-selling single ever for a completely foreign-language record.
Birkin became romantically involved with Gainsbourg for 12 years, but the pair never married.
They welcomed a daughter – Charlotte Gainsbourg – in 1971 but separated due to his alcoholism and abuse.
She was previously married to British composer and conductor John Barry in 1965 and the couple had daughter Kate Barry in 1967, who died in 2013.
After she finished filming Kaleidoscope, she moved to France permanently and won a role on 1969’s La Piscine, which helped her stay in France as she was due to go back to England.
She took a brief break from acting in the early 70s but returned in 1973 to play Brigitte Bardot’s lover in Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman.
The same year she starred alongside Joan Collins and Christopher Lee in horror flick Dark Places.
Birkin appeared in Gainsbourg’s first film, Je t’aime mon non plus in 1975 – which was banned in the UK over its examination of sexual ambiguity.
In the late 70s and early 80s, she went on to appear in Agatha Christie films Death on the Nile and Evil Under The Sun.
During this time she also recorded a number of albums, including Amours des Feintes, Lolita Go Home and Baby Alone in Babylone.
In 1982 she welcomed her third daughter, Lou Doillon, with director Jacques Doillon, but the pair split in the 90s.
She later starred in Merchant Ivory’s A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries in 1998, 2002’s Merci Docteur Rey and 2003’s Le Divorce.
Birkin was awarded with a number of accolades over the years, including an OBE, the French Ordre National du Mérite and Japanese Order of the Rising Sun.
She also famously lent her name to the Hermes Birkin bag after chief executive Jean-Louis Dumas created a black leather bag for her using a 1982 design after she complained to him that she had found it difficult to find a leather weekend bag she liked.
Since then, the Birkin bag has become a status symbol, pricing from $10,000 to $500,000.
However, Birkin wrote a public letter to Hermes in 2015 asking for her name to be removed to the bag, saying she wanted the company to ‘debaptise the Birkin Croco until better practices in line with international norms can be put in place’.
They later responded that they had made reassurances to Birkin that had satisfied her.
