British-born actor, singer Jane Birkin who won French people's hearts dies at 76

Paris: British-born actress and singer Jane Birkin, who was best known overseas for her 1969 hit 'Je t’aime...moi non plus' passed away in Paris, the French Culture Ministry said on Sunday. She was 76.

The 1960s 'wild child' became a beloved figure in France for her warm nature, stalwart fight for women's and LGBT rights.

Le Parisien newspaper and BFM television reported she had been found dead at her home. Birkin had a mild stroke in 2021 after suffering heart problems in previous years. She shot to international stardom through her collaboration with the late French singer and songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, who was also her then-lover. The duo had sung the 1969 sexually explicit 'Je t’aime...moi non plus', which reached number one in the UK, though it was a foreign language song.

She had lived in her adopted France since the break-up of her marriage to British composer John Barry in the late 1960s.

"This departure is so sad. She was a beautiful person," former Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot told BFM.

Jane Mallory Birkin was born in London in December 1946, daughter of British actress Judy Campbell and Royal Navy commander David Birkin. Before venturing across the Channel aged 22, she achieved notoriety in the controversial 1966 Michelangelo Antonioni film "Blow-Up", appearing naked in a threesome sex scene.

But it was in France that she truly shot to fame, as much for her love affair with tormented national star Gainsbourg, as for her tomboyish style and endearing British accent when speaking French, which some said she cultivated deliberately. She had a daughter, Charlotte, with Gainsbourg.

Following the breakup of that relationship in 1981, she continued her career as a singer and actress, appearing on stage and releasing albums such as "Baby Alone in Babylone" in 1983, and "Amour des Feintes" in 1990, both with words and music by Gainsbourg.

She wrote her own album "Arabesque" in 2002, and in 2009 released a collection of live recordings, 'Jane at the Palace'.

(With Reuters inputs)