The British-French icon shot to fame thanks to her relationship with Serge Gainsbourg and their explicit song ‘Je t’aime…moi non plus.
She went on to become a 1960s and 1970s It girl, lending her name to Hermes’ iconic Birkin bag.
The French culture minister announced the news on Sunday after Le Parisien newspaper and BFM television that said Birkin had been found dead at her home in Paris.
She had suffered mild stroke in 2021.
Although born in London, Birkin would find fame singing in French.
Je t’aime…moi non plus: Explicitly Sexual Song
Her duet with Gainsbough on the sexually explicit song ‘Je t’aime…moi non plus’ (which was banned in several countries and condemned by the Vatican) made her a household name around the world.
“He and I became the most famous of couples in that strange way because of Je t’aime and because we stuck together for 13 years and he went on being my best friend until the day he died,” Birkin told CNN in 2006.
Birkin’s film debut was the Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1966 classic Blow-Up, a small role noted for a full-frontal scene. Other credits include the 1972 adaptation of Death on the Nile and 1982’s Evil Under the Sun. Later moving to more arthouse productions, she earned three Cesar nominations, beginning with 1985’s La Pirate.
Thanks to her style, Birkin became a major fashion icon and It girl of the 1970s. In 1984, Hermes named its Birkin bag — still a highly sought-after accessory four decades on — after her.
Alongside Charlotte, Birkin had a daughter, Kate Barry, with the James Bond composer John Barry, whom she married at the age of 17 (a marriage that lasted 3 years). Kate Barry tragically died in 2013 of apparent suicide.
Birkin also had another daughter, the singer Lou Doillon, from a relationship with French director Jacques Dillon.