It’s been more than a year now since Jane Birkin left us and her loved ones continue to evoke the memory and memories of the one who leaves behind an entire damaged family, starting with her daughters, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon. The former muse of Serge Gainsbourg also forged very strong friendships with the photographer Gabrielle Crawford, whom she met in 1965. The two British people never left each other’s side and today, she is releasing a book, It’s Jane, Birkin Jane (Actes Sud, 2024) where she confides in her lifelong friend, who had offered herself a Norman presbytery opposite which is not at all desirable.
A few days ago, Gabrielle Crawford gave an interview to Paris Match in which she dwells on their beautiful relationship. Based in Normandy, the photographer recounts this time when Jane Birkin came to see her. “We spent weekends and vacations there together for years. Jane was always cold. When she arrived, we would make a fire in the fireplace. She would put on my old coat and we would watch movies. Jane was loved by the people from here”, she explains, before saying more about the day she learned of the death of the woman who was addicted to a specific medication: “I was in London on Sunday when his housekeeper called me to tell me he had died.”
Gabrielle Crawford visited Jane Birkin’s apartment
In her story, Gabrielle Crawford explains that Jane Birkin did not want to see many people in the last days of her life. “She dreaded the looks of people on her face which was swollen from the medication. Apart from her children, Jane didn’t want to see many people”she tells our colleagues, before making a funny revelation about the artist’s Parisian apartment, to which she went: “After his death, I returned to his apartment on rue d’Assas, in Paris. There were two burglary attempts, one after the other”.
In her interview, the Englishwoman also talks about the particular relationship with death that Jane Birkin had. “She was not afraid of death and she was convinced that she could be with people until the last second. She liked to be useful. Jane was the first to visit her friends in the hospital. On the end, once, she told me she was afraid of dying”concludes the great friend of the one who left us in July 2023.
