Bohemian Love: The Beast Serge Gainsbourg and the Beauty Jane Birkin

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Love story of a French singer, poet, composer, film director, screenwriter Serge Gainsbourg and the English actress, performer of his songs Jane Birkin to this day they are called cult. Their romance was so loud and vivid that it became a model of the bohemian relationship between the musician and the Muse. They were crazy in their love, free in their creativity, incredibly scandalous, passionate and jealous. They could not serve as an example of an ideal couple, but rather as a vivid illustration of the era in which they happened to live and create.

Serge Gainsbourg is a striking phenomenon not only in the French song culture of the 60-70s of the last century, but is also considered one of the most important persons in world popular music. His creative legacy has already become legendary, and he himself is one of the most significant musicians in the world, who remained in the memory of his fans as a romantic and outrageous lover, a provocateur and a favorite of women. It was his beloved women, and he had a lot of them, who inspired Gainsbourg to write poetry and music.

HE

The musician's personal life turned out to be as scandalous and extraordinary as his creative one. Serge Gainsbourg's real name is Lucien Ginsburg. He was born in 1928 into a large family of Jewish immigrants who fled to Paris from Feodosia in 1919 from the revolutionary changes in the country. The boy's parents were creative people and from an early age instilled in their offspring a love of music and painting.

Their youngest son Lucien grew up as a very awkward and ugly little boy with a typical Jewish appearance, but he was gifted with the most versatile abilities and talents. So, in early childhood, the boy dreamed of becoming an artist, but in the end, music took over. As a teenager, Lucien suffered incredibly from the sight of his reflection in the mirror. He already understood then: with his huge hooked nose and protruding ears, success with girls did not shine for him.

However, God also rewarded him with other qualities that allowed him to achieve the seemingly unattainable: he perceived any obstacles as a challenge to fate. If a guy, something did not work out, he made incredible efforts and, undoubtedly, achieved the desired goal. Young Ginsburg had everything to become famous and popular, except for two things: attractive, "cinematic" appearance and high birth. And his attempts to enter the big stage were often very unsuccessful due to this shortcoming.

However, being incredibly gifted and persistent, the young man did absolutely EVERYTHING so that all the shortcomings turned into his merits. Firstly, he changed the sugary name Lucien to a more masculine one - Serge, and secondly, he began to write his Jewish surname in the French manner - Gainsbourg. But, of course, this was not enough to become a movie and pop star. And then our hero got married … and more than once. All of his wives were taller than him and were not Jewish. Thus, Serge wanted to leave his roots and join the aristocrats and the European elite.

He always played complex combinations in a game called "life", not afraid to fail. So, the first wife of Gainsbourg, the beautiful Elizaveta Levitskaya, is a representative of an ancient aristocratic family, the daughter of Russian immigrant nobles. Their marriage lasted seven years; in the second half of the 1950s, they separated. Levitskaya later left a memoir about her life with the great Serge, in which she noted that he was a great teacher (at that time Serge worked as an ordinary teacher). And it was certainly true. Gainsbourg always treated with love and attention to everyone with whom he dealt. This trait of his nature, in conjunction with an extraordinary talent, conquered the world.

After the divorce, our hero unrestrainedly started romances and light intrigues - he learned to seduce women like no other. Serge always wanted the most beautiful and chic ones with him, and that he was the one to throw them: the inferiority complex from childhood - made itself felt … And the passion for the aristocracy still did not pass.

For the second time, the musician married the former wife of Prince Golitsyn, Françoise-Antoinette Pankrazzi. In this short-term marriage, Françoise gave birth to two children to the musician, who were given Russian names: Pavel and Natalia. After the divorce from his second wife, Gainsbourg no longer entered into official marriages, but lived in civil ones.

Jane Birkin quickly entered his life in 1968. They first met on the set of a movie in which they were supposed to play lovers. The girl at that moment was only 22 years old, but she had already managed to get married, become a mother and divorce. Gainsbourg, being a person who had an impeccable sense of time, immediately understood: Moreover, she became a figure of a new era.

She

Since childhood, Jane dreamed of becoming a part of bohemian life. And no matter how hard her father tried to make her a prim English lady, she followed in the footsteps of her mother, an actress. From a young age, she was imbued from head to toe with the rebellious spirit of the 60s, as well as the spirit of the sexual revolution. Therefore, the directors noticed her very quickly, and already in 1967 the Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni filmed her in his cult film "Magnification", where Jane appears naked before the viewer. By the way, she always undressed with ease in front of the cameras.

For the first time, the English actress Birkin and the French musician Gainsbourg met on the set of Pierre Grimble's film "Slogan". At that time, Jane was still suffering after her divorce from her husband, composer John Barry, who left them with their little daughter Kate and went to Los Angeles. A 22-year-old young mother came to Paris without knowing a word of French, hoping for a miracle. And it happened, she almost immediately got a role in the film "Slogan", where the main character was played by the already well-known composer Serge Gainsbourg.

The first screen tests with a partner left Jane in complete confusion: - Jane wrote to her older brother about the first impression. - Of course, the eccentric and at the same time charismatic Jane could not help but attract the attention of Gainsbourg, who was calculating the prospects for a new relationship.

But the rejection lasted until the first evening they spent together. After Birkin managed to get Gainsbourg out onto the dance floor, she realized that his aggressiveness served as a cover for awkwardness and shyness. They then danced almost until morning. Jane, recalling that romantic evening, always said that it was he who laid the foundation for their great love story.

- from Jane's memories.

They, having become lovers, and for a long time practically did not part. The French bohemian only had to be surprised: the lecher Serge, whom Brigitte Bardot herself could not keep, did not leave the young nymphet.

THEY

The couple soon acquired a respectable home in Paris. In 1971, their common daughter Charlotte was born - today she is one of the world's leading actresses. And the four of them - he, she and the daughters, the eldest of whom was from Jane's first marriage, began a happy family life.

Their romance lasted more than a dozen years, and over the years, a deep crack began to appear in their civil marriage. There were two reasons for this: firstly, Serge's unrestrained addiction to alcoholic beverages (by the end of the 1970s he had become a complete alcoholic), and secondly, the excessive attention of the female sex to Gainsbourg as a star of the first magnitude.

I must say, women literally fell at his feet, and it was extremely difficult for our hero to restrain himself. Now no one noticed his unattractiveness. His appearance has become a new style that has won many imitators:

For a decade of living together, no matter what, they really developed a strong relationship. And if you dig deeper, then we can say with confidence that after all, the love story of Birkin and Gainsbourg became famous not at all for romance, but for scandal. They both possessed a fiery temperament, and if they quarreled, then loudly and publicly, which the whole of Paris heard and saw.

So, eyewitnesses testified that one of these famous scandals took place in the Parisian bar "Castel". Birkin, furious that Serge was rummaging through her bag, trying to find evidence of treason, threw a choux pastry in his face. He, in turn, flew into a rage and chased Jane down the Boulevard Saint-Germain. When Birkin realized that only some grandiose gesture could save the situation, she, without hesitation, rushed into the Seine. Then Birkin, soaked to the skin, calmly left the water.

The gap

Soon their relationship came to an inevitable end, and Birkin put a fat point, who could no longer tolerate constant drunkenness, betrayal and aggression on the part of Gainsbourg. But, despite the separation, they continued to love each other until the very end. And when Jane gives birth to her third daughter from director Jacques Doyon, Serge will send her a box of children's clothes and a postcard with the words "papa deux" (second dad), and later will become her godfather.

Gainsbourg, who once made Jane a cult figure, remained her close friend, continuing to write songs for her. The unparalleled, passionate and extravagant love of the musician and his Muse was their ailment and their medicine, they could not live either with her or without her.

Serge's last passion was a young model named Bambu - her real name was Caroline von Paulus, the great-niece of a German field marshal during the Second World War. It was she who gave Serge a son, but could not save him from alcohol addiction.

The death of Gainsbourg in 1991, which was not even 62, shook Birkin to the depths of her soul, who reproached herself, thinking that if she stayed with him, she would save him from alcohol and, of course, from death, and that their parting brought closer the premature death of a loved one.

Doctors stated that the cause of death of the master of outrageousness was the fifth heart attack. The day of Gainsbourg's death was declared a day of national mourning in France, and President François Mitterrand himself made a farewell speech at the funeral.

The legendary love story, combined with the music of Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, will never be forgotten, the train from their relationship continues to this day.