Of all the women in the lascivious life of Serge Gainsbourg, there was never any doubt as to who was his leading lady. Jane Birkin, who sang with her lover on one of the rudest pop songs ever made, was the doe-eyed English beauty who would forever remain his muse.
As France prepares to relive its memories of the golden couple with the release on Wednesday of a highly anticipated biopic of Gainsbourg, real-life tragedy has cast a shadow over what should have been a celebration. Lucy Gordon, the Oxford-born actor chosen over 500 other hopefuls to play the role of Birkin, killed herself weeks after filming had finished.
On 19 May last year, after writing a letter to her parents, the 28-year-old former model hanged herself in the Paris flat she shared with her boyfriend. Those close to her said she had been "deeply affected" by the suicide of a friend. Now Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque) - English title, Gainsbourg: Je T'aime, Moi Non Plus - has been dedicated to Gordon.
"The princess of our fairytale is no longer here," the director, Joann Sfar, has written in a tribute. "I feel useless and weak, inventing fictions which are more joyful than the world … I think about Lucy all the time. I am not the only one. This film is for her."
Gordon's effervescent performance as Birkin, the coltish young actor who met Gainsbourg in the heady Paris of 1968, has been praised by French critics. She had to fight for the role, writing to Sfar after being turned away by his casting director and then convincing him she was right for the part.
"We had auditioned more than 500 young actors to play Jane Birkin. All English. None of them were right," wrote Sfar, a comic strip writer making his directing debut. "I had even written to Keira Knightley, who never replied. No one had the natural manner, the joy and intelligence of Birkin. Then Lucy wrote to me."
Gordon, whose acting career had until then consisted of minor parts in films such as Spider-Man 3 and Cédric Klapisch's The Russian Dolls, was aware of the role's importance. Soon after being told she would be playing the most iconic English girl in popular French history, she plucked up the courage to visit Birkin.
"There was such honesty, such freshness in her face that I could not have been more flattered," Birkin told Le Nouvel Observateur last week. "She left as she had come. With great modesty. She had grace. When I heard of her death I couldn't believe it was true."
Gordon's absence from the media blitz that has accompanied the biopic has been marked. The rest of the cast – a star-studded line-up including Laetitia Casta, the model and actor, as Brigitte Bardot – have been rushing around Paris in a blaze of arguably unnecessary publicity.
On Thursday night, as the film made its world premiere in the heart of the city, hundreds of fans clad in leather jackets and leopard-print coats gathered for what has already been billed the French film of 2010. "Gainsbourg was a rebel, a poet, a romantic, a modern-day dandy," said one, Laurent. His friend Denis added: "He was a great provocateur at the same time as being very talented." "And very French!" said another friend, David.
Such enthusiasm for the man is commonplace in France, where the posing, Gitanes-smoking Gainsbourg is regarded by many with an almost God-like reverence. After his death in 1991, the Jewish boy born Lucien Ginsburg was hailed by President Francois Mitterrand as "our Baudelaire, our Apollinaire" and he is regarded today as one of the most original artists, poets and musicians of the 20th century.
But there is more to the Gainsbourg myth than just the man himself. As Sfar's biopic shows, the whirlwind of his life was given extra star factor by the women he loved and, almost always, lost. First there was Elisabeth Levitzky, his first wife with whom he is shown romping on Salvador Dalí's bed. Then came Françoise-Antoinette "Béatrice" Pancrazzi, with whom he had two children.
Once his career took off, Gainsbourg – played in the movie by Éric Elmosnino – moved on to the big time, indulging in sulphurous soirees at the home of Left Bank darling Juliette Gréco and embarking on a short-lived but passionate affair with the incomparable Bardot. "It didn't last long, but during the three months that I knew Serge, even in the middle of 25,000 people, we were the only ones in the world," said Bardot, now aged 75, in an interview this week.
Then there was Birkin, the bold and chirpy Londoner who lent her voice to the soundtrack of Je T'aime – a song Gainsbourg had recorded with Bardot years earlier but never released.
In his tribute to Gordon, Sfar recalled how the actor had "sparkled" as Gainsbourg's great love and mother of his daughter, the actress and singer Charlotte. "I remember filming with her outside at night until five o'clock in the morning, when it was cold and wet," he wrote. "She pretended she wasn't cold. And she smiled all the time."