In Pictures: London-born Jane Birkin crossed the Channel to become a world star

She had a long career as a solo actress after first coming to attention with her partnership with Serge Gainsbourg.

Actress Jane Birkin with her 18-month-old daughter Charlotte at London’s Heathrow Airport in December 1972 (PA) (PA Archive)

Jane Birkin first came to public attention with her projects with Serge Gainsbourg before forging a long and varied career on her own.

The couple’s breathless song Je T’Aime… Moi Non Plus was widely kept off the airwaves because of its adult content.

It reached number one in the UK despite being sung in a foreign language.

Birkin would eventually split from Gainsbourg, with whom she had a daughter, Charlotte – one of three children born to the actress.

She would go on to pursue her own career, with some notable acting credits including Agatha Christie’s Death On The Nile and Evil Under The Sun.

Her death in Paris at the age of 76 marks the end of a career that begin in the 1960s and would be honoured in the land of her birth by an OBE.

The French capital’s mayor, Anne Hidalgo, hailed her as “the most Parisian of the English”.