Jane Mallory Birkin (/ˈbɜːkɪn/ BUR-kin; 14 December 1946 – 16 July 2023) was a British and French actress, singer, and designer. She had a prolific career as an actress, mostly in French cinema.

A native of London, Birkin began her career as an actress, appearing in minor roles in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup (1966) and Kaleidoscope (1966). In 1968 she met Serge Gainsbourg while co-starring with him in Slogan, which marked the beginning of a years-long working and personal relationship. The duo released a debut album, Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg, in 1969, and Birkin appeared in the film Je t'aime moi non plus in 1976 under Gainsbourg's direction. She mostly worked in France, where she had become a major star, and occasionally appeared in English-language films such as the Agatha Christie adaptations Death on the Nile (1978) and Evil Under the Sun (1982), as well as James Ivory's A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (1998).

Birkin lived mainly in France from the late 1960s onward, acquiring French citizenship. She was the mother of photographer Kate Barry with her first husband John Barry; of actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg with Serge Gainsbourg; and of musician Lou Doillon with Jacques Doillon. She lent her name to the Hermès Birkin handbag. After separating from Gainsbourg in 1980, Birkin continued to work both as an actress and a singer, appearing in various independent films and recording numerous solo albums. In 2016, she starred in the Academy Award-nominated short film La femme et le TGV, which she said would be her final film role.^{[citation needed]}

Jane Mallory Birkin was born on 14 December 1946, in Marylebone, London. Her father, Lt- Cdr David Leslie Birkin (1914–1991), grandson of Sir Thomas Birkin, 1st Baronet and a member of the wealthy Birkin family, was a Royal Navy lieutenant commander and World War II spy who had worked with the French Resistance. His first cousin was Freda Dudley Ward, a mistress of Edward VIII while he was Prince of Wales. Through her father, Birkin was a first-cousin-once-removed of film director Carol Reed, to whom Birkin turned for advice about becoming an actress when she was a teenager, and a second cousin of Reed's nephew, actor Oliver Reed. Reed told her it all depended on if the camera loved her. Her mother, Judy Campbell, was an actress best known for her work on stage, whose family was acquainted with the family of Margaret Thatcher while living in Grantham. She was Noël Coward's muse and "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" was written for her. Birkin's elder brother is screenwriter and director Andrew Birkin.

Birkin was raised in Chelsea and described herself as a "shy English girl". She said that she was bullied for her looks; "I suffered a lot because of my physique, especially at boarding school. The others said I was half boy, half girl. I had no breasts, not even a developing bosom. It was horrible." She said she wanted to be as pretty as Jean Shrimpton, calling herself a "bad version" of her. Her middle name, "Mallory", was invented by her mother; it was partly inspired by the name of Arthurian author Sir Thomas Malory.

Birkin attended Miss Ironside's School in Kensington and Upper Chine School on the Isle of Wight. In 2021, she said she had started taking sleeping pills at 16 and never stopped. At the age of 17 she met composer John Barry, whom she married in 1965 and with whom she had her first daughter, Kate, in 1967. After Barry left for the United States, the couple divorced in 1968 and Birkin returned to live with her family in London. She began auditioning for film and television roles in Britain and in Los Angeles.

Birkin emerged in the Swinging London scene of the 1960s, appearing in an uncredited part in The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965). In 1965 she also appeared in a musical, Passion Flower Hotel, for which John Barry wrote the music. Barry, aged 30, proposed to 17-year old Birkin but her father forbade it as she was still a minor. They married when she was 18.

In 1965 she had her first film role in Richard Lester's The Knack. She had a small role in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup (1966) with Vanessa Redgrave and Sarah Miles. The movie gained notoriety because of Birkin's nude scene, which she later said she did because Barry had told her she would not have the courage to show up naked on set. Birkin also said that on the day of her audition, she had no idea who Antonioni was. She had a more substantial role in the counterculture era film Kaleidoscope (1966) and a starring role as a fantasy-like model in Joe Massot's cult psychedelic swinging London film Wonderwall (1968).