Serge Toujours

Sweet, sweet piece on the great Serge Gainsbourg in Vanity Fair.

Jane Birkin describes their daily routine in the 1970s as follows: they woke up at three in the afternoon; she picked up the children at school and took them to the park, brought them home for a children’s dinner, the au pair would give them a bath, and when the children went to bed she and Serge would kiss them good night and go out on the town. They’d come back “with the dustman,” wait until the children woke up at 7:30, then go to sleep. Their alcohol-fueled nights would often turn, as Jane puts it, “barmy.” Once, at Castel’s nightclub, on the Rue Princesse on the Left Bank, Serge turned over the basket that she carried as a handbag, emptying its contents onto the floor. Furious, she managed to find a custard pie and threw it in his face.