(April 2, 1928  March 2, 1991) Poet, singer-songwriter, painter, actor and director. Born in Paris, France, the son of Jewish Russian parents. He had well known children : a daughter, Charlotte, with ; and a son, Lucien Gainsbourg (aka Lulu), with his last partner, . Two other children are non-mediatics : Natacha (born 8 August 1964) and Paul (born 13 April 1968) with Françoise Antoinette Pancrazzi. Serge Gainsbourg (born Lucien Ginsburg), wanted to be a painter but earned his living as a piano player in bars. He was tapped to join the cast of the musical 'Milord L'Arsouille', where he reluctantly assumed a singing role; self-conscious about his rather homely appearance, Gainsbourg initially wanted only to carve out a niche as a composer and producer, never as a performer. His early influence was . Gainsbourg wanted to free himself from what he considered old-fashioned 'chanson' and explore other musical grounds, influenced especially by British and American pop. He also wrote soundtracks for more than 40 movies and directed himself in four movies: 'Je t'aime... moi non plus' (10 years censored*), 'Equateur', 'Charlotte For Ever' and 'Stan The Flasher'. * (1969) the song, featured simulated sounds of female orgasm. Originally recorded with , it was instead released with a future girlfriend as Brigitte Bardot backed out. The song was censored in many countries and in France even the toned-down version was suppressed. The Vatican made a public statement citing the song as offensive. Its notoriety led to it reaching no. 1 in the UK chart. A frequent interpreter of Gainsbourg's songs was British torch singer , whose success in France was propelled by her recordings of his tunes but the first English-language version of a Gainsbourg song was 's 1965 version of 'Mamadou'. Concept album produced and arranged by was somewhat based on Nabokov's novel Lolita. It has proven influential with artists such as , who covered a track and . in 1978 with , and he made a Reggae version of the French national anthem "La Marseillaise". His version earned him death threats from right wing veterans of the Algerian War of Independence (OAS). Gainsbourg was able to reply to his critics that his version was in fact closer to the original as the manuscript clearly shows the words "Aux armes et cætera..." for the chorus.

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