Charlotte Gainsbourg was born in London on 21 July 1971. Charlotte grew up in a celebrity showbiz family, her mother being the British actress and singer Jane Birkin, her father the famous French singer, songwriter and general provocateur Serge Gainsbourg. Charlotte spent most of her early life growing up in a bourgeois neighbourhood of Paris and made only rare visits to England during the holidays. On these visits she generally refused to speak any English whatsoever.

In 1980, Birkin and Gainsbourg put an end to their turbulent on-off relationship and officially separated. Charlotte went to live with her mother, but continued to see her father on a regular basis, spending all her weekends with him in his home in the 7th arrondissement. Charlotte went on to make her recording debut when she was just 12 years old, singing alongside her father on the controversial 1983 single "Lemon Incest." The track, which featured on Gainsbourg’s album "Love on The Beat", caused an absolute scandal, Charlotte murmuring provocative lyrics such as "l’amour que nous ne ferons jamais ensemble" (“the love we will never make together”) in a faltering prepubescent voice. The video clip to the song caused just as much controversy, depicting as it did a scantily-clad Charlotte lying next to her bare-chested Dad.

Around the same period, Jane began to encourage Charlotte to start auditioning for film roles and pursue a career as an actress. Charlotte landed her first part aged 13, starring in Elie Chouraqui’s film "Paroles et Musique." But her career really got off the ground in 1985 when she played the lead in Claude Miller’s film "L’Effrontée" (for which she won a coveted César award for Best Upcoming New Actress the following year).

In 1986, Gainsbourg composed an entire album for his daughter, called "Charlotte For Ever." The recording process took just five days from start to finish, Gainsbourg insisting that his daughter should not have any time to work on her voice in any way. His idea was to keep his daughter’s vocals as fresh and spontaneous as possible, giving an added edge to the ambiguously-worded, bitter-sweet pop refrains on the album such as "Plus doux avec moi", "Elastique" and "Zéro pointé vers l’infini." Charlotte appeared happy to comply with her father’s wishes, readily slipping into her role as the sulky adolescent which she also played up for photos around the same time.

The album was used as the soundtrack to Gainsbourg’s film "Charlotte For Ever", also released in 1986. Charlotte and he played the lead roles in the film, Gainsbourg playing an alcoholic scriptwriter and Charlotte playing the troubled daughter who blames her father for her mother’s death in a car crash. Their edgy father-daughter performance managed to touch a few nerves once again and the film "Charlotte For Ever" caused every bit as much scandal as "Lemon Incest" - much to the delight of Gainsbourg, the eternal provocateur!

Over the following years, Charlotte devoted herself almost exclusively to her acting career, starring in films by many of France’s top directors including Agnès Varda, Claude Miller, Bertrand Blier and Jacques Doillon. After passing her baccalauréat, she went on to complete a preparation year with the intention of studying painting at the Beaux-Arts. But her passion for acting eventually led to her renouncing a place at art school. In March 1991, Serge Gainsbourg died, leaving 19-year-old Charlotte completely distraught.

It was at this point that Charlotte met the French actor and film producer Yvan Attal who she later described as having "scraped her off the floor" and helped her piece her life back together again. Charlotte and Yvan went on to get married and have two children together: a son Ben (born in 1999) and a daughter, Alice (born in 2005). In the interim between her father’s death and the birth of her son, Charlotte continued her film work and also sang from time to time, taking part in charity concerts with Les Enfoirés (to raise funds for the feed-the-homeless charity Les Restos du cœur).

In 1996, Charlotte contributed to the soundtrack of the film "Love etc" in which she also played a minor role. In 2000, Madonna approached Charlotte and asked if she could use a sample of her vocals on her album "Music." The spoken intro at the start of "What it Feels Like For a Girl" is, in fact, taken from an English-speaking part Charlotte played in the film "The Cement Garden." Three years later, Charlotte went into the studio with French pop king Etienne Daho to record a duet, "If" (which featured on Daho’s album "Réévolution.") Then, in 2005, she went on to contribute to another movie soundtrack, singing the theme song for the film "L’un reste l’autre part."

Given her elegant silhouette and her natural feel for putting a look together, the 30-something brunette was soon adopted as a style icon, becoming the muse and the advertising face of French fashion designer Gérard Darel. Charlotte gradually began to move back towards music, at first via film soundtracks and guest appearances on other people’s albums. But then, in August 2006, she finally released a new solo album - exactly twenty years after the solo opus her father had penned for her. This new album, "5:55", revolved around the contemporary fable of a young insomniac trailing her nighttime blues around airports and hotel rooms.

"5:55" featured an impressive list of guest collaborators ranging from hip French electro duo Air (on instruments and machines), British pop star Jarvis Cooker (ex-frontman of Pulp) who contributed lyrics and Radiohead’s producer Nigel Godrich who stepped behind the studio controls. Charlotte’s haunting mix of pop, electro and lyrical soul searching, was almost entirely sung in English (with the notable exception of "Tel que tu es.")

Charlotte’s voice had evolved significantly since her singing debut alongside her father. Striking a balance between her mother, Jane’s, high-pitched vocals and her father’s notoriously Gitane-fuelled bass, Charlotte appeared to have honed her own timbre, her own phrasing and, most importantly, her own vocal style. Her new album certainly went down well with the French public who turned out in force to purchase "5:55" the week of its release. Charlotte’s album shot straight to the top of the French charts, going gold with impressive ease as sales topped the 75,000 mark. What’s more, "5:55" soon ranked as number 1 on Internet download sites. Charlotte’s album was distributed throughout the rest of Europe at the end of 2006 and released in Japan and the United States at the start of 2007.

In September 2007, Charlotte gave fans a fright when she was rushed to hospital for an urgent operation on a brain injury (caused by a fall in a water-skiing accident a few weeks earlier). But the 36-year-old pulled through without any aftereffects, resuming her hectic schedule shortly afterwards.

November 2007