The family of a young British actress found hanged in her Paris apartment paid tribute today to "the light of our lives".

Lucy Gordon, who had appeared in ten films including Spider-Man 3, committed suicide in her flat in the city's 10th arrondissement yesterday morning while her boyfriend was still asleep.

He found her body when he woke up and locals said that he rushed down to a shop below to ask for help but it was too late. The actress would have celebrated her 29th birthday tomorrow.

Born and brought up in Oxford, Ms Gordon was discovered at the age of 15 and offered a worldwide modelling contract with the cosmetics firm Cover Girl, which soon led to a career in films.

She had spent part of her childhood and many summer holidays in France, where she was well known for playing Celia Shelburn in the 2005 film Les Poupées Russes (The Russian Dolls), directed by Cédric Klapisch.

She had only recently finished filming a biopic on the French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg in which she played his English lover, Jane Birkin, with whom she had been compared.

Speaking at the family home in Oxford, her father, Richard Gordon, said today: "We have always been immensely proud of her and her achievements. We love her so much.

"She was called Lucy and she has lived up to that: she has been the light of our lives, me and my wife Sue, and daughter Katie.

"She was a lovely, generous, unselfish person who gave her all for others and thought of others before herself... She has been the most beautiful daughter. We are obviously devastated."

Ms Gordon made her movie debut in the 2001 film Perfume, which follows a group of characters at a New York modelling show, a milieu she already knew well by that time.

The next year she starred in the war drama The Four Feathers, where the cast also included the young Australian actor Heath Ledger — who died of a drugs overdose in his apartment in New York last year.

Her biggest Hollywood role was as the British reporter Jennifer Dugan in Spider-Man 3, which came out two years ago.

Felicity Lusk, headmistress at Oxford High School, described her former pupil's death as "a catastrophe". She told The Times that one of her first decisions when she took over at the school in 1997 had been whether to allow Lucy to head off on her first modelling assignment in New York.

"At that time, it was quite a bold and radical thing to do, particularly in such an academic school," Ms Lusk said. "But her career developed from there. She was hugely successful, very clever and beautiful with a lovely personality, a fabulous linguist and a fantastic actress.

"She was never in-your-face. She was going off on assignments but was always quiet and unassuming. We were all immensely proud of her."

It was not clear what might have led the actress to commit suicide. Reports in France suggested that she had been badly affected by the recent suicide in the UK of a childhood friend in Oxford.

Mr Gordon said that his daughter loved playing her latest role of British singer and actress Jane Birkin in the upcoming biopic Serge Gainsbourg (a heroic life), adding: "She found the whole team and cast wonderfully creative and supportive."

He said that his daughter spent much of her childhood and summer holidays in France and was bilingual. She recently moved to Paris after living in New York for some time.

"It has come as a complete shock to us all," Mr Gordon said.

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