Lucy Gordon, a British actress who appeared in Spider-Man 3 and was an emerging film star in France, has been found dead in her flat in Paris after apparently committing suicide by hanging.

Gordon, a former model from Oxford, was two days short of her 29th birthday. Police said that there was no suspicion of foul play. “It appears that the young woman took her own life,” a spokesman said.

An investigation has been opened and police questioned a male friend who was reported to have raised the alarm after finding her body early on Wednesday morning. A shopkeeper in the Rue des Petites-Écuries, in fashionable north-central Paris, said that the friend, who has not been named, had burst into his premises calling for help, according to Gala, the celebrity magazine.

The death of Gordon saddened colleagues at the Cannes Film Festival, which had just been shown a preview of a forthcoming film biography of Serge Gainsbourg in which she plays Jane Birkin, the long-time companion of the late singer-composer.

“The film owes a lot to the generous spirit, to the kindess and immense talent of Lucy Gordon,” said a statement from the producers and directors of Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life.

The film, directed by Joann Sfar, is completed and will be given a wide international release this year. It was expected to bring new fame to Gordon, who made her debut in 2001 in the film Perfume. In A Heroic Life, Laetitia Casta, a former supermodel, plays the role of Brigitte Bardot, the film star and former mistress of Gainsbourg.

At his Oxford home, Richard Gordon, the father of the actress, said that the family were shattered. “She has been the light of our lives,” he said. “We have always been immensely proud of her and her achievements. We love her so much.

“She was a lovely, generous, unselfish person who gave her all for others and thought of others before herself. She has been doing what she loved and what she wanted to do for the last many years.

“She has been a natural actress all her life, since she was about 2. She’s always loved being on stage and in front of the camera and she has kept all her naturalness and charm all the way through.”

Gordon was booked to appear last night as a guest on Le Grand Journal, a popular early evening news and chat show on the CanalPlus network.

She had seemed set to follow in the footsteps of other British performers whose careers have bloomed in France — notably Charlotte Rampling, Ms Birkin, Kristin Scott Thomas and Petula Clark, the singer.

In France, Gordon broke into the big time in 2005 with Les Poupées Russes (Russian Dolls), a romantic comedy directed by Cédric Klapisch. In the film she played a neurotic English supermodel who falls for a young biographer.

Gordon also appeared in The Four Feathers, a 2002 US historical drama. The cast included Heath Ledger, the Australian actor who died of a drugs overdose in his New York flat last year.

In 2007 Gordon played the role of Jennifer Dugan, a British reporter, in the third instalment of the Spider-Man films.

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