Marianne Faithfull, leading light of the Swinging Sixties, dies aged 78
Singer and actor made headlines for her romance with Mick Jagger but proved herself as an artist in her own right, as well as a survivor who prevailed over tabloid scrutiny, addiction, an eating disorder and cancer
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Marianne Faithfull, the English rock singer who became one of the leading female artists of the British Invasion during the Swinging Sixties, has died aged 78.
The news was confirmed by her spokesperson, who said in a statement: "It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of the singer, songwriter and actress Marianne Faithfull.
"Marianne passed away peacefully in London today, in the company of her loving family. She will be dearly missed."
Born in Hampstead, London, to a Viennese mother with links to Austrian nobility and an MI6 agent who abandoned the family when she was six, Faithfull first began performing as a singer in 1964. She was introduced to Mick Jagger at Londonâs Indica Gallery, co-owned by her first husband, the artist John Dunbar, and began her association with the Rolling Stones when she recorded âAs Tears Go Byâ. Written by Jagger, Keith Richards and Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham â who dismissed Faithfull as âan angel with big titsâ but thought he could make her a star â the song made the Top 10 in the UK.
When her marriage to Dunbar collapsed, she moved in with Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg and began a relationship with Jagger, becoming a frequent target of the tabloids, not least during the infamous drugs bust at Richardsâ Sussex mansion in 1967, when her singing career ground to a halt. âThey hurt my feelings, all those busts and harassment,â she told The Independent in a 2008 interview. âIâm not saying I behaved that well, but I didnât really do anything that terrible either.â
That same year, she launched an acting career with her debut theatre appearance in a stage adaptation of Chekhovâs Three Sisters at the Royal Court Theatre, opposite Glenda Jackson, and in Michael Winnerâs comedy-drama Iâll Never Forget Whatâsisname opposite Orson Welles and Oliver Reed.
Faithfull and Jagger on their way to Marlborough Street Court on a charge of possessing cannabis, 1969 (Photo by Michael Webb/Keystone/Getty Images) (Getty Images)A year later, Faithfull suffered a miscarriage of her and Jaggerâs child, and their relationship ended. By the time he left her, she had also lost custody of her son, Nicholas, her son by Dunbar, along with the credit for her bleak 1969 song âSister Morphineâ â ostensibly because the Stones feared she would spend any money it made on drugs (her name was finally reinstated in the Nineties).
Marianne Faithfull with Anita Pallenberg at Heathrow Airport, 1967 (Getty Images )Hitting rock bottom, Faithfull spent two years living on the streets of Soho while suffering from heroin addiction and anorexia. âItâs very, very strange to think about it,â she told The Guardian in 2007. âIt was such a degraded moment, to live on a wall and shoot drugs.â Yet she insisted it was âexactly what I needed at that time⊠It was complete anonymity. I wanted to disappear â and I did.â
In a 2009 interview with director Mike Figg for the book Destroy/Rankin, Faithfull elaborated on how being exposed to scrutiny as a woman in the public eye had a lasting impact on her sense of self, to the point that she couldnât bear to see herself in photographs.
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Sign up Marianne Faithfull with her son, Nicholas, in 1967 (Getty Images )âWhen you are 18, 19, 20, youâre used to being photographed all the time, in a certain way,â she said. âSo, the narcissism becomes almost out of control. And the way that young women are photographed, they become addicted to this feedback of the image. Iâm still dealing with it.â She was contemptuous of her status as a âmuseâ to rock stars, too: âThatâs a s*** thing to be,â she scoffed in a Guardian interview. âItâs a terrible job. You donât get any male muses, do you? Can you think of one? No.â
After an intervention from friends, she was enrolled in an NHS treatment programme for her heroin addiction. She was a survivor who suffered three miscarriages, breast cancer, hepatitus C and Covid-related pneumonia, and whose famous words uttered as she recovered from a drug-induced coma in 1969 â âwild horses couldnât drag me awayâ â inspired the Rolling Stones song. âI see myself as strong, terrifically strong,â she told The Independent. âI mean, Iâve survived, havenât I?â
Marianne Faithfull with her first husband, John Dunbar, 1965 (Getty Images )The destructive path sheâd been on, which those watching had struggled to make sense of, was explained to her years later, when she received further treatment for a sleeping pill addiction at Crossroads, the rehab clinic founded by Eric Clapton. âI was told that I had very likely been clinically depressed for a long, long time, probably since I was 15, or even 14,â she said. âIt explained, to me at least, a lot of my behaviour over the years.â
She made a triumphant return to music in 1979 with Broken English, a critical and commercial hit that earnt her a Grammy nomination for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. âI made a decision to really, completely give my heart to the whole thing, and thatâs what happened,â she told The Guardian in 2021.
âI was quite smart enough to realise that I had a lot to learn⊠I didnât go to Oxford, but I went to Olympic Studios and watched The Rolling Stones record, and I watched The Beatles record as well,â she continued. âI watched the best people working andâŠbecause of Mick, I guess, I watched people writing, too â a brilliant artist at the top of his game. I watched how he wrote and I learnt a lot, and I will always be grateful.â
Faithfull poses for a portrait session to promote her movie âIrina Palmâ at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival, 2007 (Getty Images )The record itself, she felt, was overlooked by many: âWhen they compiled the 100 best records of the century back in 2000, Broken English was nowhere to be seen,â she told The Independent in 2011. âWhich I think was just absurd.â But it marked the second act of her music career, and with it a new boldness that also saw her
Faithfull also collaborated with a number of fellow musicians in the second act of her career, including Beck, PJ Harvey, Lou Reed, Cat Power, Anohni, Pulp, and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds.
In 2021, she brought her teenage passion for the Romantic poets to She Walks in Beauty, her collaboration with Warren Ellis, Cave and Brian Eno. Writers such as Keats, Tennyson and Byron had âbeen with Marianne her whole lifeâ, Ellis said. âShe believes in these texts. That world, she inhabits it, embodies it, and that really comes through.â
Critics agreed. âThose who dismissed Faithfull as just Jaggerâs âbirdâ back in the Sixties can surely do so no longer,â Helen Brown wrote in her five-star review for The Independent.
âWhile her old knight is now chugging out the sub-Status Quo pandemic schlock of âEasy Sleazyâ, Faithfull is rising from the ashes of the past, breathing fierce, sharp magic into these old words. Sheâs a time-conquering dragon queen.â
She is survived by her son, Nicholas, and her half-brother, Simon Faithfull.
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