Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (29 December 1946 – 30 January 2025) was an English singer and actress who achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her UK top 10 single "As Tears Go By". She became one of the leading female artists of the British Invasion in the United States.

Born in Hampstead, London, Faithfull began her career in 1964 after attending a party for the Rolling Stones, where she was discovered by the band's manager Andrew Loog Oldham. Her 1965 debut studio album Marianne Faithfull, released simultaneously with her studio album Come My Way, was a huge success and was followed by further albums on Decca Records. From 1966 to 1970 she had a highly publicised romantic relationship with Mick Jagger. Her popularity was enhanced by roles in films, including I'll Never Forget What's'isname (1967), The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968) and Hamlet (1969). Her popularity was overshadowed by personal problems in the 1970s, when she became anorexic, homeless and addicted to heroin.

During her 1960s musical career, Faithfull was noted for her distinctive melodic, high-register vocals. In the subsequent decade her voice was altered by severe laryngitis and persistent drug abuse, which left her sounding permanently raspy, cracked and lower in pitch. The new sound was praised as "whisky soaked" by some critics and was seen as having helped to capture the raw emotions expressed in her music.

After a long absence, Faithfull made a musical comeback in 1979 with the release of a critically acclaimed seventh studio album, Broken English. The album was a commercial success and marked a resurgence of her musical career. Broken English earned Faithfull a nomination for a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance and is regarded as her "definitive recording". She followed this with a series of studio albums including Dangerous Acquaintances (1981), A Child's Adventure (1983) and Strange Weather (1987). Faithfull wrote three books about her life: Faithfull: An Autobiography (1994), Memories, Dreams & Reflections (2007) and Marianne Faithfull: A Life on Record (2014).

Faithfull received the World Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Women's World Awards, and in 2011 she was made a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France.

Early life

Ancestry

Faithfull was born at the old Queen Mary's Maternity House in Hampstead, London. Her father, Major Robert Glynn Faithfull, was a British intelligence officer and professor of Italian literature at Bedford College, London University. Her mother, Eva, was the daughter of Artur Wolfgang Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (1875–1953), an Austro-Hungarian nobleman of old Polonized Catholic Ruthenian nobility. Eva was born in Budapest and moved to Vienna in 1918; she chose to style herself as Eva von Sacher-Masoch, Baroness Erisso in adulthood. She had been a ballerina for the Max Reinhardt Company during her early years, and danced in productions of works by the German theatrical duo Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.

The Sacher-Masoch family secretly opposed the Nazi regime in Vienna. Faithfull's father met Eva through his intelligence work for the British Army, which brought him into contact with her family. Faithfull's maternal grandfather had aristocratic roots in the Habsburg Dynasty, and Faithfull's maternal grandmother was Jewish.

Faithfull's maternal great-great-uncle was Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose erotic novel Venus in Furs spawned the word "masochism". In Faithfull's appearance on the British television series Who Do You Think You Are? her roots in the Austrian nobility were discussed, and the title used by family members was said to be Ritter von Sacher-Masoch.

Childhood

Faithfull's family lived in Ormskirk, Lancashire, while her father completed a doctorate at Liverpool University. Marianne spent part of her early life in Braziers Park, Oxfordshire, at a commune formed by John Norman Glaister in which Faithfull's father played an instrumental role.

Her parents divorced when she was six. Faithfull's half-brother, 19 years her junior, is artist Simon Faithfull. Following the divorce, Faithfull moved with her mother to Reading, Berkshire. Her primary school was in Brixton, London. They lived in underprivileged circumstances, and Faithfull's childhood was marred by bouts of tuberculosis. She was a charitably subsidised (bursaried) pupil at St Joseph's Roman Catholic Convent School, Reading, where she was for a time a weekly boarder. While at St Joseph's, she was a member of the Progress Theatre's student group.

Singing career

1960s

Faithfull began her singing career in 1964. Her first gigs as a folk music performer were in coffeehouses and she soon began taking part in London's exploding social scene. In early 1964 she attended a Rolling Stones launch party with artist John Dunbar and met Andrew Loog Oldham, who 'discovered' her. "As Tears Go By", her first single, was written and composed by Jagger, Keith Richards, and Oldham, and became a chart success. (The Rolling Stones recorded their version one year later, which was also successful.) She then released a series of successful singles, including "This Little Bird", "Summer Nights", and "Come and Stay with Me". Faithfull married John Dunbar on 6 May 1965 in Cambridge, with Peter Asher as the best man. The couple lived in a flat at 29 Lennox Gardens in Belgravia, London SW1. On 10 November 1965, she gave birth to their son, Nicholas.

In 1966 she took Nicholas to stay with Brian Jones and Anita Pallenberg in London. During this period, Faithfull started smoking marijuana and became best friends with Pallenberg. She began a much-publicised relationship with Mick Jagger that same year and left her husband to live with him. The couple became a notorious part of the hip Swinging London scene. Her voice is heard on The Beatles' song "Yellow Submarine". She was found wearing only a fur rug by police executing a drug search at Redlands, Keith Richards's house in West Wittering, Sussex. In an interview 27 years later with A.M. Homes for Details, Faithfull discussed her wilder days and admitted that the drug bust fur rug incident had ravaged her personal life: "It destroyed me. To be a male drug addict and to act like that is always enhancing and glamorising. A woman in that situation becomes a slut and a bad mother." It was during this time that Faithfull lost three opportunities to appear in films. "I really thought I had blown my career." In May 1967, Graham Nash, who found Marianne Faithfull "unbelievably attractive," wrote and released the hit song "Carrie Anne" with The Hollies, a track which started out as being about Faithfull. In 1968, Faithfull, by now addicted to cocaine, gave birth to a stillborn daughter (whom she had named Corrina) while returning from Jagger's country house in Ireland.

Faithfull's involvement in Jagger's life was reflected in some of the Rolling Stones' best known songs. "Sympathy for the Devil", featured on the 1968 album Beggars Banquet, was partially inspired by The Master and Margarita, written by Mikhail Bulgakov, a book that Faithfull introduced to Jagger. The song "You Can't Always Get What You Want" on the 1969 album Let It Bleed was supposedly written and composed about Faithfull; the songs "Wild Horses" and "I Got the Blues" on the 1971 album Sticky Fingers were allegedly influenced by Faithfull, and she co-wrote "Sister Morphine". The writing credit for the song was the subject of a protracted legal battle that was resolved by listing Faithfull as co-author. In her autobiography, Faithfull said Jagger and Richards released it in their own names so that her agent would not collect all the royalties and proceeds from the song, especially as she was homeless and addicted to heroin at the time. In 1968, Faithfull appeared in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus concert, giving a solo performance of "Something Better". In 1969, she went with Jagger to Australia while he filmed Ned Kelly. She attempted suicide there by taking 150 sleeping pills.

1970s

Faithfull ended her relationship with Jagger in May 1970 after starting an affair with Anglo-Irish nobleman "Paddy" Rossmore. She lost custody of her son in that same year. Faithfull's personal life went into decline and her career went into a tailspin. She made only a few public appearances, including an October 1973 performance with David Bowie singing Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe".

Faithfull lived on London's Soho streets for two years, suffering from heroin addiction and anorexia nervosa. Friends intervened and enrolled her in an NHS heroin-assisted treatment programme. She failed to control or stabilise her addiction. In 1971, producer Mike Leander found her on the streets and made an attempt to revive her career, producing part of her album Rich Kid Blues. The album was shelved until 1985.

In 1975, she released the country-influenced record Dreamin' My Dreams, which reached No.1 on the Irish Albums Chart. The album was re-released in 1978 as Faithless with some new tracks added. Faithfull squatted in a Chelsea flat without hot water or electricity with her then-boyfriend Ben Brierly of the band the Vibrators. She later shared flats in Chelsea and Regent's Park with Henrietta Moraes.