Photo Credit: Marianne Faithfull by A. Vente, 1966 / CC by 3.0
British pop star, singer, and actress Marianne Faithfull, who inspired and co-wrote some of the Rolling Stones’ biggest hits, has passed away at age 78.
Marianne Faithfull, the British pop star who inspired and helped write some of the Rolling Stones’ biggest hits, has died, her promotion company, Republic Media, confirmed. She was 78.
She passed away Thursday in London, according to a company spokesperson. “It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of the singer, songwriter, and actress Marianne Faithfull,” the statement reads. “Marianne passed away peacefully in London today, in the company of her loving family. She will be dearly missed.”
The blonde bombshell was a celebrity by age 16 and was homeless by her mid-20s. Faithfull was an inspiration to her peers by her early 30s with her album, Broken English. She enjoyed a close relationship with the Rolling Stones and spent a few years dating Mick Jagger.
“I am so saddened to hear of the death of Marianne Faithfull,” wrote Jagger on Instagram. “She was so much a part of my life for so long. She was a wonderful friend, a beautiful singer, and a great actress.”
Her breakthrough hit was 1964’s “As Tears Go By,” one of the first songs penned by Jagger and Keith Richards. It was then that her close and often troubled relationship with the Stones began.
She started dating Mick Jagger in 1966, and the pair became one of the hottest couples of the era’s “Swinging London.” In 1967, a widely publicized drug bust saw Jagger and Richards briefly jailed, while Faithfull was cited in tabloids as the “Naked Girl at Stones Party.” This label would humiliate and haunt her for years to come.
Marianne Faithfull inspired such Stones hits as “She Smiled Sweetly,” and “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” as well as “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Sister Morphine,” “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” “Live With Me,” and “Wild Horses.” Songs she became known for singing in her soft alto voice included “Come Stay with Me,” “Summer Nights,” and “This Little Bird.”
Faithfull became addicted to heroin in the late ‘60s and suffered a miscarriage while seven months pregnant. She also nearly died from an overdose of sleeping pills. In the early ‘70s, she was living in the streets of London and had lost custody of her son whom she shared with her estranged husband, gallery owner John Dunbar. Dunbar notably co-founded the Indica Gallery, where John Lennon would later meet Yoko Ono.
“The threads of a dozen little scenes were invisibly twining together,” she wrote in her memoir. “All these people — gallery owners, photographers, pop stars, aristocrats, and assorted talented layabouts more or less invented the scene in London, so I guess I was present at the creation.”
She began acting in the ‘60s, with stage roles in “Hamlet” and Chekhov’s “Three Sisters.” Her career in acting blossomed, and Faithfull later appeared in such films as “Marie Antoinette,” “The Girl On a Motorcycle,” “The Girl From Nagasaki,” and the TV comedy series “Absolutely Fabulous.”
