Marianne Faithfull dies at 78, the voice of Britain's Swinging '60s

Marianne Faithfull died at the age of 78. She was the wild woman from London's Swinging 1960s. She survived drug addiction, homelessness and two comas. She also battled cancer and COVID-19. Her singing career began when she was a teenager, and lasted into her 70s.

In a Thursday statement, her spokesperson stated: "It's with great sadness that we report the death of Marianne Faithfull, singer, songwriter and actor."

"Marianne died peacefully today in London, in the presence of her loving family." She will be missed dearly."

Faithfull, the convent-educated child of a World War Two British Intelligence officer, was a front row seat to the drug, alcohol, and sexual excess that characterized the early days of rock music.

The slow, haunting tone of her first hit "As Tears Go By" in 1964 presaged a darker side of the British pop music that had won hearts all over the world thanks to the breezy tunes by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

Faithfull, the ex-girlfriend of Mick Jagger became addicted to heroin after the relationship ended. She suffered from anorexia and spent two years on the streets in London's Soho area.

Faithfull never gave up, no matter how bad she fell. She has released 21 solo albums including "Broken English", which was critically acclaimed in 1979 and earned her a Grammy nod. She also wrote three autobiographies, had a career as a film actor, and published 21 books.

In 2020, she made a comeback after contracting COVID-19 during the early days. She went into a 3-week coma in a London hospital.

Nicholas, her son, told her that the medical staff was so certain she wouldn't recover that they had written a note at the foot of her bed saying "Palliative Care Only."

"They thought I would croak!" Faithfull spoke to the New York Times April 2021.

She recovered and finished her album within a year: "She Walks in Beauty," which was a collection Romantic poems that she read and then set to music.

She complained later of symptoms such as fatigue, breathing difficulties and a lack of memory. In June 2021, she had to cut off a podcast interview due to these symptoms.

According to media reports, Faithfull moved into Denville Hall in March 2022. This retirement home is located in London and houses professional actors.

Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull, born in London on December 29, 1946 to a British intelligence agent who interrogated prisoner of war. Her mother was a close relative of the Austrian aristocracy.

She was sent to a Roman Catholic convent school at the age of seven, but she still had a rebellious spirit.

In her book "Faithful: An Autobiography" published in 1994, she said, "Eversince my days at convent, my secret heroes have been decadents and aesthetes. They are doomed Romantics. They are mad Bohemians. And they eat opium."

Faithfull spent her formative years in swinging London during the mid-1960s, when she was an aspiring folk singer. She married at 18 and had a child, but she attended a party which changed her life.

She met Rolling Stones Manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who launched her music career. He also brought her to the inner circle of the band.

She left her artist husband John Dunbar in 1966 and began a relationship Jagger. Together, they formed the "It couple" of London's vibrant psychedelic music scene. Faithfull sang backing vocals on the Beatles' single "Yellow Submarine." She also inspired the Stones for "Sympathy for the Devil."

Her fame was largely due to her drug and alcohol-fuelled antics with rock's bad boys.

In 1968, she and Jagger were both arrested for cannabis possession. Her most famous caper may have been when she was found wrapped in a rug made of bearskin by police during a raid on Keith Richards' home.

Faithfull was forever immortalized for the incident, but later revealed that she did not take part in an orgy as reported in British tabloids.

Faithfull claimed that she had just taken a shower when the police came into the house. She grabbed a rug to cover herself up.

She claimed that the double standard for women meant she was slandered, while the arrests helped to boost Jagger's and Richards' image as rock outlaws.

Faithfull took issue with Jagger's portrayal of her as a mere artistic muse.

"It is a horrible job." You don't have any male muses do you? What do you have in mind? "No," she replied in 2021.

Faithfull's glamorous life faded fast as the 1960s ended. She spent two years on the streets in London, anorexic and addicted to heroin after she and Jagger separated in 1970.

She found a positive in the chaos.

"For me, I found being a drug addict to be an admirable lifestyle. The anonymity was something I had not experienced since I was 17 years old. In London, as a street addict, I found it. In her autobiography, she said: "I had no phone and no address."

She described the experience as "meat for the mill" for her gritty album, "Broken English," that she called her masterpiece.

Faithfull was grateful for the opportunity to learn from the greats, such as Jagger, Paul McCartney, and John Lennon, despite the personal costs, which included an overdose in Australia in 1969, that left her in a state of coma.

She was planning to go to Oxford University and study comparative religion, philosophy, literature but ended up getting a different kind of education.

"You know, I did not go to Oxford. But I went to Olympic Studios to watch the Rolling Stones and the Beatles record. I observed the best artists at work and I learned a lot from them. I also watched how Mick worked. She told The Guardian that she learned a great deal from him and will be forever grateful. (Reporting and editing by Diane Craft; Alistair Bell)

(source: Reuters)