Singer and actress dies at 78

Singer and actress Marianne Faithfull has died at the age of 78, her spokesman has said.

She was born in Hampstead in December 1946 and was known for hits such as AS Tears Go By, which reached the British Top 10 in 1964, and for starring in films in films, including 1968’s The Girl on a motorcycle.

She was also famous for the Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger in the 1960s, inspiring songs like wild horses, and you can’t always get what you want. After a period of heroin addiction in the 70s, she resurrected her career with the classic album Broken English.

Jagger, who praised, faithfully described as “a wonderful friend, a beautiful singer and a great actress” and said he was “so sad”.

His bandmate Keith Richards announced that he was “so sad” after the death of the faithful and added that he “will miss her”.

Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood posted twice on Instagram. An old picture of him, faithful and Richards in a recording studio entitled “Goodbye Dear Marianne”, and a newer shot of the couple with the words “Marianne will be missed. Bless her xx”.

“Marianne died peacefully in London today in the company of her loving family,” said a statement from her spokesman.

“She will be missed a lot.”

The singer had previously suffered more health problems, including bulimia, breast cancer and emphysema caused by decades of smoking.

In 2020, she contracted Covid-19 and was hospitalized for 22 days.

Doctors said they did not expect her to survive – but she pulled through and released her 21st album, she goes into beauty a year later.

Her story is a remarkable portrait of the Rock and Roll era.

She was a doe-eyed poster girl in the 1960s, picked from the unclear of the Rolling Stones’ manager at the age of 16 and given as tears passing by, the first song ever written by Jagger and Keith Richards.

An international hit, her version was light and breathing, delivered in a folk-pop style that should become her trademark under the swinging 60s.

With her named debut album and 1966’s North Country Maid, she became part of the “British invasion” of the American pop diagrams.

Meanwhile, her affair with Jagger made her a tabloid lightning rod. After they split, she fell into drug addiction – at one point living homeless on the streets of Soho.

She showed up for the time being with the 1976 album Dreamin ‘My Dreams, but really hit her steps with 1979’s new wave-influenced broken English, showing the Ashen voice and hard-won wisdom that would define the second act in her career. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award.

In recent years, she joined forces with songwriters such as PJ Harvey and Nick Cave, who each quoted her as inspiration.

Other partners over the years included David Bowie, Lou Reed, Jarvis Cocker, Damon Albarn, Emmylou Harris and Metallica, whose drummer Lars Ulrich thanked faithfully for her “incredible and unique contribution to our music, and for always being so willing to end Say to us performing it ”.

Her acting career ran parallel to music. On stage, she performed with Glenda Jackson in Chekhov’s three sisters; And played Ophelia in Hamlet – later admitting her nocturnal descent to madness had been chemically improved.

She also played God in two episodes of Sitcom absolutely fabulous, and the devil of William Burroughs ‘and Tom Waits’ Musical, The Black Rider.

But music was where her heart lay. Her penultimate album, 2018’s negative capability, was a meditation on aging, loneliness and grief – inspired partly by the death of her old friend and colleagues Rolling Stones’ Paramor Anita Pallenberg; And partly of the terrorist attacks at the Bataclan night club in her adopted home in Paris.

By taking her full circle, the album included a raw and emotional remake of A’s tears that reduced everyone in the studio to tears, according to producer Rob Ellis.

Faithfull received the World Lifetime Achievement Award at the Women’s World Awards in 2009 and was made commander of the order des arts a slot of the government of France.

Faithful’s long-standing friend, BBC Radio 2 program leader Bob Harris, called her a “encapsulation of the sixties”.

He said, while originally known for being Mick Jagger’s boyfriend, through her “people began to see her as an artist who creates”.

She spoke on BBC Radio 4’s The World tonight, adding: “For me she was wonderful, she was interesting, very, very light and from an aristocratic background that was always part of the way she carried herself. “

The singer married and parted three times – with artist John Dunbar in 1965, Ben Brierly from Punk Band The Vibrators in 1979, and actor Giorgio della Terza in 1988.

She is survived by her son, Nicholas Dunbar.