Marianne Faithfull - Reflections

  by Nick Dent-Robinson

published: 1 / 2 / 2025

Marianne Faithfull died peacefully surrounded by her family in London on 30 January, aged 78. Once proclaimed the most beautiful woman of her generation, Marianne was certainly one of the leading lights of the freewheeling spirit of Sixties London and she said back then that she feared her life would be over when that decade ended, even though she was just 23. It wasn't - but she was to endure some tough times during the decades ahead. Born in 1946 in Hampstead, North London, Marianne was the daughter of Glynn Faithfull, a British spy during the Second World War and Eva von Sacher-Masoch, an Austrian baroness descended from Leopold Baron von Sacher - author of the 1870 classic novel, ‘Venus in Furs’. Her father left the family when Marianne was six and she had little contact with him until she wrote her autobiography in 1994. For nine years from the age of eight, Marianne attended the St Josephs Convent School in Reading but by her mid-teens any religious conviction had worn off and her pleasures were acting and singing in school productions plus reading Chaucer and the poems of John Donne. At 17, Marianne was discovered by Andrew Loog Oldham, the Rolling Stones' manager, whilst at a party in London with her boyfriend, the artist John Dunbar. Oldham thought she looked “angelic” and, after hearing her sing briefly, he immediately instructed Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to write Marianne a song which must sound both ominous and virginal. The duo - who had yet to pen their own band's breakthrough single,’Satisfaction’, protested that they had no idea what to do but Oldham persisted. Eventually they picked a title stolen from the 1940s film, ‘Casablanca’ - which was “As Time Goes By”. And they eventually handed in what Richards described as “a terrible piece of tripe”. Marianne, however, adjusted the lyrics a bit and gave the simple song an achingly lovelorn treatment under the title ‘As Tears Go By”’ and in her hands it became one of the most poignant and heart-breaking songs of the decade. It was a big hit both in the UK and the USA, creating an air of mystery around Marianne who was dubbed “the greatest discovery of 1964” - which was quite an accolade at that exciting time. Marianne was soon married to Dunbar and had her son, Nicholas, with him - but they parted in 1965 and she was soon claimed by the Stones as “one of our own”. Marianne slept with Keith Richards and with Brian Jones (of whom she once commented, “Well, he was in the band and it seemed impolite not to!”) and had a four year relationship with Mick Jagger - though at first she suspected he only took up with her because film actress Julie Christie had turned him down. She certainly made Mick the envy of many other stars of the time – like Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan who pursued her without success. But as the Rolling Stones' career skyrocketed, Marianne’s musical career faltered and she became a heavy drugs user, addicted to pills, acid, cocaine and later heroin as well as to smoking marijuana constantly. By 1970 Marianne had suffered a suicidal breakdown and her relationship with Mick Jagger came to an end after his involvement with American actress Marsha Hunt. Marianne left and was soon living on the street in London “an anorexic waif, a wraith-like vision, feeling no pain and no cold, because of the smack” as she herself has described it. She wound up in Soho, next to the recording studios where David Bowie and Elton John were working - and she was befriended by the painter Francis Bacon who would sometimes buy her a soup and sandwich lunch if she wasn't comatose on heroin. Bowie would speak to her, too - and in 1973 he invited her to join him on US TV, singing a version of ‘I Got You Babe’, she wearing a white head-dress that was part nun and part Egyptian while he wore a feather boa. Gradually Marianne emerged from the depths, with a collection of country songs in 1976 and, with the encouragement of Chris Blackwell of Island Records, she made the 1979 album, ‘Broken English’ on which she unveiled her drug-ravaged voice and explored the dark side of her existence. Now widely acclaimed as the finest album of Marianne's whole career, tracks included ‘Why Did Ya Do It?’, the snarling rant of a woman wronged. ‘What's The Hurr’” is a brutal song about drug abuse and ;The Ballad of Lucy Jordan’ is the tale of a middle class housewife's disillusionment – a track later used brilliantly in the 1991 film ‘Thelma and Louise’. By 1986 Mariane was finally clean of heroin and gradually she rebuilt her career. Adversity had made her fearless and her subsequent successes included appearing at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and singing Brecht and Weill in Salzburg. Her 1999 album ‘Vagabond Ways’ was acclaimed as was her 2001 release ‘Kissin' Time’ where she collaborated with Pulp's Jarvis Cocker and Blur's Damon Albarn. She also returned to acting - which she had done successfully during the 1960s - and played the Devil in a 2004 production based on William Burroughs' ‘The Black Rider’ in London and in San Francisco. Film roles followed in Sofia Copola's 2006 biopic ‘Marie Antoinette’ and in 2007's ‘Irina Palm’ where Marianne starred as a 60 year-old widow who becomes a sex worker to pay for medical treatm\ent for a sick grandson. She also undertook tours reading Shakespeare sonnets. Marianne Faithfull, however, always said she lived in fear of being dragged back into the destructive drug-fuelled lifestyle that rnearly killed her and so many others around the Rolling Stones. “I could have made so many better choices,” Marianne reflected recently. “But, you know, when I first came to London in the 1960s, I just got this feeling that I was in the right place at the right moment. From there, fate just took its course.” Marianne Faithfull is survived by her son, Nicholas Dunbar, a financial journalist, from her first marriage to John Dunbar.

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