Marianne Faithfull facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Marianne Faithfull
Faithfull in 1966
Born	Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (1946-12-29)29 December 1946 Hampstead, London, England
Died	30 January 2025(2025-01-30) (aged 78) London, England
Occupation	Singer actress
Years active	1964–2023
Spouse(s)	John Dunbar ​ ​ (m. 1965; div. 1966)​ Ben Brierly ​ ​ (m. 1979; div. 1986)​ Giorgio Della Terza ​ ​ (m. 1988; div. 1991)​
Partner(s)	Mick Jagger (1966–1970)
Children	1
Parent(s)	Eva von Sacher-Masoch (mother)
Relatives	Simon Faithfull (half-brother)
Musical career
Genres	Rock folk alternative blues jazz
Labels	Decca London Island RCA Hut/Virgin Naïve
Associated acts	Andrew Loog Oldham Metallica The Rolling Stones Nick Cave

Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (29 December 1946 – 30 January 2025) was an English singer and actress. She achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her UK top 5 single "As Tears Go By" and became one of the lead female artists during 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 Andrew Loog Oldham. Her debut studio album Marianne Faithfull (1965, released simultaneously with her studio album Come My Way) was a huge success followed by a number of albums on Decca Records. From 1966 to 1970, she had a highly publicised romantic relationship with Mick Jagger. Her popularity was enhanced by her film roles, such as those in I'll Never Forget What's'isname (1967), The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968) and Hamlet (1969). However, her popularity was overshadowed by personal problems in the 1970s. During this time, she was anorexic and homeless.

Faithfull was noted for her distinctive voice; her melodic and high-registered vocals prevailed during her 1960s career, but these were altered by severe laryngitis during the 1970s, which left her voice permanently raspy, cracked and lower in pitch. This new sound was praised as "whisky soaked" by some critics and seen as having helped to capture the raw emotions expressed in Faithfull's music.

After a long commercial absence, Faithfull made a comeback with the 1979 release of her 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 the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance and is often 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 in Hampstead, London. Her half-brother is artist Simon Faithfull, who is 19 years her junior. Her father, Major Robert Glynn Faithfull, was a British intelligence officer and professor of Italian literature at Bedford College of London University.

Faithfull's 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 chose to style herself as Eva von Sacher-Masoch, Baroness Erisso. Eva 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.

Faithfull's mother had been born in Budapest and moved to Vienna in 1918. The family of Sacher-Masoch secretly opposed the Nazi regime in Vienna. Faithfull's father's intelligence work for the British Army brought him into contact with the family, and he thus met Eva. Faithfull's maternal grandfather had aristocratic roots in the Habsburg Dynasty, and Faithfull's maternal grandmother was Jewish.

Childhood

Her family lived in Ormskirk, Lancashire, while her father completed a doctorate at Liverpool University. She spent some of her early life at the commune at Braziers Park, Oxfordshire, formed by John Norman Glaister, where her father, who was instrumental in its foundation, lived and participated. Her parents divorced when she was age 6, after which she moved with her mother to Milman Road in Reading, Berkshire. Her primary school was in Brixton, London. Because Faithfull lived in reduced circumstances, her girlhood 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

Cashbox advertisement, 19 September 1964

Faithfull began her singing career in 1964, landing her first gigs as a folk music performer in coffeehouses. 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 also became 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 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. She is heard on The Beatles' song "Yellow Submarine".

Faithfull performing on the Dutch TV programme Fanclub on 17 September 1966

Faithfull's involvement in Jagger's life was reflected in some of the Rolling Stones's best known songs. "Sympathy for the Devil", featured on the 1968 album Beggars Banquet, partially was 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. In 1968, Faithfull appeared in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus concert, giving a solo performance of "Something Better".

Michael Cooper, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Shepard Sherbell, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and Brian Jones at the Royal Concertgebouw on 1 September 1967

1970s

Faithfull ended her relationship with Jagger in May 1970. Her personal life went into decline, and her career went into a tailspin. She lived on London's Soho streets for two years, suffering from anorexia nervosa. 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, re-released in 1978 as Faithless with some new tracks added, which reached No.1 on the Irish Albums Chart. Faithfull's career returned full force with the album Broken English, her most critically hailed album.

The song "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" was released as a single from the album, in October 1979, and became one of her highest-charting songs. It is featured on the soundtracks to the films Montenegro, Tarnation and Thelma & Louise. Faithfull also performed the song during a guest appearance in an episode in the fourth season of Absolutely Fabulous. In 2016, the song was used in the finale of American Horror Story: Hotel. Faithfull discussed her interpretation of the song in a 2007 interview on ITV's The South Bank Show.

1980s

Faithfull began living in New York City after the release of Dangerous Acquaintances in 1981. The same year, she appeared as a vocalist on the single "Misplaced Love" by Rupert Hine, which charted in Australia. Rich Kid Blues (1985) was another collection of her early work combined with new recordings, a double record showcasing both the pop and rock 'n' roll facets of her output to date. In 1985, Faithfull performed "Ballad of the Soldier's Wife" on Hal Willner's tribute album Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill. Faithfull's restrained readings lent themselves to the material, and this collaboration informed several subsequent works.

In 1987, Faithfull ventured into jazz and blues on Strange Weather. The album became her most critically lauded album of the decade.

1990s

When Roger Waters assembled an all-star cast of musicians to perform the rock opera The Wall live in Berlin in July 1990, Faithfull played the part of Pink's overprotective mother. Her musical career rebounded for the third time during the early 1990s with the live album Blazing Away; the album featured Faithfull revisiting songs she had performed over the course of her career. Blazing Away was recorded at St. Ann's Cathedral in Brooklyn.

A Collection of Her Best Recordings was released in 1994 by Island Records to coincide with the release of the Faithfull autobiography; the two products originally shared the same cover art. It contained Faithfull's updated version of "As Tears Go By" from Strange Weather, several cuts from Broken English and A Child's Adventure and a song written by Patti Smith scheduled for inclusion on an Irish AIDS benefit album. This track, "Ghost Dance", suggested to Faithfull by a friend who later died of AIDS, was made with a trio of old friends: Stones' drummer Charlie Watts and guitarist Ron Wood backed Faithfull's vocals on the song, while Keith Richards coproduced it. The retrospective album featured one live track, "Times Square", from Blazing Away as well as the Faithfull original "She", penned with composer and arranger Angelo Badalamenti to be released the following year on A Secret Life, with additional songs co written with Badalamenti. Faithfull sang "Love Is Teasin", an Irish folk standard, with The Chieftains on their album The Long Black Veil, released in 1995. Faithfull sang a duet and recited text on the San Francisco band Oxbow's 1997 album Serenade in Red. Faithfull sang interlude vocals on Metallica's song "The Memory Remains" from their 1997 album Reload and appeared in the song's music video; the track reached No.13 in the UK, No. 28 in the U.S. (No.3 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart).

As her fascination with the music of Weimar-era Germany continued, Faithfull performed in The Threepenny Opera at the Gate Theatre, Dublin, playing Pirate Jenny. Her interpretation of the music led to a new album, Twentieth Century Blues (1996), which focused on the music of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht as well as Noël Coward, followed in 1998 by a recording of The Seven Deadly Sins, with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies. A hugely successful concert and cabaret tour accompanied by Paul Trueblood at the piano, culminated in the filming, at the Montreal Jazz Festival, of the DVD Marianne Faithfull Sings Kurt Weill.

In 1998, Faithfull released A Perfect Stranger: The Island Anthology, a two-disc compilation that chronicled her years with Island Records. It featured tracks from her albums Broken English, Dangerous Acquaintances, A Child's Adventure, Strange Weather, Blazing Away, and A Secret Life, as well as several B sides and unreleased tracks.

Faithfull's 1999 DVD Dreaming My Dreams contained material about her childhood and parents, with historical video footage going back to 1964 and interviews with the artist and several friends who have known her since childhood. The documentary included sections on her relationship with John Dunbar and Mick Jagger, and brief interviews with Keith Richards. It concluded with footage from a 30-minute live concert, originally broadcast on PBS for the series Sessions at West 54th. The same year, she ranked 25th in VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Rock and Roll.

Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) wrote the song "Incarceration of a Flower Child" portraying Syd Barrett in 1968; it was never recorded by Pink Floyd. The song was recorded by Faithfull on her 1999 album Vagabond Ways.

2000s

Faithfull performing in 2008

Faithfull released several albums in the 2000s that received positive critical response, beginning with Vagabond Ways (1999), which was produced and recorded by Mark Howard. It included collaborations with Daniel Lanois, Emmylou Harris, Pink Floyd's Roger Waters, and writer (and friend) Frank McGuinness. Later that year she sang "Love Got Lost" on Joe Jackson's Night and Day II.

Her renaissance continued with Kissin Time, released in 2002. The album contained songs written with Blur, Beck, Billy Corgan, Jarvis Cocker, Dave Stewart, David Courts and the French pop singer Étienne Daho. On this record, she paid tribute to Nico (with "Song for Nico"), whose work she admired. The album included an autobiographical song she co-wrote with Cocker, called "Sliding Through Life on Charm".

In 2005, she released Before the Poison. The album was primarily a collaboration with PJ Harvey and Nick Cave, but Damon Albarn and Jon Brion also contributed. Before the Poison received mixed reviews from both Rolling Stone and Village Voice. In 2005 she recorded (and co-produced) "Lola R Forever", a cover of the Serge Gainsbourg song "Lola Rastaquouere" with Sly and Robbie for the tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited. In 2007, Faithfull collaborated with the British singer-songwriter Patrick Wolf on the duet "Magpie" from his third album The Magic Position and wrote and recorded a new song for the French film Truands called "A Lean and Hungry Look" with Ulysse.

In March 2007, she returned to the stage with a touring show titled Songs of Innocence and Experience. Supported by a trio, the performance had a semi-acoustic feel and toured European theatres throughout the spring and summer. The show featured many songs she had not performed live before including "Something Better", the song she sang on The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus. The show included the Harry Nilsson song "Don't Forget Me", "Marathon Kiss" from Vagabond Ways, and a version of the traditional "Spike Driver Blues".

Articles published at that time hinted Faithfull was looking to retirement and was hoping that money from Songs of the Innocence and Experience would enable her to live in comfort. She said: "I'm not prepared to be 70 and absolutely broke. I realised last year that I have no safety net at all and I'm going to have to get one. So I need to change my attitude to life, which means I have to put away 10 per cent every year of my old age. I want to be in a position where I don't have to work. I should have thought about this a long time ago but I didn't." However, she still lived in her flat located on one of the richest parisian avenues and had a house in County Waterford, Ireland. Recording of Easy Come, Easy Go commenced in New York City on 6 December 2007; the album was produced by Hal Willner who had recorded Strange Weather in 1997. A version of Morrissey's "Dear God Please Help Me" from his 2006 album Ringleader of the Tormentors is one of the songs featured. In March 2009, she performed "The Crane Wife 3" on The Late Show. In late March, she began the Easy Come, Easy Go tour, which took her to France, Germany, Austria, New York City, Los Angeles and London.

In November, Faithfull was interviewed by Jennifer Davies on World Radio Switzerland, where she described the challenges of being stereotyped as a "mother, or the pure wife". Because of this, she insisted, it has been hard to maintain a long career as a female artist, which, she said, gave her empathy for Amy Winehouse when they met recently.

In 2009, Faithfull was honoured with the Icon of the Year award from Q magazine.

2010s

On 31 January 2011, Faithfull released her 18th studio album Horses and High Heels in mainland Europe with mixed reviews. The 13 track album contains four songs co-written by Faithfull; the rest are covers of mainly well known songs such as Dusty Springfield's "Goin' Back" and the Shangri-Las' "Past, Present, Future". A UK CD release was planned for 7 March 2011. Faithfull supported the album's release with an extensive European tour with a five-piece band, arriving in the UK on 24 May for a rare show at London's Barbican Centre, with an extra UK show at Leamington Spa on 26 May.

On 7 May 2011, she appeared on the Graham Norton Show. She reunited with Metallica in December 2011 for their 30th anniversary celebration at the Fillmore where she performed "The Memory Remains".

In 2012, Faithfull recorded a cover version of a Stevie Nicks track from the Fleetwood Mac album Tusk as part of a Fleetwood Mac tribute project. The track "Angel" was released on 14 August 2012 as part of the tribute album Just Tell Me That You Want Me.

On 22 June 2013, she made a sell-out concert appearance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, with jazz musician Bill Frisell playing guitar, as a part of Meltdown Festival curated by Yoko Ono.

In September 2014, Faithfull released an album of all-new material, titled Give My Love to London. She started a 12-month 50th anniversary tour at the end of 2014.

During a webchat hosted by The Guardian on 1 February 2016, Faithfull revealed plans to release a live album from her 50th anniversary tour. She had ideas for a follow-up for Give My Love to London, but had no intention of recording new material for at least a year and a half.

Faithfull's album Negative Capability, was released in November 2018. It featured Rob Ellis, Warren Ellis, Nick Cave, Ed Harcourt, and Mark Lanegan.

2020s

A spoken word album titled She Walks in Beauty was released in May 2021. She is accompanied with musical arrangements by Warren Ellis, Brian Eno, Nick Cave and Vincent Segal. The album sees her recite the 19th-century British Romantic poets.

In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Faithfull at number 173 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Achievements

In 1999, Faithfull ranked 25th on VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll.

On 4 November 2007, the European Film Academy announced that Faithfull had received a nomination for Best Actress for her role as Maggie in Irina Palm.

On 5 March 2009, Faithfull received the World Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 2009 Women's World Awards. "Marianne's contribution to the arts over a 45-year career including 18 studio albums as a singer, songwriter and interpreter, and numerous appearances on stage and screen is now being acknowledged with this special award." The award was presented in Vienna, with ceremonies televised in over 40 countries on 8 March 2009 as part of International Women's Day.

On 23 March 2011, Faithfull was awarded the Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, one of France's highest cultural honours.

Awards and nominations

Discography

Studio albums

Acting career

In addition to her music career, Faithfull had a career as an actress in theatre, television and film.

Her first professional theatre appearance was in a 1967 stage adaptation of Chekhov's Three Sisters at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in which she played Irina, co-starring with Glenda Jackson and Avril Elgar. The previous year, she played herself in Jean-Luc Godard's film Made in U.S.A.. Faithfull was also featured in the 1967 film I'll Never Forget What's'isname. In the French television film Anna, Faithfull sang Serge Gainsbourg's "Hier ou Demain". In 1968, she starred as a black leather-clad motorcyclist in the film The Girl on a Motorcycle (also known as La Motocyclette). It was thanks to this film starring Alain Delon that Marianne Faithfull gained greater fame in France. The film was preceded by a widely discussed photograph by Paris Match photographer Patrice Habans, capturing the lead actress beaming as she conversed with Alain Delon, seated to her left, while her then-partner Mick Jagger sat on her other side. She also played in Kenneth Anger's Lucifer Rising. In London 1969 at the Round House, Faithfull played Ophelia in Hamlet, later filmed as Hamlet.

Her stage work included Edward Bond's Early Morning at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in which she played a lesbian Florence Nightingale; The Collector at St Martin's Theatre in the West End; Mad Dog at Hampstead Theatre; A Patriot for Me by John Osborne, at the Palace Theatre; and the role of Lizzie Curry in N. Richard Nash's The Rainmaker, which toured the UK. Other film roles in the 1970s included Sophy Kwykwer in Stephen Weeks's Ghost Story (AKA Madhouse Mansion); and Helen Rochefort in Assault on Agathon.

Her television acting in the late 1960s and early 1970s included The Door of Opportunity (1970), adapted from W. Somerset Maugham's story, followed by August Strindberg's The Stronger (1971), and Terrible Jim Fitch (1971) by James Leo Herlihy.

In 1991, she played the role of Pirate Jenny in The Threepenny Opera at the Gate Theatre in Dublin. Later she performed Kurt Weill's "The Seven Deadly Sins" with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, a CD of which was released in 1998.

She has played both God and the Devil. She appeared as God in two guest appearances in the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. In 2004 and 2005, she played the Devil in William Burroughs' and Tom Waits' musical The Black Rider, directed by Robert Wilson, which opened at London's Barbican Theatre.

In 2001, Faithfull appeared in C.S. Leigh's Far from China. She has appeared in Patrice Chéreau's Intimacy (2001), and in 2004, in Jose Hayot's Nord-Plage. Faithfull appeared as Empress Maria Theresa in Sofia Coppola's 2006 biopic Marie Antoinette.

Faithfull starred in the film Irina Palm, released at the Berlinale film festival in 2007. She was nominated for the European Film Award for Best Actress for her work in the film.

Faithfull lent her voice to the 2008 film Evil Calls: The Raven, but it was recorded several years earlier when the project was titled Alone in the Dark. She has appeared in the 2008 feature documentary by Nik Sheehan on Brion Gysin and the dreamachine, titled FLicKeR.

In 2008, Faithfull toured readings of Shakespeare's sonnets, drawing on the "Dark Lady" sequence. Her accompanist was the cellist Vincent Ségal.

In 2011 and 2012, Faithfull had supporting roles in the films Faces in the Crowd and Belle du Seigneur.

Faithfull starred in a production of Kurt Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins at Landestheater Linz, Austria. The production ran from October 2012 to January 2013.

On 18 September 2013, Faithfull was featured in the genealogy documentary series Who Do You Think You Are?, tracing her family's roots, in particular her mother's side of the family in pre-World War II Austria.

TV and filmography

Stage work

Works as an author

• Faithfull: An Autobiography, Marianne Faithfull (1994), Cooper Square Press
• Memories, Dreams & Reflections, Marianne Faithfull (7 July 2008), Harper Perennial
• Marianne Faithfull: A Life on Record, edited by Marianne Faithfull and Francois Ravard, Contribution by Will Self and Terry Southern, Introduction by Salman Rushdie (2014), Rizzoli

Personal life

Faithfull at the Women's World Awards in 2009

In 1988, Faithfull married writer and actor Giorgio Della Terza, and they divorced in 1991.

Faithfull had a son born in 1966.

She died in London on 30 January 2025, at the age of 78.

See also

In Spanish: Marianne Faithfull para niños