Marianne Faithfull

The daughter of an Austrian baroness, Marianne Faithfull was born in London on 29 December 1946.  She was a 17-year-old convent schoolgirl in Reading, Berkshire, when she first met the Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham at a London party.  She became his girlfriend and when he discovered she could sing, he signed her up. In 1964 she recorded the Mick Jagger/Keith Richards song As Tears Go By, although at the time it charted she was still at school.

Her striking good looks, and outspokenness made her a favourite with the Press as her records made the charts.  Between then and July 1965 she made three more records that made it into the Top Ten.  She toured with such groups as Freddie and the Dreamers and The Four Pennies, and married art gallery boss John Dunbar.  The marriage was short lived and she later moved in with Keith Jagger.

The press took more interest in her private life than her music.  She gave a series of interviews at the time which made headlines because of her outspokenness on sexual matters.  In one interview she admitted that she had slept with three of the Rolling Stones before opting for Mick.  Girl On A Motorcycle, a movie featuring frequent scenes of nudity gained her further notoriety.

By the 1970s, however, press interest in Marianne had waned, and Mick and the Stones had gone their own way.  She turned to acting and often appeared on the West End stage in Checkhov and Shakespeare. Meanwhile her private life was still littered with drugs and attempted suicide bids. Faithfull lived on London's Soho streets for two years, suffering from heroin addiction and anorexia nervosa

An attempted comeback in 1979 didn't work out, though momentarily the Press once more became interested in her. 

See Marianne perform As Tears Go By

Check out Marianne's website at http://www.mariannefaithfull.org.uk/