Inside Marianne Faithfull's turbulent life from Rolling Stones lovers to addiction 'agony'

She was a former convent schoolgirl who was plucked from obscurity to become a rock'n'roll icon, her name forever synonymous with the Swinging Sixties.

Singer, actress, and muse to the Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithfull led the female charge of the British Invasion, conquering America and becoming a worldwide star - ‘the blonde’ who was adored by every boy and envied by every girl.

Her passing, aged 78, will once again pull the heartstrings of those who were teenagers at the time she was on every airwave and the cover of every magazine.

Her spokesperson confirmed the news, saying in a statement: “It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of the singer, songwriter, and actress Marianne Faithfull.

"Marianne passed away peacefully in London today, in the company of her loving family. She will be dearly missed."

Tributes to the singer known for hits like As Tears Go By have been pouring in this afternoon, including one from Rolling Stones frontman and former lover Mick Jagger, who called her "a wonderful friend, a beautiful singer and a great actress" in a post on social media.

He added: "I am so saddened to hear of the death of Marianne Faithfull. She was so much part of my life for so long. She will always be remembered."

Harry Potter author JK Rowling wrote on X: "One of my favourite albums of all time. RIP Marianne."

Tony Blackburn OBE added: "Sorry to hear that 69's singer Mariann Faithfull has died at the age of 78. She gave us some great songs to play. R.I.P."

Born in Hampstead, London in 1946, Marianne was descended from Austrian nobility on her mother’s side - her great-great-uncle Leopold von Sacher-Masoch wrote the erotic novel Venus in Fur.

Her mother was Baroness Eva Sacher-Masoch, a Hungarian, half-Jewish former ballet dancer who had fled the Nazis in World War II, her father was an eccentric MI6 agent turned professor of Italian literature who abandoned the family when she was six.

But the only child grew up in relatively ordinary surroundings in a terraced house in Reading, suffering regular bouts of pneumonia and being sent to St Joseph's Roman Catholic boarding school.

While still at school, Marianne began singing folk songs a cappella in local coffee houses before leaving for the bright lights of ‘Swinging City’ London in her teens.

It was there that, aged 16, her life changed when she attended a Rolling Stones laugh party and was spotted by the band’s flamboyant producer, Andrew Loog Oldham, who famously described her as “an angel with big t***s”.

Certain he could make her a star, he gave her a song written—and initially dismissed as “a piece of tripe” by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards—which Marianne recorded and made her an instant star, reaching the UK No. 10.

The Stones were so disappointed they had missed a hit they recorded their own version a year later.

She had three other Top 10 singles in 1965, including This Little Bird, Summer Nights and Come and Stay with Me, all of which also reached the Top 40 in the US.

Soon, the doe-eyed blonde with her breathy, captivating voice was catching the attention of the superstars of the time, too. Bob Dylan was smitten by her when he visited London, writing her a poem - which he tore up when she turned him down.

She also contributed backing vocals to the Beatles’ hit Yellow Submarine.

But it was her relationship with the Rolling Stones that she became most known for. After her marriage to her first husband, John Dunbar, fell apart, she moved in with Mick Jagger, but later confessed that he was not her first Stone. “I slept with three of them,” she said, “and then I decided the lead singer was the best bet.”

Her influence on the band was significant. Let's Spend the Night Together, You Can't Always Get What You Want, and Wild Horses were all songs that were said to have been written about her, while Sympathy for the Devil was inspired by a Russian novel she had introduced to Jagger.

As one of the faces of the 1960s, Marianne also carved out a career as an actress, appearing alongside Glenda Jackson in a stage adaptation of Chekhov's Three Sisters.

She also became the first person ever to utter the F-word in a mainstream film, I'll Never Forget What'sisname, in 1967, while her character’s erotic fantasies in The Girl on a Motorcycle made it the first ever film to be given an X-rating in the United States.

Along with the sex and rock’n’roll, there were, of course, lots of drugs. During a police raid on Keith Richard's house in Sussex, she was discovered naked, draped in a fur rug - which she took indecent pleasure in occasionally letting slip.

She later admitted the bust took a toll on her reputation. She later said: "It destroyed me. To be a male drug addict and to act like that is always enhancing and glamorising, she explained. A woman in that situation becomes a slut and a bad mother."

Things got worse for her when her relationship with Jagger fell apart at the end of the decade. After losing custody of her son, a suicide attempt left her in a coma, and she spent two years on the streets of Soho while addicted to heroin before living in a squat.

Later in life, Marianne recalled: "I was in agony and I healed myself as best I could. One of the ways was with drugs, because they are painkillers. It was all too much for me. I really didn't like my gilded cage."

Her voice was also damaged by her heavy drug use, becoming permanently rough and lower in pitch. But she quit drugs in 1985. She slowly turned her life, making a spectacular comeback a decade later with Broken English, her most critically acclaimed album, which earned her a Grammy nomination in 1981 for best female rock vocal performance.

Married and divorced two more times to Ben Brierly of punk band the Vibrators and actor Giorgio Della Terza, more than a dozen albums followed, and two memorable appearances playing God in the sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. As always with the ups came downs - a battle with breast cancer in 2006 and with liver illness hepatitis C a year later, and 22 days in hospital with COVID-19 in 2020.

But Marianne always rejected the label of survivor. She recently said: “I never get this thing about my hard life. I know I've had some hard times, but I've had a wonderful life, I really have. And the hard times, it just made me appreciate how lucky I am and how happy I am now.”