| Marianne Faithfull |
|
| Background information |
| Birth name |
Marian Evelyn Faithfull |
| Born |
December 29 1946 (1946--) (age 60)
 Hampstead, London, England |
| Genre(s) |
Rock, pop, folk,
jazz, blues |
| Occupation(s) |
Singer, songwriter, actress |
| Instrument(s) |
Vocals, keyboards |
| Label(s) |
Decca, Deram, London, NEMS, Columbia, Island, RCA, Instinct, Sanctuary, Anti, Naïve |
Associated
acts |
Andrew Loog Oldham
Mick Jagger
The Rolling Stones |
| Website |
Official Website |
Marianne Faithfull (born 29 December 1946) is an
English singer and actress whose
career spans over four decades.
Faithfull's early work in pop and rock music in the 1960s was overshadowed by her struggle with drug abuse in the 1970s. During the first two-thirds of that decade, and with little notice, only two new
albums were produced. After a long commercial absence, she returned late in 1979 with the landmark album, Broken English.
With a recording career that spans over four decades, Faithfull has continually reinvented her musical persona, experimenting
in vastly different musical genres and collaborating with such varied artists as David
Bowie, Jarvis Cocker, Beck, Sly and Robbie, The Chieftains, Tom
Waits, Lenny Kaye, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Rupert Hine, Metallica and
Roger Waters. Faithfull's subsequent solo work, often critically acclaimed, has at times
been overshadowed by her personal history.
Early life
Born Marian Evelyn Faithfull[1] in
Hampstead, London, her parents were
British military officer and college professor Major Robert Glynn Faithfull and the
Baroness Eva Erisso, originally from Vienna and of partial Jewish descent, with noble roots from the Habsburg Dynasty. Eva was a ballerina during her early years and worked with the German theatrical duo Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill.
Faithfull's great-great-uncle on her mother's side of the family is Leopold von
Sacher-Masoch, the infamous 19th century Austrian nobleman whose erotic novel,
Venus in Furs, spawned the word "masochism".[2]
After her parents divorced, she moved with her mother to Reading, Berkshire. As a
teenager, she attended St Joseph's Convent School there and was a member of
the Progress Theatre student group.
Music career and personal life
1960s
Faithfull began her singing career in 1964, landing her first gigs as a folk music
performer in coffeehouses.
Faithfull was discovered at a Rolling Stones' launch party by pop music producer
Andrew Loog Oldham. Her first major release, "As Tears Go By", was penned by Oldham, Mick Jagger and
Keith Richards, and became a chart success. She then released a series of successful
singles, including "This Little Bird", "Summer Nights" and "Come and Stay With Me".
Faithfull married artist John Dunbar in 1965. That same year, she gave birth to their
son, Nicholas. The marriage was short-lived, principally owing to Dunbar's heroin addiction.
Faithfull fled from the home she had shared with Dunbar and took their son to stay with Brian
Jones and Anita Pallenberg in London. During that time period, Faithfull started using marijuana and became best friends with Pallenberg. She also began a much publicized relationship with
Mick Jagger. The relationship with Jagger lasted throughout the late 1960s, and the couple
became notorious. She was found by British police while on a drug search at Keith
Richards' house in Redlands, while wearing only a fur rug. In 1968
Faithfull, by now addicted to cocaine, miscarried a daughter (whom she had named Corrina) while
retreating to Jagger's country house in Ireland.
Faithfull's involvement in Jagger's life would be reflected in some of the Rolling Stones' best-known songs. "Sympathy for the Devil", featured on the album Beggars
Banquet (1968), was in part inspired by The Master and
Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov, a book which Faithfull introduced him to.
Two songs on 1971 album Sticky Fingers were also influenced by Faithfull: the
chorus of "Wild Horses" ("wild horses couldn't drag me away") is said to be based on
a phrase Faithfull uttered after coming out of a coma after an overdose, while Faithfull
herself wrote "Sister Morphine". (The writing credit for the song was the subject of a
protracted legal battle; the resolution of the case has Faithfull listed as co-author of the song.) In her autobiography,
Faithfull said Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
released it in their own names in order that her agent did not collect (all) the royalties and proceeds from the song, especially
as she was homeless and battling with heroin addiction at the time.
1970s
Faithfull dissolved her relationship with Jagger in 1970, and lost custody of her son in that same year, which led to her
mother attempting suicide. Despite his shaky start, believing his mother to have voluntarily abandoned him, Nicholas Dunbar
studied physics at Manchester and Cambridge and gained a Master's degree in earth and planetary sciences at Harvard. During this
period his interests ranged from quantum mechanics and black holes to evolution and the history of global climate change. His
teachers included Stephen Hawking at Cambridge and Stephen Jay Gould at Harvard.
In 1990, Dunbar decided to leave physics and he moved to feature films and television, in a wide range of capacities. In 1996,
after launching the television production company Flicker Films, a chance encounter with some old Harvard friends set him on a
new path of finance writing, focusing on the derivatives industry. In 1998, he joined Risk magazine as technical editor. His book
"Inventing Money" - a critique of the US money market - has enjoyed worlwice success. He lives in England with his wife and two
children.
Marianne's personal life went into decline, and her career went into a tailspin. She only made a few appearances, including a
notorious 1973 performance at NBC with David Bowie, singing
Sonny and Cher's song "I Got You Babe" dressed as a nun.
Faithfull lived on London's Soho streets for two years, suffering from heroin addiction and
anorexia nervosa.[3] Friends intervened and enrolled her in an NHS drug programme, from which
she could get her daily fix on prescription from a chemist (pharmacy).[4] She was one of the program's most notorious failures, neither controlling nor stabilizing her
addiction as the NHS intended. 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 would be shelved until
1985.
Severe laryngitis coupled with persistent cocaine abuse during this period permanently altered the sound of Faithfull's voice,
leaving it cracked and lower in pitch. While the new sound was praised as "whiskey-soaked" by some critics, journalist John Jones
of the (London) Sunday Times wrote that she had "permanently vulgarized her voice".
Faithfull moved into a squat without hot water or electricity in Chelsea with her
then-boyfriend Ben Brierly, of punk band The Vibrators.
In 1977 she released the country-influenced record Dreaming my Dreams, which
reached the top of the Irish Albums Chart.
Faithfull's career returned full force in 1979 (the same year she was arrested for marijuana possession in Norway) with the album Broken English, one of her most
critically hailed album releases. The album was partially influenced by the punk explosion and on her marriage to Brierly in the
same year. In addition to the punk-pop sounds of the title track (which addressed terrorism in
Europe, being dedicated to Ulrike Meinhof), the album also included "Why D'Ya Do It", a
punk-reggae song with aggressive lyrics adapted from a poem by Heathcote Williams.[5]
Broken English also revealed an astonishing change to Faithfull's singing voice. The melodic vocals on her early records
were replaced with a raucous, deep voice, affected by years of smoking, drinking and drug use.
1980s
Faithfull lived in Dublin after the release of Broken English. Despite her comeback,
she was still battling with addiction in the mid-1980s, at one point breaking her jaw tripping on a flight of stairs while under
the influence. In 1985, she ended up at Hazelden Clinic in Minnesota, U.S. for rehabilitation on the same year. She then received treatment at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. While living at a hotel in nearby Cambridge, she started an affair (while still married) with a dual diagnosis (mentally ill and
drug dependent) man, Howard Tose. He jumped out of the apartment window on the 36th floor at the end of the romance.[citation needed] She and Brierly would divorce in
1986. In 1987, Faithfull dedicated a thank you to Mr. Tose within the album package of Strange Weather, on the back sleeve: "To Howard Tose with love and thanks." In 1995, she wrote and
sang about the experience of his death in "Flaming September" from the album A Secret
Life. The song, with lyrics by Faithfull set to Angelo Badalamenti's
melody and production, has since been occasionally identified with the September 11,
2001 attacks and used both in various media essays and as an accompaniment to photo and video montages of those
events.[citation needed]
In 1985 she 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 again reinvented herself, this time as a jazz and blues singer, on the record Strange Weather, also produced by Willner. The album became her most critically
lauded album of the decade. In 1988, the singer married writer and actor Giorgio Della Terza; the
couple divorced in 1991.
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 over-protective mother.
Her musical career rebounded for the third time during the early 1990s with the live album Blazing Away, which featured
Faithfull revisiting songs she'd performed over the course of her career. As her fascination with the music of Weimar-era Germany continued, she released a recording of The Seven
Deadly Sins and performed in The Threepenny Opera. Her interpretation of
the music of this era has been critically acclaimed[citation needed] and led to a new album, Twentieth Century Blues, which focused on
the music of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, and a
successful concert and cabaret tour.
In 1994 she published her autobiography, entitled Faithfull, in which she discussed her life, career, drug addictions,
and bisexuality. The next year she recorded A Secret Life, with songs written with
Angelo Badalamenti. Faithfull also sang backup vocals on Metallica's song "The Memory Remains" from their 1997 album
ReLoad and appeared in the song's music video; the
track reached #28 in the U.S. (#3 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart) and #13 in the U.K.
In 1998 she 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 contains 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 includes sections on her relationship with John Dunbar and
Mick Jagger, and brief interviews with Keith
Richards. The DVD concludes with a 30-minute live concert.
2000s
Faithfull has been a prolific artist in the new century, releasing several albums that have received positive critical
response.
In 2000, she released Vagabond Ways which many critics hailed as her finest
album since Broken English.[citation needed] It included collaborations with Daniel
Lanois, Emmylou Harris, Pink Floyd's
Roger Waters, and writer (and friend) Frank McGuiness.
Later that year she sang "Love Got Lost" on Joe Jackson's Night and Day II
album.
Her renaissance continued with Kissin' Time, released in 2002. The album
contained songs written with 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 also 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, though
Damon Albarn and Jon Brion also contributed. Once again
critics hailed it as one of her best albums since Broken English 26 years earlier.[citation needed]
In 2005, André Schneider performed a cover version of her song "The Hawk", and she
recorded (and co-produced) "Lola R Forever", a cover of the Serge Gainsbourg song "Lola
Rastaquouere" with Sly & 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. Later this year Marianne will release a second volume of autobiography called
Memories, Dreams and Reflections. The book, to be published by Fourth Estate, is a more personal history than
Faithfull.
Faithfull currently resides in Paris, with her manager François Ravard. In
September 2006, she called off a concert tour after she was diagnosed with breast
cancer.[6] The following month, she underwent
surgery in France and no further treatment was necessary owing to the tumour having been caught
at a very early stage. Less than two months after she declared having the disease, Faithfull made her public statement of full
recovery.[7]
In March 2007 she returned to the stage with a touring show entitled 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 & Roll Circus. The show also included the Harry Nillson song "Don't Forget Me" which features the line "When we're old and full of cancer, it
doesn't matter now, come on, get happy" seen as a celebration of her surviving the disease.
Recent articles hint Faithfull is looking into retirement, in hopes money from Songs of the Innocence and Experience,
will enable her to live in comfort. The 60-year-old says: “I’m not prepared to be 70 and absolutely broke. I realized 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.”[1]
On 11 October 2007 Marianne admitted to having the disease hepatitis C on UK television
programme 'This Morning', and that she had first been diagnosed with the
condition 12 years before.
Acting career
In addition to her music career, Faithfull has had a career as an actress in theater, television and film.
Her first theater appearance was in a 1967 stage adaptation of Chekhov’s
Three Sisters. Before that she played herself in Jean-Luc Godard's movie Made in U.S.A.. Faithfull
has also appeared in the 1967 film I'll Never Forget What's 'is
Name alongside Orson Welles (where she notedly became the first person to say
"fuck" in a mainstream studio picture),[citation needed] as a leather-clad motorcyclist in the 1968 French film La Motocyclette (English titles: Girl on a Motorcycle and Naked Under Leather) opposite
Alain Delon, and in the 1969 Kenneth Anger cult film
Lucifer Rising. In 1969, Faithfull played Ophelia opposite Nicol Williamson's Hamlet, directed by Tony Richardson and featuring Anthony Hopkins as Claudius.
Her stage work also included, in 1968, Edward Bond's Early Morning at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in which she
played a Lesbian Florence Nightingale, The Collector in the West End opposite Simon Williams, Mad Dog at Hampstead
Theatre opposite Denholm Elliott, A Patriot for Me at Watford Palace Theatre and The Rainmaker, which toured the UK
and in which Marianne's co-star was TV actor Peter Gilmore. Other film roles in the1970s included Ghost Story (AKA
Madhouse Mansion) and Assault on Agathon.
Her television acting in the late 1960s and early 1970s included The Door of Opportunity (1970) with Ian Ogilvy,[8] adapted from
W. Somerset Maugham's story, followed by Strindberg's The Stronger (1971)
with Britt Ekland,[9]
and Terrible Jim Fitch (1971) by James Leo Herlihy, which once more paired
Faithfull with Nicol Williamson.[10]
In 1993, she played the role of Pirate Jenny in The Threepenny Opera at
the Gate Theatre in Dublin. Later she performed The Seven Deadly Sins with the Vienna Radio Symphony. Faithfull appeared
in the rarely-screened 2001 film Far From China, which has gained a loyal cult following.[citation needed] She has also appeared in
Patrice Chéreau's Intimacy (2001) and
was featured as Empress Maria-Theresa in Sofia
Coppola's 2006 biopic, Marie-Antoinette. Her most recent work
is in the film Irina Palm, released at the Berlinale film festival in 2007. Faithfull plays the central role of Maggie, a
60-year-old widow who becomes a sex worker to pay for medical treatment for her ill grandson.[11]
She has played both God and the Devil. She appeared as God in two guest appearances in the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous opposite friend Jennifer
Saunders. In 2004 and 2005, she played the Devil in William Burroughs' and
Tom Waits' musical, The Black Rider, directed
by Robert Wilson.
Discography
-
Filmography
Notes
References
External links
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