Marianne Faithfull has passed away, aged 78. She had long battled various health conditions, and was a battler right up until the end. They broke the mould when they made Marianne, a member of the Austrian aristocracy whose career was as complex as she was. Few singers can boast both a career in their teens and a late flowering career, beginning with 1980’s Broken English. She was also a multi-faceted actor. Just look at her imperious performance in Sofia Coppola’s idiosyncratic Marie Antoinette. And who better to portray Pirate Jenny in a Dublin performance of The Threepenny Opera ?
Recent collaborations were with PJ Harvey,Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, and Pulp, but she also covered Leonard Cohen, Nico, Sonny and Cher and Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan. Her original sweet, fluttery folk voice was replaced by a bluesy rasp- as with one of her favourites, Billie Holiday, her voice had life, survival, sex and soul in it.
She had outlasted homelessness, heroin addiction, anorexia and being- allegedly- very poorly treated by ex-lover Mick Jagger, to whom she always seems to be linked, even to this day. But she wasn’t a mere muse. She was a goddess, with a voice, a sense of witty, waspish humour, great style,and absolutely no fucks to give.
Photos: Getty/Michael Woolley
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