Singer and Actress Marianne Faithfull Dead at 78

A spokesperson for Marianne Faithfull has confirmed to the BBC that the singer and actress has passed away at the age of 78. She was an international superstar in the 1960s, known for her presence in the British Invasion (thanks to her hit version of the Rolling Stones‘ “As Tears Go By”) and, later, her partnership with Mick Jagger.

Born in Hampstead, London on December 1946, Faithfull was the daughter of Robert Glynn Faithfull, an intelligence officer and Italian literature professor at Bedford College, and Eva von Sacher-Masoch, a ballerina and Austrian aristocrat. Faithfull grew up in Ormskirk, Lancashire and she later became a member of the Progress Theatre’s student group. After spitting from Jagger, Faithfull experienced a decade of drug addiction and, briefly, homelessness while living in New York. But her comeback in the 1970s, thanks to her 1979 album Broken English, was a commercial success and launched a cultural resurgence for Faithfull. She’d earn a Grammy nomination and release a string of follow-ups, including A Child’s Adventure and Strange Weather.

Faithfull’s history of musical collaborations was a dense and exciting one, featuring work with PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Metallica and even Emmylou Harris. As an actor, she had a strong stage presence, performing in Three Sisters and Hamlet. She even even played the devil in William S. Burroughs and Tom Waits’ musical, The Black Rider.

She was given the World Lifetime Achievement Award at the Women’s World Awards in 2009, and the government of France made her a commander of the Ordes des Arts et des Lettres. Marianne Faithfull is survived in death by her son, Nicholas Dunbar.