The Pop Corporation

She seemed to live a hundred lives at the same time, and honestly, it seems bizarre that us mere mortals were looking at the same sky she was. Marianne Faithfull – a complete one-off – has left us and we’re all the poorer for it.

And where to start? For over six decades, she’s been an enigmatic figure in the counter culture, and was much more than a person who could be simply dismissed as ‘Mick Jagger’s girlfriend’, as many may be tempted – Faithfull was fearlessly creative.

Of course, her relationship to the Rolling Stones can’t be ignored, being Jagger’s equal for a number of years, and had a hit with their song, ‘As Tears Go By’, after meeting Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham. There were other hits too, carrying with her a bohemian spirit which she’d got in her bones, perhaps in part due to her bloodline, descending from Austrian nobility, with her great x2 uncle Leopold von Sacher-Masoch writing the erotic Venus in Furs novel.

Despite such lofty heritage, Faithfull grew up in a terrace in Reading, before leaving for her eventual stardom down the road, in London.

As well as her connection to the pop world, of course, Faithfull acted too, appearing on stage alongside the likes of Anjelica Huston and Glenda Jackson, while on-screen, partnering with Oliver Reed, Anna Karina, Orson Welles and others. She was famously the star of the cult-favourite ‘Girl On A Motorcycle’, with Alain Delon, as well as the infamous Lilith in ‘Lucifer Rising’.

While acting, she would use heroin, sometimes to aid performances, which would be a feature in her life for many years, and subsequent problems, naturally.

However, it wasn’t just the swinging set of ’60s Britain where Marianne was doing interesting things. In the late ’70s, she’d release the brilliant ‘Broken English’ – a marriage of post-punk and synthpop – a brooding, sometimes menacing favourite which almost pitched Faithfull as the UK’s answer to Serge Gainsbourg mixed with Iggy Pop. Scintillating, transfixing.

In later years, she’d work with Blur, Emmylou Harris, Jarvin Cocker, Beck, Sean Lennon, Nick Cave, Lou Reed, always discerning and ever as interested as she was interesting.

A muse through the ages, Faithfull said of her years connected to the Stones: “I know they used me as a muse for those tough drug songs. I knew I was being used, but it was for a worthy cause.”

After her split with Jagger and the Stones’ camp, her struggles with drugs continued and for a period, she became homeless. She somewhat turned her life around by the mid ’70s, and in the mid ’80s, had quit drugs for good. While being fiercely smart and always charming, what emerged through this period was a woman of pure resilience – she’d suffered the slings and arrows that would have felled a lesser person.

It only seems apt then, that by impish tribute, she’d eventually land the role of God in the sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.

She would live through terror attacks in Paris, survive breast cancer, hepatitis C… like we said, a hundred lives at the same time.

A spokesperson said: “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.”

That’s an understatement.