Discovered at a Rolling Stones party at the age of 17, Marianne Faithfull broke out in the early '60s with the Jagger/Richards song "As Tears Go By." Faithfull's liaison with Mick Jagger kept her in the public eye. In the '70s, she struggled with addiction, but she made a triumphant comeback in her 30s, and became a critically acclaimed rock cabaret singer. Also, critic-at-large John Powers reviews the Brazilian film I'm Still Here, which he describes as a "moving, inspiring, beautifully made story about learning to confront tyranny."Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
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This is Fresh Air. I'm David Bianculli. Today, we're remembering Marianne Faithfull, the recording artist and actress who died last week at age 78. We'll listen back to two interviews Terry Gross conducted with her, one from 1994, the other from 2005. In 1994, Marianne Faithfull had just published her autobiography.
When she was 17, a chance meeting in London with Andrew Lug-Oldham, who managed a young blues group called the Rolling Stones, led her to record before they did one of the first compositions by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It was As Tears Go By and was a hit for Marianne Faithfull in 1964.
It is the evening of the day I sit and watch the children play. Smiling faces I can see, but not for me. I sit and watch as tears go by.
She had a string of popular recordings in the UK and established quickly a reputation she would develop and build upon all her life, interpreting the songs of others in her distinctly emotional way. She appeared on TV lip-syncing her hit records, but seldom looked at the camera, caught instead in some sort of pensive mood. And she acted on stage in film as well.
In 1967, she appeared on stage opposite Glenda Jackson in Chekhov's Three Sisters. In 1969, she appeared in a film version of Hamlet, playing Ophelia. But with success came complications. Famously, she became Mick Jagger's girlfriend, then overdosed in a suicide attempt and fell into a coma.
She survived that, as later in life, she also survived heroin addiction, breast cancer, a decade-long bout with hepatitis C, and most recently, a hospitalization for COVID-19. But when she could, she performed as a cabaret artist and acted on film and television, including playing God in three episodes of the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.
Marianne Faithfull recorded 22 solo albums, and the range of songs she covered over the decades was breathtakingly diverse, just as her vocals were raw and intense. She recorded songs by The Beatles, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Kurt Weill, and collaborated with Steve Earle and Angelo Badalamenti.
Terry Gross first spoke with Mary Ann Faithful in 1994 upon the publication of Faithful, an autobiography. In the book, she writes that when she went into rehab in 1985, part of the therapy process was for each person to tell his or her story. That's when she realized there was a blank in her life.
She had a sense of being in the Rolling Stones scene when she and Mick Jagger were lovers in the 60s, but she had no idea what her own story was.
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