Tributes paid as icon Marianne Faithfull dies, age 78: “She will be dearly missed”

30 January, 2025

The iconic singer and actress Marianne Faithfull has died at the age of 78.

The news was confirmed on Thursday evening (January 30) by her spokesperson, who 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.”

Faithfull was a key figure in the ‘Swinging London’ arts and music scene in the 1960s, becoming one of the leading female artists during the British Invasion era. She is remembered for hits including ‘As Tears Go By’ and for her roles on stage and screen.

1/28/1967- Marianne Faithfull on board ship for wedding of singer Gene Pitney. CREDIT: Getty

Faithfull was born in 1946 in London and grew up in Reading, before returning to the capital as a teenager. She quickly met Andrew Loog Oldham, manager of The Rolling Stones, and in 1964 she had her first hit with the Mick Jagger–Keith Richards composition ‘As Tears Go By’, which reached the UK Top Ten when she was still 17 years old.

She had three further major hits over the following 12 months – ‘Come And Stay With Me’, ‘This Little Bird’ and ‘Summer Nights’ – and quickly established herself as a successful singles artist in the US too.

In the mid-’60s, she also became a regular presence on the West End stage, starring in Chekhov’s Three Sisters alongside Glenda Jackson and Shakespeare’s Hamlet opposite Anjelica Huston.

Her early film roles included playing herself in the 1966 Jean-Luc Godard film Made In The USA, and she starred in films alongside the likes of Orson Welles and Oliver Reed in 1967’s I’ll Never Forget What’s’isname and Alain Delon in The Girl On A Motorcycle.

It was her association with The Rolling Stones, however, that drove her public profile to a significant extent. Having married the artist John Dunbar in 1965, with whom she had a son Nicholas, she left her husband for Jagger the following year, with whom she had a four-year relationship.

She is often considered to have been a “muse” for the band, and is thought to have inspired songs such as ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ and ‘Wild Horses’. She also co-wrote their song ‘Sister Morphine’, although she had to win the rights to be credited as a writer in a long legal battle years later.

A number of artists and admirers have been paying tribute to Faithfull online, including Blur‘s Graham Coxon, The Charlatans‘ Tim Burgess and Cosey Fanni Tutti. See a range of tributes below.

Faithfull’s initially high-registered voice altered over the years, partly attributed to drug abuse and partly to laryngitis. After a fallow period, she returned to critical acclaim with her 1979 album ‘Broken English’, which earned her a Grammy nomination and spawned a career renaissance.

In later in her life, she continued to work alongside artists such as Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, and in 2022, she appeared in Cave’s documentary film This Much I Know To Be True, in which she read the May Sarton poem ‘Prayer Before Work’ as an introduction to Cave and Warren Ellis performing the track ‘Galleon Ship’.

The film’s director Andrew Dominik spoke to NME about her involvement: “In the film, it’s clear that Marianne is closer to the end than we are – but to see the spirit with which she’s living life in all of her defiant glory is really moving,” said Dominik. It’s not easy to read a 19th Century poem and just make every word glow. We were lucky to have Marianne Faithfull.”

Cave and Ellis also collaborated closely with Faithfull on her 2018 album ‘Negative Capability‘ and on the post-lockdown spoken word album ‘She Walks In Beauty’, on which the singer recited poetry by Lord Byron, Percy Shelley and Alfred Tennyson.

In 2021, she spoke about how a near-fatal battle with COVID-19 had threatened to take away her ability to sing. She had been hospitalised in March 2020 and received 22 days of treatment, but said a year later that she was still feeling the effects.

“The damage has been very bad,” she said. “It’s my lungs, my memory and fatigue. It couldn’t be worse. I don’t know if I will ever be able to sing again. I have singing practice once a week, and I’m doing my best, but it’s very hard.

“I love touring, and it’s breaking my heart that I might possibly not be able to do it again. But I think there are ways around that, like filming. I might be able to do five shows one day: London, Paris, Berlin and two others. But I won’t be able to travel. I’m in Europe and here I’ll stay. That’s OK. I really am European.”

A biopic of her life, titled Faithfull, has been in production since 2020 but has yet to be completed. In 2022, Lucy Boynton (Bohemian Rhapsody), who has been cast in the lead role, spoke to NME about taking on the part.

“Marianne Faithfull is someone who’s constantly had her identity prescribed to her or narrated on her behalf,” Boynton said. “I think she’s an extraordinary woman because she’s never been diluted by that. She’s so palpably herself and has always been yelling to us about who she is.

Marianne Faithfull and Warren Ellis. Credit: Press
Marianne Faithfull and Warren Ellis. Credit: Press

“The media cast her in a way that was convenient to them as the ‘girlfriend of’. They played up the slightly more salacious sides of those stories or cast her as a young, angelic virginal thing. [This film] is an interesting look at how women were seen at the time and how women are used by the media.”

Boynton also revealed that she had met Faithfull in person at a fashion show. “She was everything you would want her to be and more – smart, with that wry sense of humour,” she says. “[Marianne] looked me up and down while analysing: ‘Can she do this?’ And then concluded: ‘Yeah, OK’.’ Just to share that time and space with her was the coolest.”

Faithfull’s work continues to inspire younger artists – as recently as last September, Courtney Love, Thurston Moore, My Bloody Valentine’s Deb Googe and Portishead’s Adrian Utley were working on an album of covers of her songs, while ‘The Faithful: A Tribute To Marianne Faithfull‘ was released in 2023, with artists including Iggy Pop, Cat Power and Shirley Manson contributing tracks.

Speaking about her involvement, Power said: “Marianne has lived a life!! She is a queen to all who know her, and all who adore her! Her framework of contributions to the world of music is unmistakable! Every time I hear her gorgeous vocal sway, I am moved, I am closer to permanence. In a world of dizzying, new fizzling arrows of song and voices, Marianne has always struck the bullseye of my heart and soul. I adore her like no other. A true Dame, beyond words. Royalty forever.”

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