Remembering British Singer Marianne Faithfull

Fresh Air

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4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 7 February 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

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."

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Fresh Air. I'm David B. and Cooley. Today, we're remembering Marianne Faithful,
0:05.7	the recording artist and actress who died last week at age 78. We'll listen back to two interviews
0:11.8	Terry Gross conducted with her, one from 1994, the other from 2005. In 1994, Marianne Faithful had
0:20.2	just published her autobiography.
0:22.5	When she was 17, a chance meeting in London with Andrew Lug Oldham, who managed a young blues group called the Rolling Stones,
0:30.1	led her to record before they did one of the first compositions by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
0:35.5	It was As Tears Go By and was a hit for Mary Ann Faithful in 1964.
0:40.4	It is the evening of the day.
0:47.8	I sit and watched the children play.
1:18.1	Smining faces I can see. She had watched the children prays. She had a string of popular recordings of popular recordings in the UK and established quickly a reputation she would develop and build upon all her life,
1:22.3	interpreting the songs of others in her distinctly emotional way.
1:28.9	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 and film as well. In 1967, she appeared on stage
1:36.5	opposite Glenda Jackson in Chekhov's three sisters. In 1969, she appeared in a film version
1:42.2	of Hamlet, playing Ophelia. But with success came complications.
1:47.4	Famously, she became Mick Jagger's girlfriend, then overdosed in a suicide attempt and fell into a coma.
1:53.7	She survived that, as later in life, she also survived heroin addiction, breast cancer, a decade-long bout with hepatitis C, and most
2:02.9	recently, a hospitalization for COVID-19.
2:06.6	But when she could, she performed as a cabaret artist and acted on film and television,
2:12.0	including playing God in three episodes of the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.
2:17.9	Mary Ann Faithel recorded 22 solo albums, and the range of songs she covered over the
2:23.2	decades was breathtakingly diverse, just as her vocals were raw and intense.
2:29.2	She recorded songs by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Kurt Vile, and collaborated with Steve Earle and
	...

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