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Nothing Could Drag Marianne Faithfull Away
Leading a dual life — in which her own brilliance was overshadowed by Mick Jagger — almost destroyed her.
It was 1964 — on the eve of what came to be known as Swinging London, where, after nearly 20 years of postwar blues, a somewhat unshackled band of artists, entrepreneurs, hipsters, refugees from an impoverished upper class, the wealthy aimless, and a new breed of pop star were in the process of revolutionizing Western society. Girls like her, Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “do all the breathing for everyone, and finally even the men have to go outside for air.” She was a dreamy vision of Anglo-European drop-dead beauty: long blonde hair, eyes like blue ice, a “large balcony” (as the French call big breasts), and full, inviting lips plumped like downy pillows. As Faithfull reconstructed her life, she became in her an elder stateswoman of cool, sometimes photographed with her old pals — Mick, Keith, Anita — and sometimes in other contexts, like a full page ad for the Gap shot by Herb Ritts, or playing the role of God on an episode of Absolutely Fabulous.
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