Marianne Faithfull (born December 29, 1946) is a British singer who began her career in 1964 (see 1964 in music) with "As Tears Go By", a song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. She then released a series of successful singles, including "This Little Bird", "Summer Night" and "Sister Morphine". In 1969, she played Ophelia in the Nicol Williamson adaptation of Hamlet .

After splitting up with Jagger, Faithfull briefly stopped recording and nursed a drug addiction. She moved to Dublin in the middle of the 70's and had quite a success with the record Dreaming my dreams, a record she doesn't like much nowadays. She returned in 1979 (see 1979 in music) with Broken English , a critical smash hit that did not achieve much success in mainstream markets. This pattern continued throughout the 1980s, with Strange Weather (1987) being her most important album of the decade.

She was the first person to use the word "fuck" in a motion picture, in I'll Never Forget What's 'Isname.

In 1994 she published her autobiography entitled Faithfull. The next year she recorded A secret life with songs written by Angelo Badalamenti, David Lynch's composer.

Faithfull sung backup vocals on Metallica's song "The Memory Remains" from their 1997 album Reload.

Her musical career restarted in 2000 when she released the album Vagabond Ways, but the success came with Kissin'Time, released in 2002 with songs written by Beck, Billy Corgan, Jarvis Cocker, or the french pop-singer Etienne Daho . In this record, she pays tribute to her friend Nico (with Song for Nico) and show a strong sense of humour with the autobiographical Slinding through life on charm. This was followed in 2004 by Before the Poison, a collaboration with PJ Harvey and Nick Cave. It was considered by some critics to be the best work of her career. Many still consider however that Broken English will remain her definite record.

She has made brief guest star appearances in the British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, in Patrice Chereau 's Intimacy, and she is also rumoured to be playing Empress Maria-Teresa in Sofia Coppola's forthcoming biopic, Marie-Antoinette, which will star Kirsten Dunst in the title role. She also pursues a theatrical carrier. She was playing in 2004 and in 2005 Bob Wilson's and Tom Waits' The Black Rider.

Reference

• Faithfull, Marianne. Faithfull: An Autobiography. Boston: Little, Brown; 1994. ISBN 0-316-27324-4