Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Anita Pallenberg, actress and friend to the Rolling Stones, dies aged 73

Anita Pllenberg

Anita Pallenberg, actress and friend to the Rolling Stones, dies aged 73

Anita Pallenberg with Mick Jagger in Performance, 1970 CREDIT: HULTON ARCHIVE

Anita Pallenberg, an actress and model known as an unofficial member of the Rolling Stones, has died aged 73.

The news was broken on social media by Pallenberg's friend, actress Stella Schnabel, who posted on Instagram: "I have never met a woman quite like you Anita". The cause of death has not been confirmed.

Pallenberg was considered a Rolling Stone by the band's inside circle. Jo Bergman, the band's PA between 1967 and 1973 said: "She, Mick, Keith and Brian were the Rolling Stones. Her influence has been profound. She keeps things crazy."

Pallenberg had three children with Keith Richards after a brief and violent affair with his Stones band mate Brian Jones. She became entwined with the band as they neared the peak of their fame, after sneaking backstage at a Rolling Stones concert in Munich in 1965.

Pallenberg sought comfort in Richards after her two-year-long relationship with Jones became abusive, Richards wrote in his 2010 biography Life. The pair went on to have three children together, Marlon, 46, Angela, 44, and Tara, who died from sudden infant death syndrome at 10 weeks old. On Desert Island Discs, Richards recalled receiving the news while on tour, and feeling compelled to continue with the scheduled show, "because if didn’t go on the stage I’d have probably shot myself."

Richards and Pallenberg broke up in 1980, after both had struggled with addiction to heroin.

Pallenberg was born on 6 April 1942 in Rome, and was sent to boarding school in Germany. When she was expelled, at 16, she returned to Rome before moving to New York, where she fell in with Andy Warhol and the group of artists and celebrities he hosted at the Factory. She began modelling after moving to Paris, and continued to live in Germany and Rome before settling in London.

During the late Sixties, Pallenberg began to appear in films, famously Barbarella, as The Great Tyrant, as well as Dillinger is Dead. In 1970, she starred alongside Mick Jagger in Performance, Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's sexually violent avant garde film. Rumours that Pallenberg and Jagger had an affair during the film's creation were corroborated in Richards' biography, although Pallenberg repeatedly denied them.

In later life, Pallenberg completed a fashion and textiles degree from Central St Martins and continued to act and model, despite suffering from hip problems that left her with a limp and reliant on a walking stick. In 2008, she told The Guardian she was enjoying taking a slower pace of life, namely tending to her allotment in Chiswick and taking botanical gardening courses.

Richards admitted in 2010 that the pair shared an "underlying love", and that he and Pallenberg were "proud grandparents".

Pallenberg is survived by her son and daughter and grandchildren.

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