Marianne Faithfull

This movie poster must have been highly effective in attracting audiences then...

After watching this movie, I had to find out more about Marianne Faithfull who had one of the most beautiful faces I've ever seen/watched on screen. The Girl on a Motorcycle (also called Naked Under Leather, for literal reasons) is a British-French movie about a recently married protagonist who travels on a motorcycle (clad in a full body leather suit with yes, nothing underneath) across states to visit her lover every week.

Marianne Faithfull's life was no less dramatic. She was married at 21 and had a son in the same year, in the next she left her husband to stay with Mick Jagger. Their relationship was highly publicized and the Rolling Stones wrote a couple of hit songs inspired by her in the next few years, including Sympathy for the Devil, You Can't Always Get What You Want, and Wild Horses that are still making the waves today.

Her life was plunged straight into the gutters few years after her success in movies and music because of an addiction to heroin, and she ended up living on the streets of Soho in London for 2 years battling anorexia at the same time. It took her many years to regain her momentum, but when she did, her voice was no longer the same as it had been cracked by years of drinking, smoking and drug use.

Today she's still making records at a ripe old age of 63, trying to earn enough for her to retire from the industry.

What intrigued me most about Marianne Faithfull is how she reminded me of a rock and roll version of Edie Sedgwick (she even looks like Edie in the last pic!), but unlike Edie who eventually OD-ed and died after living an equally turbulent life, she got back on her feet and started making music again.

She's definitely on my list on pretty faces along side with Anna Karina! I love actresses of the sixties.

credit to here and googleimages for the pictures and wiki for her story