Actress and Rolling Stones muse Anita Pallenberg has died

Actress, model and Rolling Stones muse Anita Pallenberg has passed away at the age of 73.

Her friend, Stella Schnabel, announced her death on Instagram. “I have never met a woman quite like you Anita,” she wrote.

Pallenberg began modelling after she was kicked out of boarding school at 16, moving from Italy to New York. While in the city, she found herself at Andy Warhol’s Factory. She went to see The Rolling Stones at a 1965 gig in Munich, sneaking backstage – from this, she began a relationship with Brian Jones, the band’s guitarist. After leaving Jones – who she said was violent – for fellow bandmate Keith Richards, they had three children.

“She, Mick, Keith and Brian were the Rolling Stones,” Jo Bergman, the band’s former PA, said. “Her influence has been profound. She keeps things crazy.”

She starred alongside Mick Jagger in Nicolas Roeg’s cult film Performance, and lent her vocals to “Sympathy for the Devil”. Her acting career saw her take up the role of The Black Queen in Barbarella with Jane Fonda, as well as parts in Candy (1968), 2007’s Go Go Tales and Harmony Korine’s Mister Lonely as a Queen Elizabeth impersonator.

“With Anita, you knew you were taking on a valkyrie – she who decides who dies in battle,” Richards wrote in his 2010 memoir Life. 

She later pursued a career in fashion, getting a degree from Central Saint Martins, though Pallenberg branded the fashion industry “too nasty, too rip-off, too hard”.

Back in our fifth-ever issue, Dazed spoke with the multi-hyphenate about her life and studies. Speaking of her times with the Stones, she said: “When we were growing together it was like tapping in the dark. The thing is that I managed to survive. I was a casualty, I mean they were just waiting for me to die. 

“I was the so-called weak link in the chain for a long time, you know, the bad girl, the trouble-maker and all that shit. So the fact that I managed to survive and that I’ve managed to find my own place, that’s already a miracle. I feel I’ve grown, I’ve just managed to find myself really.”

She added: “The one thing that I would really like to put across today is that I’m a survivor and I’ve been through all that stuff and you don’t have to do that.”

In her interview with Dazed, she mused over today’s “jaded” youth, and the loss of originality.

As one of the original bohemians and a 70s siren, Pallenberg is survived by her two children.