Anita Pallenberg Dead at 73
A major figure in Rolling Stones history has passed away.
Anita Pallenberg, an actress and model who dated Brian Jones and Keith Richards, passed away this week at the age of 73 of undisclosed causes. The news was shared via Instagram by Stella Schnabel, the daughter of film director Julian Schnabel and a friend of Pallenberg who called her “The greatest woman I have ever known.”
Pallenberg was born in Rome and became a model in Paris; She met Jones and the Rolling Stones during 1965 in Munich, beginning a volatile relationship until she took up with Richards during the spring of 1967.
Pallenberg co-starred with Mick Jagger in the film “Performance,” where Richards has said the two had an affair, but she and Richards stayed together and had three children (one of whom died at just 10 weeks old) before breaking up in 1980 — a relationship that included a well-publicized heroin possession arrest during 1977 in Toronto.
In his memoir Life Richards writes that Pallenberg was “a woman who was very strong…Also an extremely bright woman, that’s one of the reasons she sparked me. Let alone that she was so entertaining and such a great beauty to look at. Very funny. Cosmopolitan beyond anyone I’d come across.”
Pallenberg’s other film roles included Barbarella, Hideous Man, Mister Lonely, Got To Tales and Cheri, along with an episode of British TV’s Absolutely Fabulous.
Pallenberg battled Hepatitis C and had hip replacement surgery, along with continuing battles with drug and alcohol addiction; She said during an August 2016 interview that she is “ready to die. I have done so much here…I did not think I would live over 40.”
Pallenberg is survived by her two surviving children with Richards — son Marlon and daughter Angela — and five grandchildren.
Gary Graff is an award-winning music journalist who not only covers music but has written books on Bob Seger, Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen.
