#Faithfull: an autobiography

[omg-hellgirl]

We did what girls do. Kissed. Took baths together. I was madly in love with Anita. She was so gorgeous. The one time we began to make love we were interrupted in flagrante by Mick and Keith. We were upstairs at Anita and Keith's house, caressing each other and kissing on the bed and in the middle of our lovemaking Mick and Keith walked in. Mick's attitude was, "Let's join 'em." But Keith put a stop to it right away. There's quite an old-fashioned side to him.

Marianne Faithfull, Faithfull: An Autobiography.

[omg-hellgirl]

Fun fact: Marianne was the only one in black (she thought it would be fun) and the hosts were furious. She quotes this event as being "the beginning of the end" of her relationship with Mick.

Marianne and Mick attend the White Ball party held in the garden of Prince Rupert’s (Lowenstein) house in Holland Park. July 2 nd 1969. Photos by Desmond O’Neill🌻

Just one day before Brian’s death💐

[gardenwalrus]

Pattie Boyd on herself, George, John and Cynthia being spiked with LSD-laced coffee by their dentist, John Riley

Our dentist, John Riley, had turned us on to acid. He and his girlfriend invited John, Cynthia, George, and me to dinner at his house in Hyde Park Square one evening sometime in 1965. [...] We had a lovely meal, plenty to drink, and at the end George said, “Let’s go.” We were planning to see some friends playing at the Pickwick Club. John Riley’s girlfriend jumped to her feet. “You can’t,” she said. “You haven’t had any coffee yet. It’s ready, I���ve made it - and it’s delicious.” We sat down again and drank the coffee she was insistent we should have. But then we were really keen to get away and John Lennon said, “We must go now. These friends of ours are going to be on soon. It’s their first night, we’ve got to go and see them.” And John Riley said, “You can’t leave.” “What are you talking about?” said John Lennon. “You’ve just had LSD.” “No, we haven’t.” “Yes, you have,” said our host. “It was in the coffee.” John Lennon was absolutely furious. “How dare you fucking do this to us?” he said.

George and I said, “Do what?” We didn’t know what LSD was. John Lennon was the only one of us who knew because he had read about it in Playboy. He said, “It’s a drug,” and as it began to take effect we felt even more strongly that we didn’t want to be there. I wondered if the dentist, who hadn’t had any coffee, had given it to us hoping the evening might end in an orgy. We were desperate to escape. John Riley said he would drive us and we should leave our car with him. “No,” we said. We piled into my Mini, which seemed to be shrinking, and drove to the club where our friends were playing. All the way the car felt smaller and smaller, and by the time we arrived we were completely out of it. People kept recognising George and coming up to him. They were moving in and out of focus, then looked like animals. We clung to each other, feeling surreal. Soon we moved on to the Ad Lib Club - we knew it and thought we might feel better if we were in familiar surroundings. It wasn’t far from the Pickwick so we walked and on the way I remember trying to break a shop window. The Ad Lib was on the top floor, above the Prince Charles Theatre in Leicester Place, and we thought the lift was on fire because there was a little red light inside. As the doors opened, we crawled out and bumped into Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, and Ringo. John told them we’d been spiked. The effect of the drug was getting stronger and stronger, and we were all in hysterics and crazy. When we sat down, the table elongated. Hours later we decided to go home. We climbed into the car again and this time George drove - at no more than ten miles an hour, concentrating hard, all the way to Esher. But it felt as though he was doing a thousand miles an hour [...] it was daylight by the time we got home. We went into Kinfauns and locked the gate so that the cleaner wouldn’t come in and find us, put the cat into a room on her own, and sat down. The drug took about eight hours to wear off, but it was very frightening and we never spoke to the dentist again.

- From Pattie Boyd's autobiography Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me (2007)

[undying-love]

Marianne Faithfull on John/Paul and Mick/Keith

"I had an inkling that there was a sexual undercurrent between them [Mick and Keith]" -The Stone Age: Sixty Years Of The Rolling Stones

"For Keith it was just an alliance within the group, but for Mick it was a lot more than that. It has all the irrationally and passion of a love affair. Lennon and McCartney had a similar bond between them."-Faithfull: An Autobiography

[britneyshakespeare]

i think what he was trying to say was that i remind him of how english is not his native language but i think the way i use english makes most people feel like it's not their native language

one of my friends told me today “i always understand you but sometimes when i talk to you i have to google words that you say.” hey buddy i get it, me too!

[lil-melody-moon]

I think I said I'll give my thoughts about Keith's biography when I'm done with it and I'm almost done. Only afterthoughts left to read, but I've read all about his life and it was devastating to see how much of a wreck he was at the very end. Longer talks under the cut - and additionally, if the anon bitch is scouting my blog, feel free to read it as well and shit yourself in the process

Either way, my dears, read if you're interested 💜

@jimmysdragonsuit13 I think you'll be interested!

And @burn-on-the-flame I think you've asked about the opinion on the biography? Wait, let me search *a few seconds later* Yep, it was you! Come and read my thoughts about the book, if you want 💜

So, since the day one of my dear mutuals @m-faithfull told me about Keith's biography by Tony Fletcher in the last year, I was persistent to get it. I had hopes that maybe it was translated to Polish, but as it turns out, probably only Pete's autobiography was so I ended facing the fact that I will have to read it in English. And that meant paying an insane amount of money for a new copy (120 zloties for a book! - around 31,39$ or 23,75£)

But one day I thought to search for an used copy, hoping that maybe some poor sod bought it before me and to my surprise there were two copies, one for 40 zloties (10,46$ or 7,92£) and second for 30 zloties (7,85$ or 5,94£). I opted for the 40 zloties one, knowing what state can used copies of books be. The lower the price the more possibility of it having missing pages, the cover torn off etc etc. Here came my bestie @juliearchery107 who wanted to buy me it for birthday, she did, we've met at 14th of August and since I've stepped my foot in the flat and got everything answered, started to read it.

And oh dear Lord is that book a rollercoaster!

It starts innocently - if we skip the foreword, which hints that it'll not be an easy read - introducing Keith as the charming child who was up for jokes, the one who later stopped attending school and wandered about until he got his first drum kit, had a few lessons on how to play them, joined Beachcombers and from there went to The Who to the band that meant everything for him, to then find the girl he fell for like you do when you first fall in love while finding your soulmate, following with showing a possessive and nasty jealousy towards her, fucking things up in their marriage, becoming so abusive that she finally left him, which lead to depression, more alcohol, more drugs, which then started to develop in very serious problems, them piling up in Los Angeles to the level of Keith becoming a wreck by the end in 1978, in the meantime, finding support in his girlfriend - who I have to say, I'm thankful that she was there for him even if I know how impossibly difficult it was for her.

The way things went down in his life can be traced precisely with this book and that just shows how incredibly well put it is and how the narration is not in any way subjective, but objective almost through the entire reading - foreword has author's thoughts and the afterthoughts, but that is a given. Yet, I have to praise such objectivity, because a lot of biography authors cannot help themselves but write their subjective opinions, pushing their perspective onto readers, instead of showing facts and trying to find one possible outcome of a situation that has various versions - and with Keith and the myths that are told about him, it was a hell of a work. It also shows sometimes that author is sentimental to a lot of things, as being stated in foreword that he himself is a fan of Keith and let's be honest. There's no one better to write a book about an idol then a long time fan who's dedication will never burn out.

As for my thoughts... The first 300+ pages were okay to read. I had a blast, laughing at various points, even going as far to share one of the moments that was the most funny to me on his birthday. But the last 200+ pages? Oh dear Lord... Just oh dear Lord.

Just by the photos I have a TON of I could realise that Keith was a wreck in 1978, but I've never fucking expected it to be this bad. I knew about the drug abuse, knew about the alcohol abuse as well, but I didn't expect it to be that bad - to the point of having a few attempts on rehab, failing at them, proceeding to have alcoholic paranoia, fucking seizures because of the withdrawal, insecurities, self-confidence, self-worth teared to shreds, memory almost gone - it's very typical for alcoholic to say one thing and then forget about it 5 seconds later and them saying: "I didn't say that" - depression, maniacal depression even appearing later on, developing a split personality disorder, being unable to be controlled by anyone while the fits of anger were appearing more and more frequently, cheating getting out of hand and I could go on and on AND ON.

Reading about all of this and not being able to tell you, or even not being able to take pictures of fragments to send to bestie to let her see how bad it was because I would have to scan those 200+ pages to let her understand the circumstances should say a lot. Never did I like any mentions of Keith relocating to Los Angeles and for a good reason. That city only made it far worse for him and his tale there only shows that maybe, just maybe, letting your dreams come true ain't that fun as you expect them to be. Some might be, but in most cases, they aren't. You always gotta keep going, always have a goal in front of you to keep going and if you reach the end of the road - like Keith did many times throughout the tale - you might just realise "That's it? Nothing else?" and not know what to do with yourself.

Additionally, this was double hard for me to read, because at the beginning of March I've lost a dear friend of mine. It was a tumblr friendship, I'm talking about Anja here - she went by the url whothefuckisanja - and I often joked with her that her alcohol problem - it was severe, very very severe - is similar to Keith's and as it turns out, my jokes about that were brutally real. She also developed drug addiction later on as well and her life started to fade away slowly, very slowly. I only recently, a few months ago, realised that I saw her happiness fade away, realising also that that one day where she thanked me for being her best friend the entire year - our friendship lasted a full year - being grateful as to no one else before that that was her silent goodbye and a solid thank you, before she met the same fate as Keith, only much much earlier. And I'm not exaggerating about "the same fate". She wanted to go sober, as I heard. Pills did it for her, she fell asleep and never woke up again.

She once said to me, because I was there, wanting to help her with her growing alcohol problem that got worse at December, even if it were only futile tries through text: "Don't try to help an alcoholic" and I might add to it "because it'll leave you exhausted and terrified while you see the beloved one become a wreck."

I can say that what I've read about Keith I've almost experienced with her. She was very similar to him in many ways, not only addiction wise, but she was also very fun to be around, very easy to be befriended, generous beyond belief, creative and most of all, a good person at heart. So this reading journey was almost like a reflection of the year from March 2023 to March 2024. I remember now that she once joked that she's Keith Moon reborn and damn you, you bastard if you were right.

But I also have to get back on track and say this: even if I said all of this above, I somehow felt that it was way to familiar. Not like with what I said about Anja, but more like "I lived through that" kind of way. I didn't feel this throughout the entire tale, but at the last 200+ pages I did, especially when the seizures started appearing. In the last year, when I wrote my first fic with me and him - not published - I pondered if he had any alcohol withdrawal symptoms and I somehow guessed the depression, insecurities, insomnia problem and seizures. I have no idea how I knew that, I just did, implementing them in the fic.

Could be a coincidence, but there are too many with him in my life. Yet, there was a moment where I've stopped reading. It was right at the end, at the description of the funeral, at the date of it, which is 13th of September, according to the book.

A year ago, on September, while listening to random songs on spotify, suddenly "Love ain't for keeping" started playing. I looked at who it was, saw The Who and I was tempted to give "Who's next" album a listen - I was taking small steps to giving them a good listen from May, but this was the final push. That was on 11th of September.

I wanted to listen to "Who's next" on 12th of September, but I somehow hadn't. I could have been busy, but I know for sure I somehow forgot about it and moved listening to the next day. On night from 12th of September to 13th of September I had a dream with Keith, from which I only remember that we've talked about something. Keith was very happy, overjoyed even and all of a sudden he started pinching my cheeks, wanting to make me laugh, which he succeeded at.

And then on 13th of September I've finally listened to "Who's next", my obsession truly started and then a voice in my head saying "Welcome home" was heard by me. It was a male's voice, speaking fluent English.

True, I was waiting for a moment that will make me stop in my tracks and like during the documentary I've watched about Keith, where I've got a grasp of his behaviour, I had to pause the video with the realisation that his behaviour was something I knew somehow, but I didn't expect to get obsessed about The Who and Keith at the exact date his funeral took place.

You may call me delusional, I don't care. It's just there's too many coincidences with him appearing in my life at certain moments that I start believing these are not mere coincidences - if certain ghost will start appearing at the beginning of September, as I took notice he did for the past two years, I will flip!

In conclusion, I love the book, will read it to the end tomorrow probably. I've cried at the end, less than the first time I heard about Keith's death, but I did. This book only made me love him even more and I truly will never stop loving him.

This is the exact image of my feelings to him after reading about his life - I'm the tiny pumpkin, answering on the question:

Credits to the artist who made it, not mine, I cant't draw this well XD

[bitter69uk]

Born on this day: decadent and charismatic German-Italian actress, model, scene-maker, style icon, “Lady Rolling Stone” and ultimate rock chick Anita Pallenberg (6 April 1942 – 13 June 2017). Pallenberg was an alluring occasional presence in art-y bohemian nightlife in early 1990s London. I recall her DJ’ing at the Horse Hospital once, and coming face to face with her when I opened the bathroom door (“I always need to pee!” she cackled). But before that, buried in the listings of Time Out magazine (in the pre-internet days when it was a dense essential bible that we all relied on), I read about a screening of Pallenberg’s old home movies in East London. It announced she would be present, possibly hosting or emceeing. The venue was a palatial industrial loft in Shoreditch (possibly someone’s apartment), just before gentrification went full tilt boogie there. I sat alone in the back and overheard people conferring that a vintage Cadillac had been dispatched to collect Anita. She arrived late and alone - and sat next to me! Pallenberg – looking just like she did in that 1995 Calvin Klein ad by Steven Meisel with that other ravaged countercultural survivor Joe Dallesandro – radiated elegantly ruined glamour. I never got to meet Nico, but this was a very respectable equivalent. We made small talk. As Pallenberg’s friend Marianne Faithfull describes in her autobiography, “She spoke in a baffling dada hipsterese. An outlandish Italo-German-Cockney slang that mangled her syntax into surreal fragments.” Pallenberg glugged red wine and chain-smoked throughout (there’s a theory she was one of the inspirations for Patsy Stone in Absolutely Fabulous). She also kept up a running commentary on what was happening onscreen (mostly images of herself – clad in Ossie Clark and vintage finery – and Keith Richards in the late sixties cavorting on their jet-set travels). At one point, things turned intimate – a seemingly post-coital Anita and Keef canoodling in bed together. The camera zoomed in on her naked breast. “That’s my neeeple,” she declared in her gravelly Marlene Dietrich voice. I can’t wait to see the upcoming documentary Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg. Portrait of Pallenberg by Michael Cooper, 1967.

[taumont]

My list of books I wish to have read by the end of the year:

Quiet Days in Clichy -- Henry Miller

La petite vertu -- James Hadley Chase

Breakfast of Champions -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Call at Corazon -- Paul Bowles

Solaris -- Stanislaw Lem

Slaughterhouse-Five -- Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

The Savage Detectives -- Roberto Bolano

La Boutique Obscure: 124 Dreams -- Georges Perec

Mon corps pour me guérir: décodage psychobiologique des maladies -- Christian Flèche

A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living -- Joseph Campbell

Speak, Memory -- Vladimir Nabokov

Supreme Influence: Change Your Life with the Power of the Language You Use -- Niurka

The Journey and the Guide: A practical course in Enlightment -- Maitreyabandhu

Egon Schiele: Drawings and Water-colours -- Egon Schiele, Erwin Mitsch

Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears -- Pema Chodron

Rumi Revealed: Selected Poems from the Divan of Shams -- Rassouli

Confessions of an Art Addict -- Peggy Guggenheim

The Executioner's Song -- Norman Mailer

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead -- Olga Tokarczuk

Flights -- Olga Tokarczuk

America -- Jean Baudrillard

Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays -- Durga Chew-Bose

I Had Nowhere to Go -- Jonas Mekas

Francesca Woodman -- Marco Pierini

Yves Klein -- Hannah Weitmeier

Dune (Dune #1) -- Frank Herbert

Oreillers d'herbes -- Natsume Soseki

Les Choses humaines -- Karine Tuil

The Energy of Slaves: Poems -- Leonard Cohen

Selected Writings - Antonin Artaud

The Sisters Brothers -- Patrick deWitt

Pastoralia -- George Saunders

Signs Preceding the End of the World -- Yuri Herrera

Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley -- Peter Guralnick

Break, Blow, Burn -- Camille Paglia

Voyage au bout de la nuit -- Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Philip K. Dick: In His Own Words -- Philip K. Dick

Autobiography of a Yogi -- Paramahansa Yogananda

A Confederacy of Dunces -- John Kennedy Toole

Babel -- Patti Smith

Keith Haring Journals -- Keith Haring

Foam of the Daze -- Boris Vian

Inherent Vice -- Thomas Pynchon

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 -- Goran Olsso

Le Diable au Corps -- Raymond Radiguet

Bluets -- Maggie Nelson

Girl, Woman, Other -- Bernardine Evaristo

Devenir un ange -- Francesca Woodman

Faithfull: An Autobiography -- Marianne Faithfull

The Master and Margarita -- Mikhail Bulgakov

Eve's Hollywood - Eve Babitz

In Watermelon Sugar -- Richard Brautigan

[slowthunders]

🧛🏻‍♀️ hello hello hello!

౨ৎ ˚⋆ name: cheri thunders

╰┈➤ [BASIC INFO] - she/her. intp. thirties. mexican. bisexual. slow as fuck. sagittarius ☼. cancer ☾. pisces ↑. grumpy. always tired. on the autism spectrum. add and dcd. grunge cowgirl groupie. with a taste for complex and messy characters. a box of useless information. i have a fucked up moral compass.

╰┈➤ [IDOLS] - daria morgendorffer. billie joe armstrong. buttercup. marianne faithfull. makoto kino. mark lanegan. marilyn monroe. claudia cardinale. jane birkin. nellie laroy. jane fonda. saphire and polexia from almost famous. nicki minaj. kat stratford. karen sirko. elaine parks. nancy downs. fiona gallagher. og disney princess belle. kim kelly. william miller. anita pallenberg. clair standish. john bender. nancy thompson. blair waldorf. samantha jones. disney's rapunzel. bebe buell. heather holloway. billy hargrove. brian slade. kurt wilde. maxine minx. elton john. mick jagger. andrew wood. scott weiland.

╰┈➤ [INTERESTS] - music. writing. books. photography. cinema. witchcraft. horror. fantasy. goth stuff. americana. bohemian/boho chic core. pop culture of the 60s 70s 80s 90s and 00s.

╰┈➤ [BOOKS] - the master and the margarita. the haunting of hill house. rebel heart: an american rock and roll journey. i'm with the band. the naked lunch. house of spirits. faithfull: an autobiography. salem's lot. fall to pieces. daisy jones & the six. everybody loves our town. please kill me. meet me in the bathroom. up and down with the rolling stones.

╰┈➤ [CRUSHES] - layne staley. chris cornell. jerry cantrell. johnny knoxville. ryan dunn. nick drake. bryan ferry. meg white. michael hutchence. angelina jolie. izzy straddlin. david gilmour. john frusciante. david from the lost boys. trent lane. marilyn monroe. st. jimmy and whatsername from the mv of green day's jesus of suburbia. bill skarsgård. dane dehaan. liam gallagher. albert hammond jr.

╰┈➤ [SOCIAL MEDIA] - instagram and discord, i'm as slowthunders too!

╰┈➤ [ARTISTS/BANDS] - alice in chains. britney spears. green day. roxy music. alanis morissette. the rolling stones. nicki minaj. lana del rey. soundgarden. pink floyd. marianne faithfull. sabrina carpenter. prince. hole. stone temple pillots. inxs. black sabbath. divinyls. the velvet underground. avril lavigne. lou reed. nine inch nails. the stooges. mc5. elvis presley. the clash. lady gaga. the smiths. television. mother love bone. the dandy warhols. dolly parton. bobbie gentry. mark lanegan. cky. whitney houston. blink-182. korn. the risin' sun. cheap trick. the who. combo musical los caquis. the moody blues. led zeppelin. sly and the family stone. mandy moore. nelly furtado. deftones. amy winehouse. blur. sublime. the cult. jimi hendrix. oasis. marc bolan. pearl jam. mariah carey. kylie minogue. robbie williams. audioslave. roxette. faith no more. janis joplin. nancy sinatra. the allman brothers band. gram parsons. johnny cash. waylon jennings. lil 'kim. bob dylan. beyoncé. mad season. pearl jam. fleetwood mac. the doors. ratt. charli xcx. mitski. pantera. joni mitchell.

╰┈➤ [FILMS] - moulin rouge!. the love witch. x. singles. say anything. the bling ring. beauty and the beast. beauty and the beast: an enchanted christmas. scream. home alone. babylon. performance. daisies. the secret garden. tangled. ten things i hate about you. my scene jammin' in jamaica. the lost boys. the craft. mean girls. casino. don't look now. paris, texas. walk the line. a nightmare on elm street. maxxxine. the breakfast club. trainspotting. almost famous. rocketman. the rocky horror picture show. practical magic. barbie. bram stoker's dracula. the exorcist. the panic in needle park. goodfellas. the shinning. once upon a time in hollywood. texas chainsaw massacre

╰┈➤ [COMFORT PALS] - hello kitty, spottie dottie. keroppi. pochaco. minnie mouse. psyduck. eevee. bulbasaur. winnie the pooh. eeyore

none of the icons, headers, pictures and edits are mine unless stated.

[omg-hellgirl]

I remember looking at Anita and it seemed that I had never seen anybody so gleaming and alive and vibrating. She was dazzling. And next to her was the fading, pathetic Brian, looking very sickly indeed.

Marianne Faithfull, Faithfull: An Autobiography.

[jonesbrianshining]

A little more about the song Ruby Tuesday from Marianne Faithfull´s memoirs:

… .. it was really Keith and Brian's song. As I recall, it came from a fragment of a blues-tinged Elizabethan madrigal that Brian was playing in the studio. Brian played the melody on recorder. It was subtle, but Keith became interested in it."

From a special "Mojo" issue dedicated to Brian Jones: "In her autobiography, written with David Dalton, Marianne describes the moment in the studio when Jones begins to play a beautiful rhythmic pastoral melody on the recorder that eventually became "Ruby Tuesday." Brian wanted everyone to say, "Great, Brian, great!" that's what happened." When the record came out, the cover had the standard "Jagger"-Richards."

via: beatles.ru

[ludmilachaibemachado]

On July 5th, 1969 The Rolling Stones took the stage at Hyde Park, London to perform one of their most famous concerts filmed and released as "The Stones in the Park"🥀🥀🥀

Although it ended up becoming a memorial for Brian Jones, the concert was originally meant to introduce Mick Taylor, who had replaced Brian as a guitarist. Brian had been let go from the band the month prior and died several days before the Hyde Park concert on July 3rd🌼

"He was one of these extraordinary people who, if there was a basket in a room with twenty-four different musical instruments from twenty-four corners of the world, could pick them up and find out in a minute what they did and how they worked, and he would play them and get really beautiful sounds out of them. He was at his very best when no words were needed." says Marianne about Brian in her first autobiography "Faithfull" published in 1994🌺

Photo 1: Marianne with her son Nicholas in the centre, Michael Cooper, photographer, in the top left and Sam Cutler, organiser of the Hyde Park concert and tour manager of the Stones' 1969 America tour, in the bottom left🌸

Photo 2 and 3 from Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy Stock: Marianne (and her son) walking up the wings. In the 3rd photo, you can also see Anita Pallenberg. Marianne wore a white dress with red and gold details, and Anita wore a dress with a red pattern and a beige headband with silver details🍀

Via @faithfulllforever on Instagram🌹

[scotianostra]

The Scottish actor Nicol Williamson was born on October 14th 1938 in Hamilton.

Williamson was an enormously talented actor who was considered by some critics to be the finest actor of his generation in the late 1960s and the 1970s, rivalled only by Albert Finney in his generation.

Born the son of a factory owner. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Birmingham, England. Williamson was sent back to Hamilton to live with his grandparents during World War II due to Birmingham's susceptibility to bombing, but returned when the war ended, and was educated at the Central Grammar School for Boys, Birmingham

He left school at 16 to begin work in his father’s factory and later attended the Birmingham School of Speech & Drama. He recalled his time there as “a disaster” and claimed “it was nothing more than a finishing school for the daughters of local businessmen”. After his national service as a gunner in the Airborne Division, Williamson made his professional debut with the Dundee Repertory Theatre in 1960.

In 1962 he made his London debut as Flute in Tony Richardson’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Royal Court Theatre. His first major success came in 1964 with John Osborne’s Inadmissible Evidence for which he was nominated for a Tony Award when it transferred to Broadway in 1965. 1964 also saw him appearing as Vladimir in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at the Royal Court Theatre. In 1968, he starred in the film version. Williamson’s Hamlet for Tony Richardson at the Roundhouse caused a sensation and was later transferred to New York and made into a film, with a cast including Anthony Hopkins and Marianne Faithfull. Faithfull later stated in her autobiography Faithfull that she and Williamson had had an affair while filming Hamlet.

His most celebrated film role was as Merlin the magician in the King Arthur epic Excalibur in 1981. Director John Boorman cast him as Merlin opposite Helen Mirren as Morgana over the protests of both actors; the two had previously appeared together on stage in Macbeth, with disastrous results, and disliked each other intensely. It was Boorman’s hope that the very real animosity that they had towards each other would generate more tension between them on screen, as is evident from their scenes together. Williamson gained recognition from a much wider fanbase for his performance as Merlin. A review of Excalibur in the London Times in 1981 said, “The actors are led by Williamson’s witty, perceptive Merlin, missed every time he’s off the screen.”

Some of his other notable cinematic performances are as a deeply troubled Irish soldier in the 1968 Jack Gold film The Bofors Gun; Sherlock Holmes in the 1976 Herbert Ross film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution; and Little John in the 1976 Richard Lester film Robin and Marian.

Williamson had a reputation as a bit of a hellraiser and a troublesome man who was known for several tantrums and on-stage antics. During the Philadelphia tryout of Inadmissible Evidence, a play in which he delivered a performance that would win him a Tony Award nomination in 1965, he hit the equally mercurial producer David Merrick. In 1968 he apologised to the audience for his performance one night while playing Hamlet and then walked off the stage, announcing he was retiring. In the early 1970s, Williamson left the Dick Cavett Show prior to a scheduled appearance, leaving the host and guest Nora Ephron to fill the remaining time. In 1976, he slapped an actor during the curtain call for the Broadway musical, Rex. In 1991, he hit co-star Evan Handler on the backside with a sword during a Broadway performance of I Hate Hamlet.

In 1974, Williamson recorded an abridged reading of The Hobbit for Argo Records, with authorisation for abridgement provided by Tolkien’s publisher. The recording was produced by Harley Usill. According to his official website, Nicol himself re-edited the original script, removing many occurrences of “he said”, “she said”, and so on, as he felt that an over-reliance on descriptive narrative would not give the desired effect. In 1971, Williamson married actress Jill Townsend, who played his daughter in the Broadway production of Inadmissible Evidence. They had a son, Luke, but divorced in 1977.

Despite concerns over his health in the 1970s, Williamson admitted drinking heavily and claimed to smoke 80 cigarettes a day. In an episode of The David Frost Show in the 1960s, during a discussion about death, which also involved poet John Betjeman, Williamson revealed that he was very much afraid of dying, saying that “I think of death constantly, throughout the day” and that “I don’t think there is anything after this, except complete oblivion.” On 25 January 2012, Luke Williamson announced on his father’s official web site that Nicol Williamson had died on 16th December 2011, aged 75, after a two-year struggle with oesophageal cancer. The news was released late as the actor did not want any fuss to be made over his death.

[littlewhispersmokesigns]

Went to a record store I’ve never been to before and I got a collection of Lester bangs’ writing and Marianne faithfull’s autobiography and I got a beastie boys shirt. Do you think the employees were talking about how cool and intriguing and complex I am after I left?

[romanbymarta]

Marianne Faithfull in her autobiography "Year one", 1996

[sbrown82]

I just finished reading an excerpt from Marianne Faithfull's 1994 book "Faithfull: an autobiography" on Archive Internet and I'm still shocked by the way she said Mick hit her. Page 127.

"Mick came straight from the concert to the hotel. I was waiting for him in the bed in my negligee. The minute he walked in he was a different person. It was as if he were someone I didn't know. He was absolutely possessed. As if he had brought in with him whatever disruptive energy was going on at that concert. It goes both ways. From the performer to the audience and then it comes back at you magnified.

He didn't say hello, he didn't even acknowledge me, he just walked over to the bed and began slapping me across the face. Not a word was spoken. I was absolutely terrified and I fled into the big white bathroom. He followed me in there and continued to hit me. He beat me quite badly and I didn't have a clue why. My first thought was "Oh, shit. He must have found out I had a little night with Keith." Such a ridiculous thought! In any case, I knew Keith would never in a thousand years have told anybody. Even Anita didn't know.

Nothing brought it on. It just erupted out of some inner turmoil as if a demonic force had taken him over. When it was over, it was like a hurricane that spent itself and stopped. We never, ever mentioned it. To this day I don't know what it was about. He never did anything like that again. He's not the kind of person who would. I don't think it was anything to do with me or him. [...]"

I had to reread it several times to make sure I was reading it right. Of the dozens of articles about Marianne and Mick's relationship, I've never seen it mentioned and it's a bit shocking. I always thought one of Mick's only redeeming qualities was that he never hit a woman. Looks like I was wrong.

This is wild, almost unbelievable because I've personally never heard of Mick Jagger being physically abusive...toward anyone. To be honest with you, he doesn't seem like the type. The resident "woman beater" of The Rolling Stones was Brian Jones. I remember Bill Wyman talking about it in his book how the guys in the band found out that he used to hit girls, they were all shocked and disgusted. I don't know much about Marianne, but if that's her experience, that's her experience. They were so toxic together. She's better than me tho, because I would've beat his skinny ass if he put his dirty ass hands on me.