Anita Pallenberg Died Tuesday at 75

Anita Pallenberg

Ann Althouse:

What an embodiment of the mod beauty we adored in the 1960s! Go to the link — it’s to the NYT — to see the photographs of her that made us so envious — in the arms of Keith Richards in 1969 and drawing lipliner on Mick Jagger (in the movie “Performance”) in 1970.

That movie “remains as hallucinogenically strange and disturbing as ever and Pallenberg will be for ever remembered as Pherber: sexually omnivorous, dangerous, sweetly amoral. The movie… captures the psychosis of the end of the 60s, where art, crime and sex open up the gates of social mobility but identity becomes fragmented.”

Pallenberg spoke of drugs freezing her, so she did not grow emotionally. Faithfull has spoken of not being able to have sex without being semi-anaesthetised with drugs. Their stories remind us of what sexual liberation could mean for women in the 60s. These great beauties paid a huge price for being the “girlfriends” of rock stars. Both these clever, multilingual, arty women educated their boyfriends (Jagger and Richards) about culture and art and style. Pallenberg got the boys to wear her clothes. Everyone, Faithfull once told me, was in love with Keith, even Mick of course !

“I like a high-spirited woman. And with Anita, you knew you were taking on a Valkyrie — she who decides who dies in battle.” — wrote Keith Richards.

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Telegraph: 17 Reasons Anita Pallenberg was the coolest girl in the world.

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It was Anita Pallenberg who did the unusual voice backgrounds in “Sympathy for the Devil.”