Faithfull's story set for screen

By Ian Youngs
Music reporter, BBC News

Marianne Faithfull had a five-year relationship with Mick Jagger

Singer Marianne Faithfull, the original wild girl of rock, has agreed to let her life story be told in a film.

Faithfull was Mick Jagger's girlfriend and a legendary party animal, who sank into heroin addiction and homelessness.

She published an autobiography in 1994. "It won't happen right away but we have found a director who I trust who wants to make a film of the book," she said.

But Faithfull, who is now releasing her 22nd album, said she did not want a say in casting an actress to play her.

"I'm not getting involved," she said. "I'll read the script, when it's ready, which isn't for a long time, and then I'll leave it to the director and the actress he chooses.

"I don't want to have much to do with it. I want to read the script and like the script and then I'm going to let go of it and let them do what they want. That's the way to do it."

Now 62, Faithfull added that her life was "a great story".

Faithfull's new album featured Keith Richards, Jarvis Cocker and Nick Cave

Educated in a convent, she was discovered by the Rolling Stones' manager at 17 and had a string of hits in the 1960s. She was reportedly wooed by Bob Dylan before beginning a five-year relationship with Jagger.

She was once found wearing nothing but a rug during an infamous police search of Stones guitarist Keith Richards' house in 1967.

According to rock legend, Faithfull inspired the classic Stones songs You Can't Always Get What You Want, Let's Spend the Night Together and Wild Horses, while she wrote their track Sister Morphine.

Faithfull, who already had one young son, fell pregnant by Jagger in 1968 but miscarried. A suicide attempt in Australia in 1969 put her in a coma for six days and in the subsequent years, she split from Jagger and lost custody of her son.

She spent two years living on the streets of London in the 1970s, addicted to heroin. In 1976 she was living in a Chelsea squat without hot water or electricity.

Her creative rehabilitation came in the late 1970s and '80s, and she is now regarded with critical respect for both her music and acting.

Her latest album, Easy Come, Easy Go, features guests including Keith Richards, Rufus Wainwright, Jarvis Cocker and Nick Cave, and is released in the UK on Monday.