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Anita Pallenberg (6 April 1942 – 13 June 2017) was an Italian-German film actress, artist, and model. A style icon and "It girl" of the 1960s and 1970s, Pallenberg was credited as the muse of the Rolling Stones: she was the romantic partner of the Stones multi-instrumentalist, Brian Jones, and later, from 1967 to 1980, the partner of Stones guitarist Keith Richards, with whom she had three children.
The family was separated because of World War II, and she did not see her father until she was three years old. Her father, a descendant of the Pallenberg family dynasty from Cologne, who were renowned as furniture manufacturers and patrons of the arts, later sent her to a boarding school in Germany so that she would learn the language. She became fluent in four languages at an early age.
Pallenberg was expelled from school when she was 16, after which she spent time in Rome with the Dolce Vita crowd, and then went to New York City to hang out at Andy Warhol's The Factory. She then began her career as a fashion model in Paris. She studied medicine, picture restoration and graphic design without ever completing a degree. Before settling in London, she had lived in Germany and Rome, as well as in New York City, where she was active in the Living Theatre, starring in the play Paradise Now, which featured onstage nudity, and Andy Warhol's Factory.
Pallenberg appeared in a documentary about the Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil (1968), directed by French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. In an interview she gave The Independent, which published it on 16 March 2007, she related her encounters in Rome while La Dolce Vita (1960) was being filmed, with its director Federico Fellini, other filmmakers such as Luchino Visconti and Pier Paolo Pasolini, and with the novelist Alberto Moravia.Anita Pallenberg's interview with The Independent, 16 March 2007.
In 1985, for the video of "Wild Boys," Duran Duran used a clip of Pallenberg from Barbarella. She portrayed "The Queen" in the comedy-drama Mister Lonely by Harmony Korine, and played a character named Sin in Go Go Tales (both 2007).
In the 1990s, Pallenberg returned to education to study fashion. She graduated from Central Saint Martins in London in 1994 with a fashion and textile degree. However, she decided not to forge ahead with a career in fashion, finding it too cutthroat and cruel.
Pallenberg has been portrayed several times by other performers. Monet Mazur played a young Pallenberg in the film Stoned (2005), a biographical film about the last year of Brian Jones's life, while the NBC television show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006) included a story arc in which the character Harriet Hayes was hired to play Pallenberg in a film.
In Morocco, Keith Richards saw Jones assaulting Pallenberg, pulled her away and then took her back to England, where she moved in with him. In 1981, Richards stated that he still loved Pallenberg, although he had already met his future wife, Patti Hansen."Keith Richards – Interview". Rolling Stone (magazine), 12 November 1981.
There were rumours that Pallenberg also had a brief affair with Mick Jagger during the filming of Performance and Keith Richards states in his autobiography Life that it happened. Pallenberg denied further affairs, both in March 2007 when Performance was released on DVD and again during an interview in 2008.
Tony Sanchez's account of his time as Richards's bodyguard and drug dealer mentions Pallenberg's spiritual practices: "She was obsessed with black magic and began to carry a string of garlic with her everywhere—even to bed."Sanchez, Tony. Up & Down with the Rolling Stones. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996 (originally 1980) Sanchez goes on to describe Pallenberg as having been "like a life-force, a woman so powerful, so full of strength and determination that men came to lean on her".Sanchez, 116
Jo Bergman, who was the band's personal assistant from 1967 to 1973, said of Pallenberg: "Anita is a Rolling Stone. She, Mick, Keith and Brian were the Rolling Stones. Her influence has been profound. She keeps things crazy."
In the 1977 Toronto heroin arrest, Pallenberg pled guilty to marijuana possession and was convicted and fined several weeks after Richards' arrest.Sandford, Christopher. Keith Richards: Satisfaction, Carroll & Graf: New York, 2003, p. 227
Pallenberg was a friend of singer Marianne Faithfull, Jagger's girlfriend in the late 1960s. They appeared together in the fourth series (2001) of the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous in episode four, "Donkey", with Faithfull playing God and Pallenberg the Devil.
Pallenberg first became pregnant in 1968, but since she had already signed on to be part of the film Performance she felt that she was pressured to have an abortion, which caused her to feel extremely resentful. She became pregnant again, with Marlon, during the filming.
After Tara Jo Jo's death, Keith's mother blamed Pallenberg and said she was an unfit mother, and took Angela to live with her. Pallenberg raised Marlon mostly on the road with the band. When Marlon was eight, she moved into a house on Long Island, New York, so he could have a more routine life and go to school. In later years, she lived principally in Chelsea, London, spending winters in Jamaica.
At one point, Pallenberg expressed interest in writing a memoir, but ultimately decided not to pursue the venture. "The publishers want to hear only about the Stones and more dirt on Mick Jagger and I'm just not interested", she said in 2008. "I had several publishers and they were all the same. They all wanted salacious. And everybody is writing autobiographies and that's one reason why I'm not going to do it. If young Victoria Beckham can write her autobiography, then I don't want to write one!" However, an unpublished memoir, together with taped interviews, was discovered by her grandchildren after her death, becoming a main ingredient of the documentary film . In the film, she speaks about her family, saying that her father was a classical musician and her great grandfather was the painter Arnold Böcklin.
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