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The music world was recently rocked by the death of magical, mystical tour de forceAnita Pallenberg—whose passing merited a full half-page obituary in the prestigious New York Times:
“Anita Pallenberg, a model and actress called the muse of the Rolling Stones,” added Sleuth’s hometown Washington Post in a similar-length ode to her legacy, “had affairs with three of the band’s key members” (literally!)—in order of insertion: Brian Jones, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger {stepping out with each, and ‘a pussy that ate the canary grin’}.
“She had only to walk along the street,” marveled the group’s in-house drug dealer Tony Sanchez, “to cause a string of traffic accidents” (below left). Or provoke, as the Stones sang: “Fighting in the streets” (below right).
“Pallenberg was hard to recognize from the vivacious beauty (above left) who captivated first Jones and then Richards,” lamented the Daily Mail. “She walked with a limp (above right)—the result of several hip replacements—and that beguiling face was lined with years of hard living.”
Not to mention a lifetime of incessant smoking.
But there’s no doubt that she was smokin’ … Keith Richards remarked: “Anita was the sexiest girl I had ever seen!”
“Her death was announced on Instagram by close friend Stella Schnabel, daughter of famed American painter and filmmaker Julian Schnabel."
“I have never met a woman quite like you, Anita,” Stella stated on social media. “I don’t think there is anybody in this universe like you. I became a woman through knowing you. You will always be in my heart.”
Prompting speculation that her mentor was more than just “my best friend” (above left). Before meeting her, Schnabel sobbed: “I was a little girl thinking I was big.” Sheerly Stella’s now the perfect size (above right).
“Ms. Schnabel is a member of that elite coterie of New Yorkers … a privileged gadabout,” profiled the Times. “She is well aware that her standing breeds resentment, particularly among inveterate society bashers, who portray her as a classier—and artier—Kim Kardashian.” Ass•erts the aristobrat: “If I wasn’t Julian Schnabel’s kid, I wouldn’t have to hear these things.”
But she did have to endure dad dumping her mom for sexy Spanish actress Olatz López Garemendia (below left)—with whom “sullen Stella” {in the Times’ words} never got along.
Guess he just preferred a newer model (above right).
But Stell endured Hell when the amorous artist knocked up devilish Danish supermodel May Andersen—half his age and a head taller (below left) in 2013.
So how did the portly painter manage to mate with the model? Maybe by cuffing her ankles to the bathtub? (above right)!
“I can’t talk about that,” Stella stammers. “I don’t want to make my father mad.” Especially when he featured his daughter in her first three movies! “In film roles,” noted the Times’ Fashion Style Editor Ruth La Ferla, “she can flaunt parts of herself she might otherwise keep under wraps.” Pallenberg’s paramour Keith Richards often stores stuff under his wraps … as Schnabel searches for the goods below left. That couple’s only son Marlon mused in response: “His stash is in the other pocket Stell!”
Stell looked swell with just a pocketbook in this shocking fashion ad (above right). “Even when you’re acting, you’re extremely exposed,” she frets.
And speaking of fashion, Pallenberg has become an inspiration and icon. “She was truly the first great rock ’n’ roll muse of style,” one fashionista wrote in 2010. “It is impossible to calculate her influence on the fashion of today—it is just so vast!” And The Mirror mirrored those thoughts upon her death: “With her tousled blonde hair, spidery black lashes, flowing scarves and hippie hats (below left), Anita Pallenberg truly was the mother of all rock chicks.” With one of her recent 'offspring' on a swing below right.
“She was Lady Rolling Stone,” The Mirror continued, “—the brilliant, charismatic and decadent style icon who shaped popular culture {still, below left} and put the sex and drugs into rock and roll.” This tribute ripped from today’s fashion mags (below right) is a paean to the original stoned sexpot (inset).
“Anita was the quintessential 1960s It Girl” … and half a century later actress Isabel Lucas channels how ModSquad star Peggy Lipton copied ‘It’ back then.
“Her signature witchy look,” writes Bust magazine, “which she described as ‘boots, belts, cashmere, hats, sunglasses as well,’ is credited with being a major influence on the Stones’ glam Sixties style. Richards said in his memoir, ‘I started to become a fashion icon for wearing my old lady’s clothes’” (below left)—perhaps taking it a bit too far (below right) back in her native Germany in ’68!
“It was like when I used to listen to my dad {kinky yet acclaimed artist Lucien Freud} talk about painting and I’d think, ‘Wow, that would never have come into my mind.’ Anita was like that about clothes.” And inspired bushy Bella to pose without any clothes in her infamous father’s bedroom (above right)!
The late Lucien’s lurid and notorious nudes of his daughter now sell for millions and hang in museums (below left)—even though Ms. Freud seems to be giving them a ‘thumbs down’ while galpal Anita samples an unfamiliar kind of ‘coke.’
“If I’m ever slightly lost about where I want to be with a collection of clothes,” Bella believes {yet barely believes in clothes, below left}, “I think about her and there’s an immediately electricity that happens.” Which inspired her to create a T-shirt in tribute to her dear friend less than a year before her death (below right).
Freud posted a pic of the ‘Anita’ shirt the day after her inspiration’s death—and spoke at the funeral—which received a reply of 12 heart emojis … and a dozen broken ones (below left) … from Keith Richards’ daughter Theodora—born to model Patti Hansen, who succeeded Anita in Keef’s bed. “Oh Theo!!” lamented Bella to Richards, who seems to have adopted Pallenberg’s penchant for flashin’ fashion (below right)!
“I’ve certainly never met anyone else like her,” eulogized Vogue design guru Bay Garnett. “She was extraordinary. My enduring memory of her is just that laughter, and her wide, wicked smile.” In full force (below left) when Bay became ‘curious’ enough to cup Anita’s “sagging but still stacked” bosom (below right).
When another bisexual—and possible bedmate—singer Courtney Love (below left) asked if she’d ever consider plastic surgery, Anita announced: “Darling, I was the most beautiful woman in 17 countries. I like being ugly.”
“But you can’t deny that you are a legend?” asked another close friend. “Yes, for sure,” Pallenberg proclaimed, “but I always had my feet on the ground, even when I was flying high!” {The Everest of Eroticism, below, at her peak.}
And, after a life of “devilish debauchery,” she seemed to know what was coming …
The cause of death was first listed as “unknown,” but soon attributed to “complications of hepatitis C” due to excessive drugs and drink.
“I was a disgusting, aggressive, very hard drinker,” Anita admitted. But fooled herself after getting the ‘hep C’ diagnosis: “That’s OK. When you stop drinking the liver regenerates.”
Late last year she sighed: “I am ready to die. I have done so much here. To be honest, I did not think I would live to be over 40.”
So let’s start at the beginning: Born April 6, 1942 in Hamburg, Germany {not Rome as she often claimed}, Anita was descended from a wealthy Swedish clan “whose most notable member was painted by the great portraitist Hans Holbein, seated among bags of gold.”
A precious metal she quickly grew fond of—getting expelled from boarding school at 16 and seeking fame and fortune in Munich—“where I had my first sexual encounter,” she confided. “I’m a late bloomer, I guess.”
But she made up for lost time: “I was in Rome in 1960 just as La Dolce Vita was happening and met FedericoFellini, Alberto Moravia, Luchino Visconti and Pier Paolo Pasolini.” By ‘met,’ Anita means ‘mated’ with—notching affairs under her belt at 18 with the 3 legendary directors and 1 writer (in order below)—ages 40, 53, 54 and 38, respectively, at the moment of consummation.
Clearly a real social climb•her … though Pallenberg protested: “Back in the Sixties and Seventies everybody was always on about how I was a Stones ‘climber’ because I went through Brian Jones, was with Keith Richards and supposedly wanted to end up with Mick Jagger. But that was not my intention.” As they say, the best laid plans …
“Everyone forgot that I was well traveled before I met the Stones.” And Anita’s open road attracted the attention of Playboy magazine—which made her one of its ‘Girls of Rome’—just 19 and dressed from head to toe—in its February 1962 issue.
Indeed, all of Italy was buzzing around the blonde beauty (below left), who offered a laid back lifestyle with no strings or attachments (below right).
Sleuth had to Rome far and wide to find this uncensored outtake:
Pallenberg partied her way through Europe and then “to New York with my then-boyfriend, and we hung out with all the pop artists at the Factory: Warhol, Nico {her nemesis we’ll uncover later} and that lot. And there was a lot of in-house sex amongst the Soho set—they were ‘going at it like rabbits’ (below left). But since most of Andy’s artists were gay … Anita ‘indulged’ with bisexual brunettes Edie Sedgwick and Zouzou (above and below her, lower right)!
Warhol helped to channel some of the German’s sexual energy into a starring role in the Living Theatre performance piece Paradise Now—“which featured onstage nudity.”
As ArtFilms.com described the production: “Paradise Now sought to completely dissolve the boundaries of human interactions through a live collective creation—a series of purposefully provocative actions from marijuana smoking and full-body group nudity and (yes) orgies, sometimes involving audience members.
Recalls drama critic Juliet Wittman: “In the 1960s and through most of the 1970s, you could hardly go out to the theater in New York without seeing someone naked. Occasionally, actors even engaged in sexual intercourse onstage. During that time, I went to the see the Living Theatre perform Paradise Now. The piece called for actors to swarm the auditorium, mournfully proclaiming such things as ‘I am not allowed to take my clothes off.’ ‘Really?’ said George Birimisa, a playwright who was sitting nearby. ‘I can.’ And he stood up and stripped. And so did half the rest of the audience.”
Never one to do things by half … Anita’s next move was to become a clothes horse across the pond. “I began working as a model for Catherine Harlé in Paris,” she reminisced. “She had created the most famous agency at the time.” And as always, Anita was at the center of attention (below left).
Starting out modeling mainstream suits and dresses (above right below left), the sexy siren was far more suited for boobs and boots (below right).
Indeed, her “tumbling blonde hair, beautiful feline eyes and long, lithe body” was just the tenth of 17 reasons why A.Pal was acclaimed “The Coolest Girl in the World.”
Number 11 being “she was open to new ideas” (above right).
Asked if she was a top model, Pallenberg protested: “Never! No, no, no. I could make a living out of it, and that’s basically what I did”—her most memorable shoot being naked under a plastic raincoat in 1965, just before meeting the Stones.
The mousy brunette (below left) had become a bouncing blonde—doing “my best to make ends meet.”
And to think her most revealing modeling pose was to mark the annual August 15th Italian holiday of Ferragosto—“the day when Roman Catholics believe the Virgin Mary is supposed to have ascended to heaven”!
Happily, this heavenlyENDing is only the beginning …
Up Next: “Romancing the Stones”
