Every week we take a look in the RTÉ Guide archives to check out the stories from years gone by. On this week in 1991, Paddy Kehoe spoke to the legendary musician and actress Marianne Faithfull, who was starring as Pirate Jenny in the Gate Theatre's production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Threepenny Opera. At the time, Faithfull was living in Ireland fulltime, and felt quite at home in the country.
"'I certainly like it here", says Marianne, 'and I've always liked it here though I don't know why. I think it's something to do with the fact that it's much more focussed towards America here. Everybody goes to America,everybody has friends and relatives in America: in a funny way,it makes us a bit more sophisticated,' adds the singer, endearingly Including herself as Irish, despite her British passport."
Kehoe clearly found Faithfull a thoughtful interviewee. "Ask Marianne a question and she grasps the thread of it, holds on tight, before thoughtfully and slowly replying. She doesn't let go of the subject of Britain, and as she talks, one imagines the prop of a cigarette, with the legendary throaty tones permeating her speech. In fact, throughout the time we spend together, she doesn't light up once - apparently, she smokes less nowa-days. "I left England when I finally decided I had to leave, I couldn't take it any longer. It was the Falklands time; it was just a tiny thing. I was sitting in my flat in Edith Grove and there were casualty lists on the television,and I thought: "I can't take it any longer, this is enough now!" She thus upped and left and went to live in New York."
Faithfull admitted that "just blaming it on Maggie Thatcher is
'a bit over the top... I can't do that and I don't think I have any justification for putting my problems on a country. I'm beginning to see that it just doesn't wash. I can't really back it up, it's just a very personal thing."
Faithfull was settled in Kildare in 1991, and taking public transport when needed because she couldn't drive. "Nowadays she lives in Kildare, but near enough to Dublin to catch the 66 bus. She has friends over to stay, and she reads 'a lot'. 'It's a little isolated, I must say. I've been living alone there now for over a year, and sometimes I think 'this is really rather hard, isn't it?' She loves her cottage: "It's beautiful, I couldn't find anywhere else more beautiful.' And no, she doesn't get pestered. 'I get a lot of peace and a lot of privacy, but it's hard at the moment because I don't spend a lot of time in one place and usually I'm travelling a lot....I think I'll stay there for another two years and then I might move to Wicklow. I've got a lot of friends over there. . . but I'm going to have to learn to drive,' she says emphatically. A friend of hers tells her that if she learns to drive an automatic car she'll be alright. 'I've tried and tried tod rive the stick-shift and it just doesn't work,' she adds."
Kehoe asked her about her image as a sixties icon.
"'Well, how would I be aware of that ?' she gently prods. 'To me it's just my life, it's just the things I've done. Sometimes I can use that stuff to feel bad about myself but I try not to think about it too much. I try to look back on the Sixties as they actually were, which was mixed for me anyway, it wasn't all wonderful. All the stuff in the sixties wasn't done with any serious intention, it was a case of just having fun.'
I mention my envy of one who grew up in that celebrated decade. "I know,' she quickly answers, 'my son is the same.' She talks about sexual liberation. 'I was never that keen on sexual liberation: it seems to me to bring a lot of problems with it. I guess it's great fun in a way, especially for men! She laughs a particularly gravelly laugh, but is not so quick to agree that they were 'macho' times. 'I don't know if sexual liberation helped women that much. I don't think it did, though that's what it appeared to do.'"
Having famously battled addiction, Faithfull told Kehoe that "everything is 'pretty much under control' nowadays. 'I haven't had a drink now for over five years,' she says. 'Occasionally I feel that I'd like a drink, but I just know I can't drink,' she laughs. "It'd just lead to everything else," she add srather philosophically. "It's not worth it, on the vague off-chance that I might be able to drink. I'm not so much afraid of the drink as of what it would take me to - dope, hard drugs.' She laughs again, shrugging off years o fself-abuse. 'I had a problem with alcohol, but it wasn't what you would call my drug of choice.'"
She also said she was still in touch with her old love Mick Jagger. "Yes, I am, we're on quite good terms. He sent me flowers for my first night," she says, just a shade wistfully. "I saw Mick last year at the final [Roiling Stones] concert in Wembley and it was nice to see him."Creeping cynicism about the Stones she dismisses outright: 'that's just what young people say because they want them to move over! I haven't listened to their records but I think they're doing okay. They can't just be in it for the money." What does annoy her is having to constantly speak for them. 'I can't understand why anyone expects me to - the Stones are not my business.'"
