Marianne Faithfull, a singer and actress known for hits like "As Tears Go By," died Thursday, a spokesperson confirmed. She was 78. "It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of the singer,

Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull was born in Hampstead on 29 December 1946. Her mother was Baroness Eva Sacher-Masoch, a Hungarian, half-Jewish former ballet dancer who had fled the Nazis in World War II.

A fresh-voiced singer and Mick Jagger’s muse in the 1960s, she went on to experience more than her share of hard times before emerging triumphant.

She and Jagger began dating in 1966 and became one of the most glamorous and notorious couples of 1960s “Swinging London.”

Faithfull was a singer, an actress and the one-time girlfriend of Mick Jagger. Deadline called Faithfull a muse to not only the Rolling Stones but also David Bowie. Faithfull’s father was a British intelligence officer and professor while her mother was the daughter of Austro-Hungarian nobleman.

In her later years, Faithfull became a fashion crowd darling, knocking around New York with Karl Lagerfeld, performing at Chloé events and dressing for the stage in Chanel.

Marianne Faithfull, who died on Thursday aged 78, was one of the great survivors of the Swinging Sixties, bouncing back from drink and drug oblivion to become a celebrated and distinctive singer-songwriter.

Marianne Faithfull's first hit, "As Tears Go By," was recorded when she was just 17 years old after she met with the manager of the Rolling Stones at a party.

Marianne Faithfull, the British pop star, muse, libertine and old soul who inspired and helped write some of the Rolling Stones’ greatest songs and endured as a torch singer and survivor of the lifestyle she once embodied,