Marianne Faithfull: Singer and actress dies at 78

In recent years, she teamed up with songwriters like PJ Harvey and Nick Cave, who each cited her as an inspiration.

Other collaborators over the years included David Bowie, Lou Reed, Jarvis Cocker, Damon Albarn, Emmylou Harris and Metallica, whose drummer Lars Ulrich thanked Faithfull for her "incredible and unique contribution to our music, and for always being so willing to join us in performing it".

Her acting career ran in parallel to music. On stage, she appeared alongside Glenda Jackson in Chekhov's Three Sisters; and played Ophelia in Hamlet – later admitting her nightly descent into madness had been chemically enhanced.

She also played God in two episodes of the sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, and the devil in William Burroughs' and Tom Waits' musical, The Black Rider.

But music was where her heart lay. Her penultimate album, 2018's Negative Capabilty, was a meditation on ageing, loneliness and grief – inspired partly by the death of her old friend, and fellow Rolling Stones' paramour Anita Pallenberg; and partly by the terror attacks on the Bataclan nightclub in her adopted home of Paris.

Taking her full circle, the album included a raw and emotional re-recording of As Tears Go By that reduced everyone in the studio to tears, according to producer Rob Ellis.

Faithfull received the World Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Women's World Awards, and was made a commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France.

Faithfull's long-time friend, the BBC Radio 2 presenter Bob Harris, called her an "encapsulation of the sixties".

He said while she initially was known for being Mick Jagger's girlfriend, through her "people began to see her as an artist, as a creator".

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's The World Tonight, Harris added: "To me, she was wonderful, she was interesting, very, very bright, and from an aristocratic background, which was always part of the way she carried herself."

The singer married and divorced three times - to artist John Dunbar in 1965, Ben Brierly of punk band the Vibrators in 1979, and actor Giorgio Della Terza in 1988.

She is survived by her son, Nicholas Dunbar.