‘Dazzling, beautiful, hypnotic and unsettling’ was how the ‘wicked Anita’ Pallenberg was described by her friend Marianne Faithfull. The epitome of the 1960s sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, she ricocheted amongst the Rolling Stones, from Brian Jones, to Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. She did stupendous quantities of heroin, indulged in a fascination for Aleister Crowley rituals and was potent, volatile, and often chaotic.
The miracle is any of them survived though there were deaths around her of a sudden infant death of one of her three children with Richards and the ‘Russian roulette’ death of a 17 year old boy she was entertaining in her bedroom – and the death of Brian Jones from drowning in later years.
Catching Fire, a documentary about to be released is based in part on her unpublished memoir titled Black Magic.
She was born 6 April 1942 in Rome, no birth time, with a frustrated artist/Italian travel agent father whom she claimed had worked in Berlin as an interpreter between Mussolini and Hitler. Her mother was a secretary in the German embassy. A wild child at school, she emigrated to New York, fell in with the avant-garde set and became a model. At 21 she met the Stones and fell in with Jones – and embarked on an irresponsible and self-centred lifestyle, where the damage she inflicted on others, not the least her two children never seemed to cross her mind. Her daughter was removed by Keith Richards’ mother who called Anita an unfit mother after the SIDs death of her second son.
Latterly Anita finally emerged sober, completed a degree course at St Martin’s School of Art in textiles and fashion, and became a doting “gangster granny” to her five grandchildren. She died in 2017 from complications due to hepatitis C.
She had an upfront, fiery, pro-active Aries Sun sextile a passionately enthusiastic Mars Jupiter in Gemini. Her Venus in Aquarius (Pisces)was inconjunct Neptune and square Saturn, Algol, Uranus in Taurus which would space her out, make her inordinately stubborn and headstrong, a risk-taker as well as harbouring low emotional self-esteem; with Algol thrown in to pull her towards the dark side. Her Sagittarius Moon was either in an escapist square to Neptune or an excitable opposition to Jupiter Mars – either of which is possible.
Her Pluto in Leo was conjunct Chiron, trine Mercury and sextile Uranus. Pluto close to Chiron, Melanie Rhinehart describes as emphasising sexuality and the use or abuse of power and can lend a destructive quality.
Her son Marlon, who remained with her, seems to have emerged intact from his chaotic childhood, where he was often left to clean up a drug mess before the authorities showed up. Born 10 August 1969 he is a Sun Leo square Neptune but has not followed his parents down the music route. He has two yods of Venus sextile Saturn inconjunct Mars and Jupiter Uranus sextile Mars inconjunct Saturn – not an easy life but he seems to have developed maturity early on.
Anita was a very dangerous, nihilistic
woman who left a path of chaos and
destruction throughout her ruinous
Iife.
A person to be avoided, regardless of
her compelling beauty.
Somewhere I read a quote by Marlon saying his Mum was born in Hamburg at sunrise. That would give her an Aries ascendant which made her a double Aries with a Sagg moon. Fire fire burning bright. No wonder she spent so much of her life galloping around.
I saw the documentary and came away feeling bad for the kids. Although I think it served him well in the long term, I felt sorry for Marlon having to be the adult in the room with both his parents. Anita giving another child a bump of coke when that child was 8 years old didn’t do much for me either.
A bit like what Robert Downey Sr did to his son. Some parents should be locked up forever. In my opinion.