MARIANNE FAITHFULL: “In March of 1967, I was in rehearsal for my part as Irina in Chekhov’s ‘Three Sisters’ at the Royal Court. It was freezing and dreary in London and I had the weekend off, so Anita and I decided to fly to Tangier with Brian. Anita and I had dropped acid and stayed up all night. We had a wonderful time. We had such fun together. In the middle of all this we went to get Brian, poor baby, from the nursing home. He was having a nervous breakdown, and a drugs breakdown too. Also a spot of pneumonia.”
MARIANNE FAITHFULL: “There was a stopover in Gibraltar. Brian was terribly excited about this. He’d brought a tape with him. It was of the sound track he’d just finished for Anita’s film ‘A Degree of Murder,’ and he got it in his head that he wanted to play it to the Barbary apes who live on the Rock of Gibraltar. Brian was frenziedly playing his music to the monkeys, and Anita said ‘Don’t you think Brian looks very pale and so dull, and not very alive? He’s very bloodless, wouldn’t you say?’ And I looked at him and had to agree, ‘Well, yes, he does look a bit peaky.’ He didn’t look too well, but I liked the way he looked. He had that romantic pallor of the very sick. But I remember looking at Anita and it seemed that I had never seen anybody so gleaming and alive and vibrating. She was dazzling. And next to her was the fading, pathetic Brian, looking very sickly indeed... All the way from Gibraltar to Tangier we read ‘Salome.’ Brian played Herod, I read Salome and Anita was Herodias… We looked absolutely insane. Anita and I were wearing feather boas in brilliant colors – reds and purples. All I had packed were some shells, an Indian sari and an Edmond Dulac picture book. It looked beautiful. A suitcase packed by someone on acid.”
ANITA PALLENBERG: “Traveling was wonderful – it was new. We’d fly to LA for a party, go to different parts of the world, bring different things back, put different cultures together. At one point, though, it started to become pretty obvious that Andrew Oldham had done his work too well. I mean, I remember one time Brian and I had been staying in Tangiers and we pinched this little rose bowl – washing bowl – from the hotel. Well, I happened – for some reason, I don’t know why – to be carrying it in my arm when we got off the place and out of customs. Next morning, banner headlines: ‘Brian Jones and actress Anita Pallenberg return from Africa with satanic rituals.’ Utter nonsense.”
KEITH RICHARDS: “They had reached an impasse about Anita’s movie career. Brian wanted to be the star of the relationship and for Anita to be this chick with a star. It was getting on her.”
ELIZABETH WINDER: “Somewhere between the Loire’s slopes and
valleys, Brian began to crack. Demerols,
Seconals, liquid mescaline, and speed had thrown him into a sleep-deprived
state of constant chemical flux. A deep
cough rattled through his chest, exacerbated by cigarettes and hash. His asthma flared up, his pallor worsened,
and his feeble state ignited insecurities.
Between slogs at the bottle and puffs on his inhaler, he tore into
Anita, railing at her disloyalty, how she’d jilted him for her acting career,
she was bitch, a slag, a liar. Half
bleary-eyed Saturn, half Little Lord Fauntleroy, Brian stewed in the back seat,
wrapped in blankets like an invalid king, taking long slugs from his bottle of
Jack.”
STEPHEN DAVIS: “The Blue Lena was furnished with fur rugs, pop art cushions and outrageous Swedish sex magazines. The car’s cassette player blasted soul music, a live Hendrix tape, the new Beatles single ‘Penny Lane…’ Brian was drinking brandy, smoking heavily, crushing chunks of hash into joints and sucking them down, outwardly oblivious to the smoldering looks between his best mate and his girlfriend.”
ZACHARY LAZAR: “What was amazing then was that it seemed as if Brian were going to pull it together, be a true part of the band again. That’s what she had done for him at first. But on the drive down to France, it was obvious what was happening, and Brian hadn’t even noticed. He’d just made it easier and easier for Anita to forget about him when he finally broke down. He kept changing the music and insisting that this was the way the band should go, back to the blues, the old songs they used to cover when it was still fun to play and everyone got along. He would be sentimental, then angry, then half-asleep, vague with liquor and pills, and he had been like that so often that it was not upsetting, just irritating, familiar. Still, they had never seen him cough up blood before: thin red drips that spotted his chin and a darker kind that rimmed one of his nostrils. Suddenly they were speeding through Toulouse, looking for a hospital, thinking he might die. He’d wanted Anita to stay there at his bedside, but she’d felt worn down by then. He had stopped coughing. It had already started to seem like another one of his games.”
ELIZABETH WINDER: “At this point Deborah Dixon bade the
dwindling group goodbye. Hospitals and
jail time had dampened her spirits, and even she couldn’t keep up with such
rowdy company. All night, every night
scuttling through the corridors, snorting coke and guzzling cava, banging on
her door, demanding she join the revelry.
The sexual tension had gone from innocent to oppressive.”
ANITA PALLENBERG: “It was Brian who suggested that we drive on without him to Tangier where we should wait for him at the Hotel Minzah. That meant that Keith and I could be alone. By the time we reached Valencia we could no longer resist each other and Keith spent the night in my room. In the morning I realized, as did Keith, that we were creating an unmanageable situation so we pulled back as best we could during the rest of the journey.”
KEITH RICHARDS: “Anita made the first move. I just could not put the make on my friend’s girl, even though he’d become an asshole, to Anita too. It’s the Sir Galahad in me. Anita was beautiful too. And we got closer and closer and then suddenly, without her old man, she had the balls to break the ice and say fuck it. In the back of the Bentley, somewhere between Barcelona and Valencia, Anita and I looked at each other, and the tension was so high in the backseat, the next thing I know, she’s giving me a blow job. The tension broke then. And suddenly we’re together.”
STASH DE ROLA: “What is not known to most people is that
during the time Brian was in the hospital at Albi, there was a vast exchange of
letters. They tried to call each other
all the time. Brian and Anita wrote to
each other every single day. I saw
Anita’s letters, she was very much torn between two lovers at that stage.”
STEPHEN DAVIS: “Going to Morocco was like time travel to the medieval world, with great music, plentiful dope, superb food, and the kind of privacy the Stones rarely got anywhere else. Tangier was a sunny white city that slept during the dry, hot summer days. When the wind was northerly, the call of the muezzins from Tangier’s mosques on the shoulder of Africa could drive five miles across the Strait of Gibraltar and be heard in Andalusia. Plus, the climate was soft, the beaches were empty, the Moroccans were friendly, and there was plenty of kif, a powerful blend of cannabis and black tobacco that gives the smoker a friendly blast of clarity. Or there was majoun, a candy made of honey and hashish paste. Morphine, speed, and the entire pharmacopoeia were available over the counter. Tangier was as far out as one could get and still be on the fringe of Western civilization, a perfect place for angel-headed hipsters like Mick, Brian and Keith to hide from the cold, commercial world to the north.”
ELIZABETH WINDER: “Now Anita could drift through the city in
peace. She wandered the souks of the
inner Medina and spent hours combing through long duster coats, silk scarves,
and raw wool woven mantles in marigolds and burnished reds. She rummaged through beaded djellabas and
shimmering metals, white cotton kaftans embroidered in lacy Berber
tattoos. Back in London, she blended these
textures with her own signature pieces.
As always, Anita made it fresh – brass bracelets jangling on her wrists,
a tunic sliced at the hip and worn as a blouse, a miniskirt sewn from an ikat
tapestry. Effortless, outre, and
irreplaceable.”
CHRISTOPHER ANDERSEN: “The sun splashed minarets and lush palms provided a perfect backdrop for the Stones’ surreal caravan. Brion Gysin, who lived in Morocco, served as the group’s self-appointed host, offering running commentary as the party meandered unrecognized through the casbah. After an afternoon spent dickering with local merchants over caftans, fezzes, and hookahs, everyone retreated to the hotel, where the Stones occupied the entire tenth floor.”
ANITA PALLENBERG: “The night Brian and I arrived in Marrakesh, we had no sooner checked into our room than Brian began to berate me and attack me physically, beating me with a kind of sobbing frustration. I looked a pretty sight when we all went out to dinner that night. All through dinner, Brian kept staring at Keith but everyone was having too good a time drinking, smoking dope and eating couscous to pay any attention to him. But I could sense the rage building up.”
BRION GYSIN: “We take over the top floor of the hotel for a playpen hanging over the swimming pool. That night, Brian and I dropped some acid. Anita took some sleepers and went off to bed. Keith plugs in his guitar and sends throbbing sounds after her into the moonlight. Robert puts on an old Elmore James record and gets Mick doing little magic dances for him. For the first time I realize that Mick is really magic! Tom the chauffeur comes in and whispers in Brian’s ear. They want me to find some Berber girls for Brian, but I tell them I can’t make that scene. Room service arrives with huge trays of food; the food goes over the balcony and the trays are used to toboggan around the floor.”
BRION GYSIN: “As the acid comes upon me, Brian recedes into big pictures. Looks like a tiny celluloid kewpie doll, banked all around by choirs of identical little girl dolls looking just like him, chanting his hymns. Tom the sinister chauffeur shows up, rolling his eyes, hovering over Brian, whispering in his ear like a procurer.”
TERRY RAWLINGS: “Achmed the Hanifer, a local dealer, was on hand to dish out the necessities for the trip, and trip they did, dropping acid and heading across the desert towards the snow-capped mountains in the distance. Not surprisingly the journey was eventually abandoned because the acid took over and the group, amidst a freak thunderstorm, headed back to Marrakesh. On their return, Anita went to find Brian at the rented house. She discovered him rolling about with two naked, tattooed Berber whores. Brian lovingly informed Anita that they wanted her to join them. Anita was disgusted at the prospect and turned to leave, at which point Brian’s violent streak erupted. He once again lashed out at the shocked and terrified girl, berating her severely as the naked prostitutes stood and watched.”
TOM KEYLOCK: “Brian was completely off his crust, staggering through the lobby, sandwiched between these two dodgy-looking Berber whores, the ones that have peculiar blue tattoos all over them. They were holding Brian up and heading toward Anita’s room. I followed them up the stairs, trying to point out the error of his plan, but he wasn’t having any of it. All hell broke loose when they reached the room. Brian had the idea that he was going to get Anita to perform on these two birds. Anita naturally declined the offer and Brian smashed the room to bits. Anita grabbed her clothes and legged it to Keith’s room, leaving Brian with these women amongst the wreckage. It was very symbolic. Looking at Brian, I thought, ‘That’s yer lot, mate. You’ve really blown it this time.’ That moment was the beginning of the end for him and you know what? I think he knew it too.”
BRION GYSIN: “Around the swimming pool I saw something I can only call mythological. Mick is screaming about his hotel bill, getting ready for takeoff. The cynics among us are snickering because it looks like love at first sight. At the deep end, Anita is swinging in a canvas seat. Keith is in the pool, dunking up and down in the water, looming up at her. When I go to pass between them, I see that I can’t. I can’t make it. There’s something there, a barrier, I can see it. What I see looks like a glass rod, revolving rapidly. Between Keith’s eyes and Anita’s eyes it shoots back and forth, at the speed of light. Tristan and Isolde stuff, as red as a laser beam.”
ZACHARY LAZAR: “Anita was at the far corner of the pool, moving slowly through the water, her hands sweeping in front of her half-submerged chin. She was looking ahead at Keith, who was on the other side of the deck, his shirt off and his eyes closed. The water sparkled around her like a swirl of giant fish scales, pale green and white. A few palm fronds, yellowed and sere, floated on the surface behind her. The photographer took Brian’s picture, and he pretended to ignore him, or assumed the pose of ignoring him, going back to the newspaper that he had spread in front of him. She kept looking at Keith.”
CECIL BEATON: “They were a strange group, the three Stones: Brian Jones and his girlfriend Anita Pallenberg – dirty white face, dirty blackened eyes, dirty canary drops of yellow hair, barbaric jewelry. Keith in 18th century suit, long black velvet coat and tightest pants, and of course Mick Jagger… He asked, ‘Have you ever taken LSD? Oh, you should. It would mean so much to you – you’d never forget the colors. For a painter it’s a great experience…’ He is sexy but completely sexless. He could nearly be a eunuch. As a model, he is natural… Their wardrobe is extensive. Mick showed me rows of brocade coats. Everything is shoddy, poorly made, the seams bursting. Keith himself had sewn his own trousers, lavender and dull rose, with a band of badly stitched leather dividing the two colors… None of them is willing to talk, except in spasms.”
CECIL BEATON: “I didn’t want to give the impression that I was only interested in Mick, but it happened that we sat next to one another as he drank a vodka Collins and smoked with pointed finger held high. He has an inborn elegance. He talked of native music; he had heard a local tribe play pipes like those used in Hungary and Scotland. He liked Indian music, too. He said he would like to go to Kashmir and to Afghanistan, in fact, to get right away from England, which he considered had become a police state.”
MARIANNE FAITHFULL: “After a few minutes I left Mick and Cecil Beaton to their little dance and went off to flush out Anita. She had cornered William Burroughs in the depths of the hotel lounge. Anita was obsessed with Burroughs and that’s when I, too, caught the Burroughs bug.”
CECIL BEATON: “By degrees the shy aloofness of the group broke down. We got into two cars; the Bentley I was in had been driven from Brian Jones’ house in Swiss Cottage to here, and the driver was a bit tired. The car was filled with pop-art cushions, scarlet fur rugs, and sex magazines. Immediately the most tremendous volume of pop music boomed in the region of the back of my neck. Mick and Brian responded rhythmically and Anita leaned forward and screamed in whispers that she had just played a murderess in an film that was to be shown at the Cannes Festival.”
CECIL BEATON: “We went to a Moroccan restaurant – tiles, banquettes, women dancers. Mick considered the style of decoration gave little opportunity of expression to the artist. As the evening wore on I found him easier to talk with. He asked: ‘Have you ever taken LSD? Oh, you should. It would mean so much to you; you’d never forget the colors. For a painter it is a great experience. One’s brain works not on four cylinders but on four thousand. You see everything aglow. You see yourself beautiful and ugly, and other people as if for the first time. Oh yes, you should take it in the country, surrounded by all those flowers. You’d have no bad effects. It’s only people who hate themselves who suffer.’ He had great assurance. ‘If you enjoyed the bhang in India, this is a thousand times better: so much stronger – good stuff. Oh no, they can’t stamp it out. It’s like the atom bomb. Once it’s been discovered, it can never be forgotten, and it’s too easy to make.’”
CECIL BEATON: “No group makes more of a mess at the table. The aftermath of their breakfast with eggs, jam, honey everywhere, is quite exceptional. They give new meaning to the word untidiness… Brian appears in white pants with a huge black square applied at the back. It is very smart in spite of the fact that the seams are giving way.”
ANITA PALLENBERG: “Brian was suffering badly at this point – severe fits of paranoia. Started taking his clothes off on the street in Morocco – we’d have to hustle him into doorways, somehow get him back to the hotel. But he’d also become intrigued and very excited about the rhythm and music at Jajouka, the tribe he’d met through Brion Gysin, who was a very good influence on him. I’d already made my decision about him before this trip to Africa – I’d already been enchanted and swept up by Keith. Brian knew that and so all in all decided to stay on in Tangiers at Brion Gysin’s.”
LAURA JACKSON: “Sinister, corrupt and incurably exciting Morocco had a profound effect on Brian. He adored everything about it. The mayhem of the Grand Socco Bazaar, the rabbit warren of crowded covered streets where he could buy lavish caftans, djellabas, cushions, and luxurious tapestries to drape over the banister of his minstrel gallery. Not to mention the dope – hashish to inhale lovingly through a hookah, or unknown, unnamed concoctions mingled in mysterious pots. Even the lighting was gorgeous as the very strong sun reflected off the ultra-white sands. Natively attuned as Morocco was to physical beauty, its way of life, both spiritual and secular, most importantly was thoroughly indivisible from msic. None of the tempting attractions offered, even within the ancient red-mud city walls of Marrakesh, absorbed Brian more than the street musicians who would sit on the ground playing delicate 1000 year-old Berber melodies on pipes, or thrashing out African rhythms on drums providing a permanent backdrop to daily life.”
ELIZABETH WINDER: “They spent the next day winding through a
maze of hash-heavy streets, past spice stalls, woven baskets of dried leaves
and flowers, carts of figs and oranges, and women shelling peas. Marianne slinked around in a floaty paisley
frock, hiding from the sun in Anita’s straw hat. Everyone pilfered from Anita’s travel
wardrobe – Keith was festooned in her Victorian mourning pins, Brian wore her
scarves as cravats, Mick strolled around in her floppy fedora.”
TERRY RAWLINGS: “Brian would spend the entire day wandering around the markets, soaking up the rich atmosphere created in part by the heady aroma of hashish and incense burning in little battered metal bowls on every trader’s stall. Hypnotic and melodic music would filter through the crowds as Brian sipped mint tea and watched the local musicians, from tribes like the G’nou, converge on the market square.”
CHRISTOPHER GIBBS: “He had this brilliant gift. If he went into a marketplace where there were all these black villagers playing with various instruments, he would pick any one of them out and somehow communicate what he wanted. Then he would get hold of the instrument and somehow make it do what it was supposed to do, any type of weird instrument. Or he would go into a junk shop and do the same thing. He was very charming.”
MARIANNE FAITHFULL: “In Tangiers Mick and I would stay at Sidi Mamoun, Paul and Talitha Getty’s palace. We went there quite a lot, but this was the first time – I think straight after the bust. I always think that we went there because Mick would enjoy it much more going to stay in a beautiful palace with servants and food and everything laid on rather than paying out a fortune for some hotel somewhere.”
ZACHARY LAZAR: “Marianne had the kind of lips that made their own separate expression, reticent lips that curled mischievously upward at the corners. Mick looked over at her, but she was deliberately not looking back. On their way back from the medina that afternoon, he had noticed something that he’d seen happen several times now: for no reason at all, her eyes had started welling up with tears. She’d pretended it wasn’t happening, but the effort had made her so distant it was like self-hypnosis. When he asked her if she was all right, she looked at him as if he were being deliberately confusing.”
MARIANNE FAITHFULL: “In the souk we saw this wonderful man carrying a white Chinese pot on his shoulder. We thought he looked interesting so we followed him. He led us down some steps to his tiny shop, which was completely empty. It was a beautiful pale blue, as if you were under water. His name was Ahmed and all he had in his shop was a little wooden box with four bracelets and a ring and a lot of hashish.”
ZACHARY LAZAR: “The Stones were in the blue shop owned by the man named Hassan, filling in the last few hours before their flight home. Marianne was dancing to the Moroccan music on the radio now, her eyes closed, rolling her head, her long blond hair falling almost to her waist. Gold bangles slid down her forearms; the folds of her green sari loosened around her shoulders. She started spinning around faster and faster, unfolding her hands in the air. There was something defiant about how fast she was moving, a rebuke to the others for just sitting there, being calm. Hassan called out, clapping his hands. Robert Fraser started clapping too, raising himself erect. Mick brushed something off his sleeve, incredulous, then annoyed. He looked over at Anita and Keith in their corner, then back at Marianne, and something about her dancing reminded him of Brian: a helpless, unsuccessful gesture. She was the ‘Naked Girl Found Upstairs,’ and she seemed to feel obliged to play out the role now.”
DONALD CAMMELL: “We met Achmed on our first trip to Marrakesh. He used to export these very fancy Moroccan leather shoes, which had very thick leather soles and looked like clogs. It was just a cover for bringing in hashish. Brian showed me this one time – he peeled off this thin little piece of leather and it was just solid green. The whole sole of the shoe was made of hashish.”
CHRISTOPHER GIBBS: “Anita and I met this famous dope-dealer called Achmed, whose nickname was Hanifer, which meant ‘the farter.’ He dealt in everything, jewellery and dope… Brian, Anita and I hung around with Achmed from then on, smoking these great quantities of hash and Brian saying we must get some of this stuff back to England.”
TERRY RAWLINGS: “In fact, Achmed hid half a kilo of the finest Moroccan hash in the bases of two ornamental candlestick holders. Brian paid for both items and then told Christopher to send them back to England via his newly opened antiques shop in London.”
CHRISTOPHER GIBBS: “Brian reasoned that it was safe that way as no one would question the fact that they were not genuine antiques. I liked Brian very much but he was maddening, one of the most selfish people I have ever met in my life. He never gave a thought to anybody else. He was like a very selfish child.”
KEITH RICHARDS: “Achmed used to grade his has twelve-denier or eighteen-denier, according to which stocking he’d shaken it through. We lay back for a long time, and we decided what we wanted to do. Everybody was trying to work it out, what was going to go on. First off you go round and visit the fleshpots, and when you get slightly debauched and jaded, you remember, ‘Ah, yes, the music!’”
BRION GYSIN: “Under the winter sun at three in the afternoon, the Jma al-Fna was full of snake dancers, acrobats, medicine men, storytellers, and musicians. We stopped at a flying carpet Mejdoubi – holy fools banging away on drums and smoking kif from an outrageous pipe strung with evil amulets, rotten teeth, old trinkets, and carcasses of small animals.”
KEITH RICHARDS: “Achmed started off with one shop, then he had two above it. There were steps between them – internally, it was a bit of a labyrinth – and the higher ones just had a few brass beds with gaudy-colored velvet mattresses on them, on which one could, having smoked a lot of dope, pass out for a day or two. And then you’d come in and he’d give you some more dope to make your more passed out. It was almost like a basement and it was hung with all of the wonders of the East, caftans, rugs and beautiful lanterns… Aladdin’s cave. It was a shack, but he made it look like a palace.”
SPANISH TONY: “The old man was dying. Blood trickled from his mouth, from the gaping wound in his forehead, and he moaned softly, deliriously, as he lay in the dust of the desert road between Fez and Marrakesh. Anita Pallenberg slipped through the crowd to squat beside the old man. She wiped his bloody brow with a small perfumed handkerchief clutched tight in her hand. She plunged the scarlet handkerchief into her expensive leather handbag, climbed back into the limousine and signaled the chauffeur to drive on. That night, in her opulent room, Anita pulled the handkerchief from her bag and noticed that the scarlet had dried to a color that was almost brown. Later Anita was to attempt to use the same handkerchief to put a curse on a young man who had angered her. Subsequently, he died.”
R. GARY PATTERSON: “Of course, Kenneth Anger had taught Anita the power of a dying man’s blood. Throughout history onlookers at public executions would attempt to dip handkerchiefs in the blood of the condemned. It was believed that the shed blood of kings would contain even more magical properties. At the execution of Louis XVI onlookers dipped handkerchiefs in his blood and pulled hairs from his powdered wig as his decapitated body quivered upon the scaffold. The same held true at the execution of King Charles I of England and for other members of the unfortunate English nobility. One legend mentioned a Puritan doctor whose family obtained the very cervical vertebra split by the executioner’s ax in the execution of King Charles I. This talisman stayed in the family until Queen Victoria determined it should be reburied with her unfortunate ancestor.”
KEITH RICHARDS: “Brian needed to be in a fucking hospital. He needed help. Then he turned up with Anita. I still have to check myself as to whether I decided to become friends again with Brian because of her. Did I do that? I’m bein’ honest, I’m trying to figure it out – I think it’s fifty-fifty. Because as fascinating as Anita was, she scared the pants off me. She knew everything, and she could say it in five languages. We – Mick, Brian, Anita, me, some others – we’re all in Marrakesh. Just about everybody’s dropping acid. The air is getting thick. Brian tried to beat Anita up and broke his ribs in the process. That shows you how tough Anita is. It’s like the Sheik of Araby.”
MARIANNE FAITHFULL: “After the scenes in Morocco, Keith came along like the proverbial knight on the white charger and carried Anita off in his Bentley.”
ANITA PALLENBERG: “When Keith saw what Brian had done to me, he tried to console me. ‘I can’t watch Brian do this shit to you anymore. I’m going to take you back to London.’”
NICK KENT: “Brian fell in love with someone who was just too tough to be broken by him. That’s the secret of that relationship. It was his misfortune to fall in love with someone as free-spirited as her. That really was his karma in a sense. The way he treated women so badly. He found more than his match in Anita.”
KEITH RICHARDS: “And of course Brian starts his old shit again, trying to take Anita on for fifteen rounds. And once again he breaks two ribs and a finger or something. And I’m watching it, hearing it. Brian was about to sign his own exit card and help Anita and me on our way. There’s no point to this noninterference anymore. We’re stuck in Marrakech, this is the woman I’m in love with, and I’ve got to relinquish her out of some formality? I thought Anita wanted out of there, and if I could come up with a plan, she would take it. But I wanted her back; I wanted to get out. I said, ‘You didn’t come to Marrakech to worry that you’ve beaten up your old man so much he’s lying in the bath with broken ribs. I can’t take this shit anymore. I can’t listen to you getting beaten up and fighting and all this crap. This is pointless. Let’s get the hell out of here. Let’s just leave him. We’re having much more fun without him. It’s been a very, very hard week for me knowing that you’re with him.’ Anita was in tears. She didn’t want to leave but she realized that I was right when I said that Brian would probably try and kill her.”
RONNI MONEY: “Brian rang me up that night from Marrakesh all but incoherent. He was in an awful state. I said to him, ‘Calm down, Brian! You must calm down and tell me what’s wrong!’ He said, ‘They’ve left me, Ronni! They’ve taken everything – my cash, credit cards, even my cameras – and left me! I’m stranded!’ He was frantic. He was completely devastated. Christ, he could’ve done anything to himself that night.”
LEWIS JONES: “What I firmly believe to be the turning point
in Brian’s life was when he lost the only girl he ever really loved. I think this was a very severe blow to
him. He changed quite suddenly, and
alarmingly, from a bright, enthusiastic young man to a quiet, morose and
inward-looking young man, so much so that when his mother and I saw him for the
first time for some months after this happened, we were quite shocked by the
changes in his appearance, and in our opinion, he was never the same boy
again.”
BRION GYSIN: “…And now, looking back into that time period, I see how I got set up to help the Stones lose Brian. And I see another ghostly swimming pool somewhere in the future… Those whom the gods love, die young.”
SPANISH TONY: “I asked conversationally, ‘What’s all this I hear about Anita going off with Keith, man?’ Brian jerked back as if he’d been knifed. ‘Don’t ever mention that chick’s name to me again.’”
