Inside Marianne Faithfull's transformation from 'virginal schoolgirl' to reluctant pin-up - and the truth about those Mars Bar rumours: How singer 'hated' her appearance despite becoming a boho chic icon

How Marianne Faithfull looked in her late teens - a bold, blunt fringe, pout and a carousel of mini-dresses and knee high boots - made her the face of 1960s fashion, and inspired copycat trends in the decades since. The singer, who died this week at the age of 78, became known for much more than her style though - thanks to relationships and dalliances with a string of rock idols, and a drug habit that would almost cost her her life.

Tributes have poured in since the star's manager announced her death on Thursday, with fans paying tribute to the singer, whose biggest hit, As Tears Go By, was written by Sir Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Alongside her music career, Faithfull also acted in films including The Girl on a Motorcycle, as well as various theatre productions. Her cult album Broken English saw her re-establish herself as a vital UK artist - part of the 'British invasion' - after a tumultuous period that saw her branded promiscuous and a bad mother.

The star was just 20 when she was part of that famous drugs bust at Keith Richards' luxury Sussex pile, Redlands, in 1967. The ensuing raid by West Wittering police officers saw Jagger and Richards arrested - but the sight of Faithfull wearing nothing but a fur rug when officers attended quickly went down in rock folklore. The singer, already married and a mother at 19, had escaped her childhood of privilege - and said she fell in with London's coolest musicians simply because she was 'incredibly beautiful'.

Marianne Faithfull, who died this week, pictured in 1967; the singer would become the face of the Sixties with her trademark blunt fringe, pout and mini-skirts. On the set of The Girl on a Motorcycle; Faithfull had enjoyed a privileged, if not avant garde, upbringing but fell into drug abuse as part of the London scene. The star died in London surrounded by her close family, her publicist revealed on Thursday.

Marianne, pictured here in 1965, said she was only able to see her beauty long afterwards, saying her looks 'got me into trouble'. Marianne pictured with Mick Jagger at Euston station in 1967. The pair dated for four years and split in 1970, with the singer caught in a downward spiral of drugs after their split. In BBC's Desert Island Discs in 1995, she told host Sue Lawley that she'd been desperate to escape her childhood but hadn't realised at the time how attractive she was - to both genders.

'It's only with long distance and perspective. Now when I look at pictures, now I can understand it. It got me into a lot of trouble but I wouldn't change a lot of it. The only bit I would leave out if I could was the drugs.'. Born in Hampstead in London in 1946, her father, Major Robert Glynn Faithfull, had been a MI6 agent and British Army Officer. Her mother was an Austro-Hungarian dancer named Baroness Eva Von Sacher-Masoch.

Perhaps the biggest signifier of her avant garde foundations though was her great-great-uncle - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, an Austrian nobleman who invented the term masochism and wrote the sex slave novella Venus in Furs. The star blamed no-one else but herself for her drug addiction. When asked if she was a victim by Lawley in that same episode, she said: 'Oh no. People are often trying to get me off my own hook but if I have to be on the hook, I'll be on it.'.

She also spoke frankly about the notorious Mars Bar rumours that haunted her. Faithfull was honest about her promiscuity, she was married young to artist John Dunbar, with whom she shares a son Nicholas, but bedded three Rolling Stones and David Bowie and resisted the advances of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan. The Redlands raid - and Faithfull's nakedness bar the fur rug - sparked rumours that an orgy had taken place, with the singer long associated with a less than salubrious rumour that Jagger had inserted a Mars Bar into Faithfull's vagina and then eaten it.

Her other hits in the 1960s included As Tears Go By - co-written by her then-boyfriend Mick Jagger (the couple are pictured together in Sydney in July 1969). She said her album Broken English helped to restore her reputation after the Mars Bar rumours. Throughout the sixties and seventies, she battled heroin addiction, had a miscarriage in 1968 with Mick and lost custody of her son Nicholas - she once said she received hate mail calling her a bad parent.

She told the BBC that in fact the group had enjoyed a wholesome day at the beach, and she was only wearing the rug because she had 'forgotten to bring a costume'. Asked directly about the Mars Bar incident, the star said: 'It's not true. It's always upset and angered me. I've gotten over it a bit. That story really took away my good name as a woman.'. She added: 'It was my feminine self that was hurt by that, and that's what angered me about it, that Mick and Keith came out of it more glamorous and wonderful and sort of outlawed. I was destroyed by it, I had not understood the power of the authorities at all.'.