She Scared the “Pants Off” Keith Richards
Pallenberg had a way of making things burst into flames (Faithfull would call her “Glenda Hindenburg”). “Loads of people were scared of me,” Pallenberg said. Richards recalled: “She knew everything, and she could say it in five languages. She scared the pants off me!”
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Pallenberg was born in 1942 in Rome, to German-Italian parents. WWII separated the family, and she didn’t get to see her father until she was three years old. She went to a boarding school in Germany, and at an early age, she was already fluent in four languages. The girl was clearly bright, but her intelligence happened to get her into trouble. At 16, she was expelled from school.