Forty years ago, on September 2, 1982, the country home of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, known as the Redlands in West Wittering, Sussex, was severely damaged in a fire. A newspaper of the time reported: "Sixty-five firefighters spent six hours keeping the fire under control. Three-quarters of the thatched roof was destroyed, along with half of the building's contents."
(pitcure below and main picture from Miss-Anita Pallemberg blog)
It was actually Marlon (who was barely 4 at the time) who first noticed the fire and raised the alarm to his parents and younger sister by shouting “FIRE! FIRE!”
That was not the first or even the last time that Keef's name was associated with that of the flames.
As reported by Ultimate Classic Rock, by 1973 the same house had already burned down and its time partner, Anita Pallenberg, and their children survived by a miracle. What really happened is all to be verified: Keith Richards said that the fire was caused by a mouse that had chewed on electrical cables, other people said that the musician had fallen asleep while smoking and triggered the incident.
In 1971, when the Rolling Stones were working on the album "Exile on Main St." (read the review here) in a villa for rent in the south of France. Richards fell asleep with a lit cigarette, not very lucid due to his addiction to heroin, fortunately waking up in time while the sheets of his bed were engulfed in flames.
Another chapter of Richards' relationship with the flames dates back to 1978. At the time, the British musician was paired with the Swedish model Lil Wergilis, who warned him that a fire had broken out in the house they had rented in the Laurel Canyon area in Los Angeles, the two managed to escape before part of the roof collapsed. The episode was recalled by Richards himself in his autobiography "Life": "We had a few seconds to jump out the window. I was dressed only in a shirt, Lil was naked." When the two returned the following day they found a "large sign stuck in the blackened grass that said: 'Thank you very much, Keith'".
The fire chased him even when the houses weren't his. In 1972 in Chicago the Rolling Stones were guests of the Playboy Mansion, with them also the saxophonist Bobby Keys. Richards recalls: "Bobby and I were just sitting in the loo, really comfortable, sitting on the floor. We had the doctor's bag (of drugs) with us. And at one point Bobby says, 'There's smoke here. inside.' I look at Bobby and I don't see him. The curtains were smoking. There was a knock on the door, waiters and some boys in black suits were carrying buckets of water. They opened the door and we are sitting on the floor, the boys froze. I told them, ' We could have done it ourselves. How dare you break into our private party? '".
A year later, the Stones guitarist's home in Chelsea, London, was ransacked by police who found a wide range of drugs and other drug-related accessories, along with an unlicensed firearm. Richards got away with a not-too-large fine. He then thought of celebrating the event in a room of the elegant Londonderry House hotel where, somehow, he managed to set the room on fire. (Excerpt from Rockol)
