How Donald Cammell Pulled Keith Richards Deeper Into the ’70s Underworld

Keith Richards’ friendship with artist-turned-filmmaker Donald Cammell wasn’t just a casual collaboration – it helped steer Richards into the most drugged-out, creatively chaotic period of his life. Cammell co-directed Performance (1970) with Nicolas Roeg, and he convinced Richards to not only write and perform the score (with his then-girlfriend Anita Pallenberg and the band) but also to essentially serve as an on-set consultant for the film’s seedy, glam-rock underworld. Richards ended up playing a minor role as a drug dealer, but the real story is what happened off-camera.

The set turned into a real-life version of the movie’s themes: decadence, violence, and nonstop drug use. Richards and Pallenberg were already heavy users, but hanging around Cammell – a genuine occult dabbler who had been around the Chelsea scene for years – seemed to normalize even more extreme behavior. Cammell introduced Richards to underground figures like David Litvinoff (the film’s “dialogue coach,” who was a notorious hustler and heroin addict), and the whole experience blurred the line between performance and reality. Richards later said the film “wasn’t acting – it was living it.”

The fallout affected Richards’ personal life deeply. He and Pallenberg became more entangled in hard drugs, and the film’s release was delayed by the studio because of its graphic content. Meanwhile, Richards’ growing isolation from the rest of the Rolling Stones widened. Cammell remained a lifelong friend – Richards even contributed to his later films – but the Performance period is often cited as the moment Keith Richards’ romanticized outlaw image became a self-destructive trap he wouldn’t fully escape until the late ’70s.