Uschi Obermaier is one of the lesser-known ‘babes of our lives’ from the sixties and seventies. When I first came across this photograph above of the stylish Bavarian beauty, I immediately began scouring Pinterest and Tumblr to find more. Setting the benchmark for sexy hippie style, let’s just have an ogle at Uschi…
A still from “Rote Sonne” (Rudolf Thome, 1970)
“Uschi Obermaier was the erotic symbol of the counterculture, the pop icon of the sixties and seventies, a model, film star, groupie, and lover– yet never let herself be pigeonholed or stereotyped. Her life of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll was like a road movie– dynamic, wild, at dizzying velocity, and completely freed from all bourgeois values. ‘I would betray any revolution for this woman,’ said Rainer Langhans, at whose side she posed unclad for Kommune 1. Turning her back on the politically ineffectual revolutionaries, she set off to do her own thing, to search for fun times and the ultimate kick. Jimi Hendrix, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards– Uschi was craved by many. When something was going on she was always there, right in the middle. Finally she fell into undying love with Dieter Bockhorn, the Prince of Kiez, and travelled with him in his RV around the world.”
–The biography on Uschi Obermaier, High Times
Images by Life
In 1975, Uschi accompanied the Rolling Stones on their 1975 tour and became a lover to both Mick Jagger & Keith Richards.
According to Uschi: “Mick is the most charming man in the world, but Keith is the better lover. He just knows the anatomy of women…”
Okay, so she went through a groupie phase.
During the late 1960s, Uschi became associated with the left-wing movement in Germany. The model and actress met Rainer Langhans, a member of Kommune 1 and talked openly about their relationship in the media, putting them at the forefront of the sexual revolution. They pretty much became the German version of John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
Today, Uschi mostly keeps to herself and lives in Topanga Canyon near Los Angeles, and designs jewellery.
A film, Eight Miles High was made about her life in 2008:
Images via LIFE and Philistine Toronto
