Nico had roles in several films, including Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) and Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls (1966).

[3] Wilhelm was born into the wealthy Päffgen Kölsch master brewer family dynasty in Cologne and was Catholic, while Grete came from a lower-class background and was Protestant.

[5] When Nico was two years old, she moved with her mother and grandfather to the Spreewald forest outside Berlin to escape the World War II bombardments of Cologne.

According to biographer Richard Witts in his 1995 book Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon, Wilhelm Päffgen was gravely wounded in 1942 after having been shot in the head by a French sniper.

[5] Another story is that he sustained head injuries that caused severe brain damage, and spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric institution.

Nico attended school until the age of 13, and began selling lingerie in the exclusive department store KaDeWe, eventually getting modelling jobs in Berlin.

[12] She moved to Paris and began working for Vogue, Tempo, Vie Nuove, Mascotte Spettacolo, Camera, Elle, and other fashion magazines.

[14][15] In the same year she was invited to the set of Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita, where she attracted the attention of the acclaimed director, who gave her a minor role in the film as herself.

[9] After a role in the 1961 Jean Paul Belmondo film A Man Named Rocca, she appeared as the cover model on jazz pianist Bill Evans' 1962 album, Moon Beams.

[18] In 1965, Nico met the Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones and recorded her first single, "I'm Not Sayin'", with the B-side "The Last Mile", produced by Jimmy Page for Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate label.

[1] After being introduced by Brian Jones, she began working in New York with Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey on their experimental films, including Chelsea Girls, The Closet, Sunset and Imitation of Christ.

Warhol began managing the Velvet Underground, a New York City rock band and he proposed that the group take on Nico as a "chanteuse", an idea to which they consented, reluctantly for both personal and musical reasons.

[19][20] The group became the centerpiece of Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable, a multimedia performance featuring music, lighting, film and dance.

Multi-instrumentalist John Cale wrote that Nico's long dressing room preparations, and pre-performance ritual of burning a candle, often held up performances, which especially irritated songwriter Lou Reed.

Nico's harmonium anchored the accompaniment, while John Cale added an array of folk and classical instruments, and arranged the album.

She once again dyed her hair, this time from blonde to red, and began dressing mostly in black, a look that would be considered a visual prototype for the gothic rock scene that would emerge in subsequent years.

Returning to live performance in the early 1970s, Nico (accompanying herself on harmonium) gave concerts in Amsterdam as well as London, where she and John Cale opened for Pink Floyd.

She also appeared in the Garrel films Athanor (1972); the silent Jean Seberg feature Les Hautes Solitudes, released in 1974; Un ange passe (1975); Le Berceau de cristal (1976), starring Pierre Clémenti, Nico and Anita Pallenberg; and Voyage au jardin des morts (1978).

She made a vocal contribution to Neuronium's second album, Vuelo Químico, as she was at the studio, by chance, while it was being recorded in Barcelona in 1978 by Michel Huygen, Carlos Guirao and Albert Gimenez.

For this album, in addition to originals like "Genghis Khan" and "Sixty Forty", Nico recorded covers of the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man" and David Bowie's "'Heroes'".

[30] After relocating to Manchester, England, in the early 1980s, Nico acquired a manager, Factory Records executive and promoter Alan Wise,[35][36] and began working with a variety of backing bands for her many live performances.

In March 1988, she and Young hired new guitarist Henry Olsen: together, they composed new songs to be premiered at a festival organized by Lutz Ulbrich at the Berlin Planetarium in June.

In the book Songs They Never Play on the Radio, James Young, a member of her band in the 1980s, recalls many examples of her troubling behaviour due to her "overwhelming" addiction – and that Nico claimed never to have taken the drug while in the Velvets/Factory scene but only began using during her relationship with French film director Philippe Garrel in the 1970s.

[45] Shortly before her death, Nico stopped using heroin and began methadone replacement therapy as well as a regimen of bicycle exercise and healthy eating.

'"[46] According to Fields, in the early 1970s, Nico attacked a mixed-race woman at the Chelsea Hotel with a smashed wine glass, sticking it in her eye while saying, "I hate black people.

"[58] Elliott Smith covered "Chelsea Girls" and "These Days" in Portland, Oregon in October 1999; he also cited The Marble Index as one of his perfect 2.45am albums.

[59] Marc Almond recorded a cover version of "The Falconer": she was one of the "things I was obsessed about at school" due to her "wonderful intriguing voice, icy and remote yet warm at the same time.

[63] Two of Nico's songs from Chelsea Girl, "The Fairest of the Seasons" and "These Days", both written by Jackson Browne, were featured in Wes Anderson's film The Royal Tenenbaums.

Performers included Cale, Kim Gordon with Bill Nace, Sharon Van Etten, Meshell Ndegeocello, Stephin Merritt, Peaches, Alison Mosshart, Joan As Police Woman, Greg Dulli, Yeasayer, and Mercury Rev.

[72] According to The Great Rock Discography:[1] In 2002, Faust Records released two collections of obscure Nico tracks, Reich der Träume (Realm of Dreams) and Walpurgis-Nacht (Walpurgis Night).