Bianca Jagger

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Bianca Jagger (born Bianca Pérez-Mora Macías on May 2, 1950 , in Managua, Nicaragua) is a social and human rights advocate. Jagger is a Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador, Chair of the World Future Council and Chair of the Bianca Jagger Human Rights Foundation, and a member of the Director's Leadership Council of Amnesty International US.

She was formerly married to Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones.

(Numerous other sources via a Google search state that she was born Blanca Moreno de Macias on May 2, 1945, in Managua, Nicaragua.)

Biography

Jagger's father was a businessman and her mother a housewife. They divorced when Bianca was ten and she stayed with her mother, who had to take care of four children on a small income. When Bianca was studying political science at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, she demonstrated against the Somoza regime after the massacre of students perpetrated by Somoza's National Guard. In Paris, she also became acquainted with French literature, among which especially Voltaire, Rousseau and Camus influenced her. She has also been fascinated by Gandhi's non-violent success and the eastern philosophy at large. She traveled extensively in India. She received a scholarship to study in France and became involved with actor Michael Caine. In addition to her extensive charitable works, in the 1970s and early 1980s, Bianca Jagger had a public reputation as a jet-setter and party-goer, being closely associated in the public mind with New York City's nightclub Studio 54. She has had relationships with two US Democratic politicians, Robert Torricelli and Christopher Dodd.

Marriage to Mick Jagger

She met Mick Jagger at a party after a Rolling Stones concert where he reportedly impressed her with his French. On May 12, 1971, while she was four months pregnant, the couple married in a Roman Catholic ceremony in Saint Tropez, France, and she became the first wife of Mick Jagger. At this time Jagger became concerned with women's rights. The couple has one daughter, Jade Jagger (born on October 21, 1971), but divorced in 1980.

Activism

In early 1979, Jagger visited Nicaragua with an International Red Cross delegation and was shocked by the brutality and oppression that the Somoza regime carried out there. This persuaded her to commit herself to the issues of justice and human rights.

In the 1980s, she worked to oppose US government intervention in Nicaragua after the Sandinista revolution. She has also opposed the death penalty and defended the rights of women and of indigenous peoples in Latin America, notably the Yanomami tribe in Brazil against the invasion of gold miners. She spoke up for victims of the conflicts in Bosnia and Serbia. Her writings were published in several newspapers (including the New York Times and the Sunday Express). From the late 1970s she collaborated with many humanitarian organizations including:

Amnesty International, she is a member of the Executive Director's Leadership Council
Human Rights Watch/America (member of the advisory committee)
Coalition For International Justice (member of the advisory committee)
Indigenous Development International (special adviser)
People for the American Way (board member)

She is also a member of the Twentieth Century Task Force to Apprehend War Criminals. She also gave a reading at the start of the memorial service in London's Westminster Cathedral, which was timed to coincide with the funeral in Brazil of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot eight times on a tube-train after being mistaken for a suicide bomber in London. In March 2007 she became involved with Sarah Teather and the campaign to close Guantanamo Bay.

On December 16, 2003 she was nominated Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador.

On July 7, 2007, Jagger presented at the German leg of Live Earth in Hamburg.

On May 12, 2007 she was elected Chair of the World Future Council.

Awards

For her work, Jagger has earned several awards, including:

Honorary Doctorate of Humanities degree from the Stone Hill College in Massachusetts in 1983
1994 United Nations Earth Day award
Hispanic Federation of New York City’s Humanitarian Award
1996 Woman of the Year Title from the Boys Town of Italy
1996 Abolitionist of the Year Award from the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
1997 Green Globe award from the Rain Forest Alliance
1997 Amnesty International USA Media Spotlight Award for Leadership
1998 American Civil Liberties Union Award
2000 Champion of Justice Award
2003 International Award from International Services
2004 World Achievement Award from Mikhail Gorbachev
2004 Right Livelihood Award
2006 World Citizenship Award from The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
2006 Office of the Americas Peace and Justice Award.

On November 1, 1997, she was inducted to the Hall of Fame in Miami Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Films

Bianca Jagger also appeared in several movies:

Cocksucker Blues (1972)
The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978, as Martini)
The American Success Company (1979; as Corrine)
The Cannonball Run (1981, as sheik's sister)
In Our Hands (1984)
C.H.U.D. 2 (1989)
The Party's Over (2003, a documentary movie on American politics)

References

External links

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Last updated on Thursday March 06, 2008 at 10:48:09 PST (GMT -0800)
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