Marianne Christine Stang Ihlen (; 18 May 1935 – 28 July 2016) was a Norwegian woman who was the first wife of author Axel Jensen and later the muse and girlfriend of Leonard Cohen for several years in the 1960s. She was the subject of Cohen's 1967 song "So Long, Marianne".
Early life Ihlen was born on 18 May 1935 in Larkollen, Norway. During the Second World War Ihlen's father contracted tuberculosis which required a long period of treatment at the Mesnali sanatorium near Lillehammer. Her younger brother, Nils, when he was two suffered from tuberculosis for more than a year during which, while her mother nursed her son and husband, Ihlen spent time with her maternal grandmother in Larkollen.
As the 1950s progressed the family's financial situation became strained as Ihlen's father lacked the lung capacity to work for an entire day in court, as a result of his tuberculosis treatment. This put pressure on the couple's relationship and forced her mother to take a job in the licence office of the national broadcasting company. Ihlen attended Berle Girls' School.
Meets Axel Jensen While her father had hoped that she would become a doctor or lawyer, Ihlen did not know what she wanted to do, so opted to take business studies at the Oslo Municipal Trade School. Graduating at the age of 19 Ihlen took a number of jobs, including as secretary at an attorney's office in Oslo, Kristiania Shoe Store, the Norsk Bygdekino cinema, and in 1956 at the Save the Children charitable organization. She also briefly worked as an au pair in Newcastle, in England.
In 1954, while travelling in a car with one of her girlfriends along Majorstua Street, they were approached by budding 22-year-old Norwegian avant-garde writer Axel Jensen, who invited her to a party. Once at the party Ihlen thought he was fascinating and was spellbound by everything he said. Jensen subsequently telephoned her and they met up in Dovrehallen, a student pub at which they committed to a relationship. Jensen took whatever work he could find to support himself as he wrote short stories for newspapers and magazines. He introduced Ihlen to works by Nietzsche, Carl Jung and Ouspensky in an effort to expand her horizons.
In 1955, Jensen self-published his first book Dyretemmerens kors. Ihlen clashed with her father over Jensen, curfews, and housework, and when she was twenty he refused her permission to spend Easter with Jensen and their friends in a mountain cabin. Her father thought that Jensen, who came from a broken home, lacked a good education, a job and a place of his own to live, unlike the children of his middle class friends and acquaintances.
When she was 22, Ihlen was inspired while reading Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck with her mother's cousin who was an actress, to also become an actress. She then studied to take the entrance examination to the National Academy of Theatre in Oslo, but lost her nerve partly due to her parents' objections and did not take the examination.
In 1957, Jensen's novel Ikaros – ung mann i Sahara (Icarus – A Young Man in Sahara) was published by Henrik Groth of Cappelen, and was highly praised. Ihlen thought they had a committed relationship with long held plans to travel to Greece, but later that same year, one evening, Jensen out of the blue introduced her to another young woman at the Theatre Café, and informed Ihlen that there would be no trip to Greece as he was leaving tomorrow with the other woman for Egypt. Ihlen stormed out and made her way in a state of shock back to where she was staying, only to be awakened at 4 o'clock by Jensen at the doorstep saying, "We're going to Greece! It's you I want to travel with!"
Hydra In mid-November, over her parents' objections, the reunited couple departed by train for Greece, with plans to be away for a year, with Jensen intending to spend the time writing. Disembarking from the train in Hamburg, they purchased a second-hand Volkswagen Beetle. Driving south they visited Venice and Rome before passing through Yugoslavia into Greece. On the way south from Thessaloniki, Ihlen was forced to have an emergency operation for appendicitis in the village of Lamia. Ihlen remained in hospital for a week recovering, and it was not until December that they reached Athens, where they stayed with their friends Per and Else Berit who had moved there the year before. Jensen had originally intended that they rent an apartment in Athens, but their friends suggested they could live more cheaply on the island of Hydra, which was three hours away by ferry. After visiting Delphi the couple drove down to Ermioni in the Peloponnese, where their landlady at the place they stayed allowed them to park their car in her garden. It was from there that they took a ferry to Hydra.
After initially renting, Jensen used part of an advance of 40,000 kroner that he had received from Groth for his next book to purchase a house on Kala Pigadia Street on Hydra for approximately US$2,500. After making repairs to the house, the couple were left with just over US$2,000 on which to live until Jensen's next book was published, with the house offered as security for one year's line of credit at a local grocery store.
The house was simple with an outside toilet and electricity for only one hour in the evening and one hour in the morning. Otherwise, they used paraffin lamps. The couple soon became a component part of the foreign community on the island, and friends with Charmian Clift and her husband, novelist George Johnston. Some months later the Swedish writer Göran Tunström arrived on the island and rented a house close by, becoming a friend. Ihlen remained on Hydra when it was necessary for Jensen to travel back several times to Norway to capitalise on the success of his novel, Ikaros – ung mann i Sahara.
On one of these trips Jensen met a woman called Sonja, who he became besotted with after five days of acquaintance. Upon his return to Hydra in late 1958, he informed Ihlen that the woman was coming to the island and that his relationship with her was over. In response Ihlen packed a bag and left to stay in Athens for a few days, with the idea of getting a job there.
She was approached by Eileen Barclay who was married to Sam Barclay, an heir to Barclays Bank. They had a schooner, the Stromie Seas, which they chartered out to wealthy individuals over the summer. Eileen was eager to have a break from her position as cook and hostess on the yacht and spend time with her new lover. She suggested that Ihlen replace her on the schooner where she could also be a nanny for the couple's seven-year-old son. The next day she reported to Barclay at Piraeus, and spent the next six weeks working on the schooner as it sailed among various Greek islands, including Santorini. Thrown together, Barclay and Ihlen had a romantic relationship during this period.
At the end of the charter Ihlen returned to stay with Per and Else Berit in Athens, who observed that the experience had transformed her into a serene and more confident person, who, while she still loved Jensen, was prepared to live without him.
Meanwhile Jensen had been on a six week long drinking binge as he had purchased a ticket for Sonja to travel to join him in Greece, only to find that she had sold the ticket and had kept the money.
Marriage By chance, while Jensen was in Athens he met the "new" Marianne, falling in love with her again. He immediately asked her to marry him and she accepted. They married on 22 October 1958 in the Anglican Church in Athens, against her parents' wishes. They then returned to their house on Hydra. While Jensen had by now delivered the first draft of his novel to Cappelen, to bring in extra money both Ihlen and Jensen worked over the spring of 1959 on Sam Barclay's schooner as it carried a group of English students around the Greek islands.
With his new novel Line, printed and approaching its publishing date, both Ihlen (who was by now pregnant) and Jensen travelled to Oslo, where both were able to catch up with family and friends. Once the novel was published to great acclaim, Jensen used the incoming money to travel in October with Ihlen, Per and Else Brent to Stockholm, where via friends they purchased a Karmann Ghia. Due to Jensen being unable to drive due to a drunk driving conviction, Ihlen drove the car back to Oslo. It was while they were back in Oslo that Ihlen's father died in November 1959. Ihlen's son Axel Joachim was born on 21 January 1960 in Oslo. Ihlen temporarily moved in with her mother, as a week after his son's birth Jensen travelled back to Hydra in order to avoid paying Norwegian taxes. Four months later Ihlen and Axel Joachim followed.
Leonard Cohen While Ihlen had been in Norway, Leonard Cohen had moved to Hydra, renting a house for US$14 a month. While he had noticed her following her return, they had never been introduced. Ihlen described their meeting in Katsikas' store in early 1960:
After finishing her shopping Ihlen joined Cohen and three or four other foreigners at a table outside for a period before returning home. By now Ihlen was aware that her husband had a new lover, the American painter Patricia Amlin, who he was openly carrying on with.
With their relationship deteriorating, Jensen decided to leave on his sailboat, a Norwegian BB11 that he had had transported by ship to Piraeus. A friend, while visiting Athens, reported back to Ihlen that he had seen Jensen and Amlin together, which finally convinced her that her marriage was finished. Jensen later confirmed in a May 1960 letter to her that he had left Hydra by himself rather than openly with Amlin, in order to spare Ihlen the public humiliation. Rather than return to Norway, Ihlen decided to stay on Hydra with her baby son, partly due to her deepening friendship with Cohen.
Soon after Ihlen's and Jensen's separation, Amlin was badly injured when she crashed Jensen's Karmann Ghia near Athens and was flung out of the car, breaking many bones and developing gangrene, which required amputation of a thumb. Jensen struggled with the situation and three days later telegrammed Ihlen asking for her help. At Cohen's urging, Ihlen left her son with him and travelled to Athens, where she maintained a vigil by Amlin's bed allowing Jensen to rest. After three days she returned to Hydra. After Jensen left her, Ihlen received small financial payments from Jensen's publisher, Cappelen. Jensen allowed her to live in the house and following their formal divorce a year later transferred ownership to her and their son. After taking Amlin back to America and travelling around Mexico with John Starr Cooke, Jensen returned to Hydra in the summer of 1960 and rented a house in which to write. Jensen remained friendly with both Ihlen and Cohen. Eventually Jensen was expelled from Hydra in 1962 following a drunken altercation with a policeman, after which Ihlen never saw him again, though they continued to correspond.
The Karmann Ghia had survived Amlin's crash practically undamaged. It had been registered in Ihlen's name, but there was a need for it to be returned to Norway in order to avoid having to pay import duties, which Ihlen would struggle to pay. She was reluctant to make the long journey with her son. As Cohen's money was running out and he needed to return to Canada to make some more, he offered to accompany her, before continuing across the Atlantic. Plans changed when by chance Ihlen came across some SAS Norwegian aircrew while they were relaxing in Hydra. Believing them to be trustworthy, she impulsively asked if they would take her six-month son back to his grandmother in Oslo, rather than him having to endure a long drive across Europe. They agreed and a few days later in August Ihlen and Cohen delivered the baby to the aircrew at Athens airport.