“What is this that stands before me?” Well, it might not be Louisa Livingstone, the witchy-looking woman on the cover of Black Sabbath’s 1970 self-titled debut album, but she is at least willing to give you her autograph — for charity. The former actress and model is raffling her autograph via Raffall with an eye toward raising funds for her cat-rescue efforts. Tickets are only £1 each.
Livingstone will write the raffle winner a letter and sign it. The raffle will end July 19, a few weeks after Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne make an appearance together for a final time in their hometown of Birmingham, England.
Five years ago, Rolling Stone discovered the identity of the gothic figure — who may or may not have been holding a cat — on Black Sabbath’s cover. Long a mystery to metalheads, and the band members themselves, Livingstone says she was amazed at the outpouring of interest in who she was.
“I had heard rumors [that the image had become iconic] through friends that I never really took very seriously before the ‘big reveal’ with your article,” she tells Rolling Stone via email. “Then it finally sank in 100 percent when I was being sent numerous photos of people’s tattoos of my image. Also, when I saw all the merchandise and even dolls being sold with the image of me. I was even more amazed then, and it struck me it really was quite a phenomenon. What kind of spell was at work there I wondered?”
Fans invited her to events in the United States, but Covid lockdowns prevented her from traveling. Moreover, she felt she couldn’t make good on autograph requests. “I have had a lot of online requests from avid collectors and fans to send autographs by post, receive items to autograph and return by post, etc.,” she says. “I’ve had to ignore them all because I don’t live anywhere near a post office … and didn’t have the time or funds to spare, to be repeatedly doing this kind of thing.” So she came up with the idea of raffling one autograph for a good cause.
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“I hadn’t planned to go down the cat rescue route but it all started after moving to a tiny rural village four years ago with an abandoned kitten that needed bottle-feeding screaming two meters from my doorstep,” she says. “I have now got an assortment of street cats depending on me, each with its own sad story. … The rescued ones definitely know they’ve been rescued and are full of love for it.”
Livingstone’s goal is to create a refuge with a safe space for outdoor cats. Since she’s half-French, she’d love for it to be in France but she’s still conceiving the endeavor. The funds she raises from the raffle will go to helping her cats.
“Who knows whether I can find a bit more funding for cat food and neutering or whether a selection of needy cats can be gifted a lovely life in a much better place along with me,” she says. “Some paid help at times would be an absolute godsend.” Livingstone also says she feels “miffed” that she didn’t remunerate on the success of her cover image, so she hopes to do some catching up with the raffle. “As they say, you can’t change the world, but you really can change someone’s entire world, whether it’s an animal or a person,” she says.
Meanwhile, Livingstone has relaunched her own musical career, recording electronic music under the name Indreba. A single, “Anthem to Truth, See More,” will be available to stream via Spotify on May 30.
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Livingstone’s next goal will be to write and publish an autobiography that will tell of her experiences in the music industry, both on album covers and with artists. Once, she says, she spent a whole day with the late Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones after the band released Between the Buttons. “I will never forget his friendly openness and being shown loads of photos of their recent USA tour and hearing the new album tracks,” she says. “That was a special time and what a lovely man. He never made any inappropriate moves either — an absolute gentleman.”
Until then, she’s excited to see how much money she can raise for her cats. “There are many millions of Black Sabbath fans, and quite a few might like the chance to get my rare autograph this way at very little cost without any inconvenience,” she says. “The last autographs I gave were at the National Theatre in London decades ago.”
