Jim Morrison's
Quiet Days In Paris http://tribalsoulkitchen.com/rants/messages/406.html © by Rainer Moddemann For writing this
article. which is based on the chapter "Stille Tage in Paris" from my
book (Doors, Heel Verlag, Königswinter, Germany) I went back to the
following sources: The books "No One Here Gets Out Alive " by Jerry Hopkins
and Danny Sugerman, Jerry Hopkins' manuscript of "No One Here Gets Out
Alive", "The End" by Bob Seymore, "Jim Morrison au del des Doors"
by Hervé Muller; the unpublished biography of Max Fink, Judson Klinger's
unpublished report "As the Doors turn"; my interviews with Ray Manzarek,
John Densmore and Robby Krieger; also my interviews with Frank Lisciandro,
Kathy Lisciandro, Gilles Yepremian, Philippe, Patricia Kennealy-Morrison
and Hervé Muller; countless radio shows, TV shows and printed interviews,
especially King Magazine and Rolling Stone, other interviews with Madame
Colinette and Agnes Varda. The translation was done by Barbarella Buchner,
stylistic revision by Paul Carter. Special thanks also to Patricia Devaux,
Rosella Madonna, Jeannie Cromie, Andreas Kanonenberg, Dan Salomon and
Michelle Campbell for documents and information. The 'official'
biography portrays Jim Morrison's time in Paris as being very romantic,
if not a little disconnected from the world. Small wonder, as very little
of his stay in the 'City of Poets and Thinkers' is as yet known to the
public. This chapter, based on thorough research, will deal with Jim Morrison's
"Quiet Days in Paris", as well as his death and Pamela Courson's death,
all in detail. Ray Manzarek was
disgruntled, but he didn't show it "Go on, Jim. Stay in Paris as long
as you want. We'll go on working on the mixing of L.A. Woman", he had
said to Morrison, when the latter had broken the news about his plans
to leave Los Angeles, right in the middle of the final mixing of the new
Doors album. This was at the beginning of February 1971. The Doors were
in the studio, together with Bruce Botnick, sound technician from Elektra
Records, mixing the individual tracks on the 8-track machine for the next
album. Jim, who since the Soft Parade album had not much cared for mixing
anyway, would rather hang out in his favorite bar, or go fishing with
his drinking buddy Babe Hill. He was bored with
life in Los Angeles though, and the memory of his first visit to Paris
in 1970 had possibly given rise to his emphasizing, weeks before leaving,
that he needed a few months rest in order to write new poems and he thought
Paris might well be the perfect place. He mentioned that he wanted to
buy an old church in the south of France, do it up and live in it, his
own permanent island of peace. Pamela was enthusiastic
about the idea. Jim had told her much about Paris, and she was aching
to live in this enchanted, far-away, romantic city, and this was a good
chance of course to get Jim away from The Doors and have him all to herself.
"The man is a poet", she insisted, "he shouldn't be wasting his time with
a rock band!" The Doors knew Pamela's views of course, and were naturally
not of the same opinion. They didn't appreciate Pamela's presence at the
Doors office very much, either. Jim's friends
confirmed to him that Paris was the right place to go to get away from
Los Angeles, and by extension to get away from The Doors. Alain Ronay
had gone into raptures about the city time and again, and his relationship
with the film-maker Agnes Varda, who also lived in Paris, reminded Jim
of the long conversations they had had on the film medium, one of his
favorite topics. Back in 1970, together with Agnes, Jim took the train
to Chateau Chambord, to watch the shooting of Jacques Demy's film Peau
D'Ane. None of the film crew there recognized him. Agnes still has a 3-minute
film clip showing Jim sitting on the lawn at the shooting of the movie,
having a chat with actress Catherine Deneuve and director Francois Truffaud. With The Doors'
knowledge, Jim Morrison prepared his departure.
At Jim's suggestion
Pamela had flown to Paris on 14th February 1971, St Valentine's Day, to
find an apartment for them and to prepare everything for his arrival.
While looking, Pamela stayed at the Hôtel Georges V, which Jim had
recommended to her, and there she met a French nobleman, a certain count
by the name of Jean DeBreteuil, with whom she promptly started an affair.
She also made friends with the French model Elisabeth Lariviere and her
American boyfriend, whom she had met in the Café de Flore, a restaurant
which had fast become one of her favorites. The couple offered to let
her stay at their apartment in Rue Beautreillis. ZoZo, (the model's pseudonym),
was not going to be in Paris for the next few months anyway, and the luxuriously
furnished apartment at No. 17 on the third floor was quiet and would be
perfect for Jim to work on his various projects. Jim stayed in
Los Angeles until 10th March 1971. He enjoyed being a bachelor again.
On clearing out his desk in the Doors office, he found a vast amount of
telephone numbers that had been given to him by female fans. He invited
two of them on a boat trip together with Babe Hill, then spent a few intense
days with Patricia Kennealy at Pamela's apartment in Norton Avenue, packed
his scrap books, the spools of film of "Feast of Friends", "HWY" and "The
Doors Are Open", a few remaining copies of his private prints, some items
of clothing and several of his favorite books and made his way to L.A.
International Airport. Frank and Kathy Lisciandro, Babe Hill and Alain
Ronay accompanied him there to say their good-byes. Frank Lisciandro
told The Doors Quarterly in an interview "I remember Babe brought him
to the airport but Kathy and I met him there. They went in their car and
we went in another car, and we met at L.A. International Airport the night
that Jim was supposed to be leaving for Paris. We sat in a bar, at a table,
talking about a lot of different things - what he planned to do there,
that we all planned to visit him there, how long he planned to be there,
like that. But what strikes me about that evening - it was a typical evening
with Jim. We had become so animated with conversation, and so involved
in our conversation that we missed the three announcements for the airplane,
and in fact Jim missed his plane, he never got on the plane that night
and he had to go back to the airport the following morning and get on
the plane, so that's when he left for Paris." Robby Krieger
remembers: "He has talked about Paris for quite a while now. After we
had recorded L.A. Woman and thereby fulfilled the terms in our contract
nothing could hold him anymore. He took off, without having said any proper
good-byes. He just said that he would fly to Paris tomorrow and that he
would stay there for some time." John Densmore:
"Jim said his bye bye, and that was it. I am sure that he wanted to come
back." Bill Siddons remembers
Jim's remarks before his departure "He said, I don't know who I am, and
I don't know what I'm doing at the moment. I even don't know what I really
want, I just wanna go away. Pamela was behind it all. It was her who pushed
him to leave, and who told him to take his scrap books and write a theatre
play." The future of
The Doors was in no doubt, though. In a Rolling Stone interview with Ben
Fong-Torres a few days before his departure, Jim Morrison was still making
plans: "I think we'll do a couple of albums and then everyone will probably
get into their own thing: each guy in the band has certain projects that
they want to do more independently." Ray Manzarek confirmed
in an interview: "That Jim went to Paris didn't mean the split of the
band. To the contrary - as soon as he had left we started practicing new
songs in our rehearsal room, songs that Robby had written for the next
Doors album with Jim."
This means that
Jim had never split up with The Doors. On 27th April 1971, Danny Sugerman
who at that time answered all the letters that were delivered to the Doors
office wrote to a worried fan: "The album is out, as you probably know.
Sorry this letter is late, but things have been really hectic these last
few weeks, Jim is, in fact, in Europe writing a book on the trail. No
tour, or concert is/are planned for quite some time yet, seeing how Jim
probably won't be back for quite some time. The Doors are NOT breaking,
just taking a vacation. Rest and recuperation. Sincerely yours, Frank Lisciandro
says: "Jim's feeling at the time - and I remember this distinctly because
we had more than one conversation about it - was that his days in Los
Angeles were over for this particular part of his life. He had finished
the commitment to Elektra Records and had finished the last album they
owed them on the contract. And he had somewhat put behind him the Miami
trial although there might be an appeal or whatever that was behind him.
Pamela was waiting for him in Paris and had established a home there.
My feeling and the feeling of the people who knew him closely was that
he was leaving. As a matter of fact we had closed the HWY Production office,
and with this it was over for Jim in Los Angeles. He was leaving for good.
For as long as he could get away from L.A. He was through with this particular
part of his career and his life." Jim Morrison arrived
in Paris on 11th March 1971, a month after Pamela. To begin with they
lived at the Hotel Georges V in Avenue Georges V. The Bar Alexandre, situated
in the same street became one of his regular watering holes. Because of
the generous tips that he was wont to leave his drinking escapades down
the Alexandre were eventually tolerated. Pamela who was already well 'au
fait' with Parisian nightlife thanks to her count, showed him to other
bars where the insiders and 'Le Jet Set' hung out: the Café de Flore,
the Les Deux Magots and the infamous Rock'n'Roll Circus.
Only a week later
Jim and Pamela moved in at No. 17 Rue Beautreillis. ZoZo gave them one
of the three bedrooms of the spacious apartment, and Jim moved a desk
for himself near to the window. He shaved off the long dark beard he had
worn for almost six months, and with which he had also wanted to appear
on the forthcoming album cover. He hoped that people would not recognize
him in Paris without his beard. In the sunny,
quiet apartment in the Marais quarter he was very happy. He loved to walk
down the Rue St. Antoine, an ordinary tourist, or take expeditions across
the Ile St. Louis. He found total peace and quiet in the close-by Place
des Vosges, an elegant and inspiring square slightly reminiscent of Venice,
Italy, and incidentally the square where Victor Hugo had once lived. Not
a few of his later poems and essays were written here. Jim carried a scrap
book with him at all times, in which he wrote or made sketches. Pamela
began to resent Jim walking around the streets of Paris on his own; she
would have liked him a lot better by her side. Frustrated and angry, she
continued her affair with the count. Jim telephoned
Agnes Varda. She invited him to her daughter Rosalie's birthday party.
Jim who only spoke a few words of French, came and drank vast amounts
of Grand Marnier in the midst of the other small party guests. Agnes Varda remembers:
"He fell on one of the girls' little tables. However, they were still
happy, because they liked him very much. He thought it was great to be
with all these little children. There are also many allusions to his own
childhood in his poems."
In an early Agnes
Varda film 'Lion's Love' which she filmed in Los Angeles in 1969, Jim
Morrison had been cast as an extra. In a short clip he can be seen for
a few seconds in a theatre as a spectator. Hardly anyone recognized him
in this though, as at that time he had just grown a full beard. In her
films Agnes Varda does not deny her love for Jim Morrison and she has
used Doors songs more than once as the theme or as background music, the
last being 'The Changeling' in her film Jane B., a film biography of the
actress Jane Birkin. Agnes comments
that her relationship with Jim was a very quiet one: "Jim used to sit
with us and a few friends in this yard for hours. He didn't talk much,
didn't utter a superfluous word. He didn't like gossip. For five years
we used to meet relatively often, but I cannot say that we ever talked
much. And we respected him. His greatest wish when he came to Paris was
to remain here incognito as someone who just wanted to write his poems." Not even the press
was informed of the fact that Jim Morrison was staying in Paris, and only
a few people recognized him on the streets. In Paris he found the peace
and quiet that he had longed for. He took long walks along the Rue St.
Antoine with its pretty delicatessen shops, to the Rue de Rivoli and from
there on to St. Germain des Pres and the area around the Place St. Michel.
More than once Jim and Pamela got caught up in one of the numerous demonstrations
by Parisian students, and they had been fascinated and mesmerized by the
riots and violence they kept on stumbling into.
On 3rd April 1971
Jim, who was slightly drunk, was sitting in the L'Astroquet on Boulevard
St. Germain, chatting with some Americans sitting at an adjacent table.
They were Phil Trainer and his band, Clinic. When they recognized Morrison
they took their guitars out of their cases and played blues songs for
hours. Jim sang 'Crawling King Snake' with them, while smoking one Marlboro
zafter the other. The evening ended up in the apartment of a female photographer
who Jim and Pamela knew. Jim also attacked the alcohol stock there. Trainer
particularly remembers Jim's coughing fits in between deep inhalations
from the cigarettes he smoked. Many years later Trainer recorded a song
that paid tribute to him: Beautiful Jim. Pamela who did
not drink much, preferring a cocktail of drugs, complained about Jim's
alcohol consumption. He had almost totally cut out the drugs, and had
for some time been advancing to the state of an extremely heavy drinker.
From midday onwards he would pour all kinds of alcohol down his throat,
and he was also chain-smoking. For the first time during his coughing
fits he coughed up blood, and at the beginning of April Pamela made him
see an American doctor in Paris. On 9th April Jim
and Pamela rented a car and drove down to the South of France, via Limoges
to Toulouse, where Jim admired the pink-colored architecture. On they
went via Andorra to Madrid. Here they spent a whole day at the Prado Museum,
where Jim sat in front of Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights",
studying it for hours. They eventually
spent several days in Granada, where Jim often climbed up to the Alhambra
to admire the stone masonry of the old Moorish palace and to walk through
the enchanting General Life Gardens. Pamela used up countless Super-8
films, one of which shows Jim sitting on the lion's fountain of the Alhambra.
Suddenly he gets up, and with his arms outstretched walks toward the camera,
closer and closer, until eventually only one eye fills the lens. They crossed over
to Tanger in Morocco, via Algeciras, their car on the ferry, and promptly
got ripped-off to the tune of $100 by an English speaking Arab who had
very kindly offered to get them a lump of hashish. The man disappeared
without delivering his goods. They spent some
time in Casablanca, Marrakech and Fez, and there handed over the car to
the car rental company, flying back to Paris on 3rd May 1971. "I will include
my adventures in Africa in a theatre play", Jim later told a female journalist
friend of Pamela's, adding "One of the reasons I like Paris is the fact
that it lies fairly centrally in Europe. It's not like L.A., so far away
from everything."
Once back in Paris
Jim and Pam had to move to L'Hotel at No. 13 Rue des Beaux Arts for a
few days, because ZoZo and several friends had taken over the apartment
in the Rue Beautreillis. Jim stayed on the second floor, in the room where
Oscar Wilde died, and was now behaving just like in the old times in Los
Angeles. He drank more than ever, was climbing around on the balcony railing
of his room, and on the evening of 7th May fell onto the roof of one of
the cars parked down in the street. A frightened Pamela hurried outside,
and found that Jim was already on his feet again, brushing off his brown
suede jacket. Much to her dismay though, he immediately left on his own
to continue his drinking spree down the Rock'n'Roll Circus (which is now
called Whisky A Gogo and has been turned into a tuxedo discotheque). At this nightclub,
which does not open its doors until 10.00 p.m., the Parisian heroin underground
scene used to meet, and the people there were accordingly mental. Jim
Morrison loved this mad scenery, and drank a whole lot of straight whiskeys.
Eventually he got so drunk that he was throwing seat cushions around and
knocking over tables. At this point he was immediately kicked out. In the long marble
lined corridor he sat down on the floor with outstretched legs, and started
insulting the nightclubbers passing him by with filthy language. Gilles
Yepremian, a friend of the journalist Hervé Muller, recognized him
and put him in a taxi in order to take him to Muller's flat. "I was there with
some friends in the restaurant of the club", Gilles Yepremian told The
Doors Quarterly Magazine during an interview in 1993 "I just saw a shadow
where the security guys were standing. Later I went out and saw this guy
kicking the doors with his feet, he apparently wanted to get inside. But
the security wouldn't let him in again because they had just thrown him
out. When I looked at his face I realized it was Jim Morrison. He was
completely drunk. He didn't look like Jim Morrison, the rockstar, but
like an American student traveling in France, wearing a green military
jacket and some blue jeans. I asked him 'Are you Jim?', and he said 'Yeeeeah!'.
So I look him away from that door by his arm along the hallway to the
outside. I was sure if he would have stayed there he would have gotten
into a fight with the security. So I decided to take him to Hervé's." But is wasn't
that easy to get Jim to Hervé Muller's apartment Gilles says.
"We got into the
taxi and I told the driver Hervé's address. Soon we arrived at the
Pont de la Concorde, which is a bridge crossing the Seine. Jim wanted
the taxi to stop. He got out and went away from it. I paid the driver
and followed Jim. He wanted to jump up the railing. Two cops were coming
and I said, 'Jim, be careful, cops are coming!'. But Jim shouted 'Fuck
the pigs', something like that. Then he was quiet again. I stopped another
taxi which took us to Place Tristan-Bernard 6, where Hervé used to
live." The completely
drunk Jim Morrison spent the night at Muller's apartment on Place Tristan-Bernard,
and a totally surprised Hervé had to give up his bed to spend the
night in a sleeping bag and let the paralytic Jim sleep off his drunken
stupor. Gilles Yepremian:
"We went up to Hervé's flat. On each floor Jim knocked on my back
and hissed, "Sssssh, they are sleeping!". I rang Hervé's door and
Yvonne, his girlfriend, opened it. I remember there was this Belgian girl
staying there overnight, and she thought we were the police wanting to
search the apartment. So she threw all her hash out of the window in a
hurry. I said to Hervé, 'It's me and I'm here with Jim Morrison!'
Hervé answered, 'Fuck you, Gilles, it's four o'clock in the morning!'
But Jim simply went into the room, crashed upon their bed and fell asleep.
It was impossible to move him out of the bed again."
He only awoke
at midday the next day, 8th May and immediately invited Hervé and
his girlfriend Yvonne Fuka for lunch at the Bar Alexandre on Avenue George
V. They talked about films and poetry, and Jim gave Hervé a copy
of his An American Prayer poetry book. Naturally the alcohol was already
flowing freely, and Jim soon began to get violent again. He shouted at
people at adjacent tables, threw cocktail cherries around, and was drinking
liberally the while from a large bottle of cognac. Hervé had his
camera on him and he and Yvonne were busy taking pictures of Jim's every
move. Eventually Morrison threw himself onto the 'art nouveau' iron bench
in front of the Alexandre, yelling: "Where're you taking me? I don't wanna
go!" Once inside Muller's
small apartment again he continued yelling, waking the neighbors and the
caretaker, who called the police. When the police arrived though, Jim
was already asleep, not to rise again until late the next evening. A taxi
took him back to the Rue des Beaux Arts, where a furious Pamela was waiting
for him. The next day at
L'Hotel, sober again, Jim Morrison talked to a slightly shocked Hervé
Muller. "I am looking
for a cinema here in Paris, where I can show my films. I have three films
with me, the Doors film 'Feast of Friends', 'HWY', and a documentation
of a Doors concert." He also talked again about buying an old church somewhere
in France, and having it done up as an apartment, if it cost no more than
$100,000. Speaking of The Doors, he said that he hadn't seen them for
a long while, but that the band would continue although he felt really
a bit too old to be a Rock'n'Roll singer at the age of 27. A few days later
Jim and Pamela moved back in to No. 17 Rue Beautreillis, and made plans
to drive down to Switzerland, but at Yvonne's suggestion while they were
sharing a bottle of Corsican wine, they decided to visit Corsica instead.
On the way there though, at Marseilles Airport, Jim lost all his papers,
requiring an immediate return to Paris to have his documents replaced
at the American embassy there. His old passport was later found by the
airport authorities and was sent back to Paris a few days later. (After
Jim's death, this passport was returned to his parents). In the end they
did manage to spend 10 days in Corsica, but Jim later remarked to female
journalist Tere Tereba, who he had talked to shortly before his death,
that apart from one day it had rained all the time, and that he and Pamela
had got rather bored. Back in Paris
Jim continued meeting Agnes Varda and his other acquaintances and friends.
He was now working on the draft of a rock opera, an idea that had fascinated
him since the early days at Venice Beach. He filled up his scrap books
with poetry, mainly in the apartment in the Marais, but often also in
the shade of one of the cafes around the Place des Vosges. Many of the
poems that were later posthumously published in the books 'Wilderness'
and 'The American Night' were written here. Most of them are fragmentary
short insights into his own life and of his own experiences, like the
lyrical 'As I Look Back'. In those weeks
he kept close contact with Los Angeles. He was completely satisfied with
the final version of L.A. Woman, which he received from Elektra Records
as a test pressing, as it was the long wished for blues album by The Doors.
Jim sent a couple of postcards to the Doors office, and wrote to his poet
friend Michael McClure and to the Doors finance administrator, Bob Greene.
He invited Frank Lisciandro and his wife Kathy to Paris at the end of
July, an offer which both of them happily accepted. Lisciandro said that
they had to tie up some loose ends first, but after that they would visit
him in Paris. Frank Lisciandro
remembers: "I had written to Jim about a month after he left saying that
Kathy and I were planning a trip to Paris. In fact we were going to make
a long motordrive through Eastern Europe and we would be stopping in Paris
to pick up a car. In my letter I invited Pamela and Jim to come along
with us on a particular part of the drive. We were going to see a friend
of us in Hungary and we were going to be going to Greece and Turkey. I
got a letter back from Jim saying that he had recently before been in
Corsica, where he had in a typical Jim Morrison fashion lost his wallet,
but then he was back in Paris, and he invited Kathy and me to stay with
them at their apartment in Paris while we were there. He didn't mention
about the trip whether or not he intended or wanted to think about going
on a part of our trip. He also said that he was doing well and that it
would be good to see old friends again." In the meantime
Jim had employed a secretary. Robin Wertle, a pretty Canadian, was his
'Girl Friday', and did not only deal with Jim's business correspondence,
but also with the buying of furniture, the employment of a cleaning lady
and all other matters needing a knowledge of the French language. The last time
Hervé Muller met Jim was on 11th June, Together with Alain Ronay
they watched the theatre play 'Le Regard Du Sourd' by Bob Wilson at the
Theatre de la Musique. As Pamela was annoyed by Alain's presence, she
preferred to stay behind with her count, whom Jim did not like. In mid June Jim
went to see a doctor for the second time, because he had been coughing
up blood again. The physician urgently advised him to stop smoking and
drinking heavily. From his consumption of alcohol and a great deal of
French food, Jim's body had become bloated, and his powers of concentration
that he needed to be able to work had diminished significantly and suddenly.
He also had severe coughing fits. To take his mind
of things he undertook daily walks to the Ile St. Louis, walking around
for hours, and he visited the Hôtel de Lauzun on the Quai d'Anjou
and also the Louvre. To cover up his now already uncomfortable and corpulent
figure he wore baggy shirts and dark striped trousers, together with his
old, wornout suede boots. On 14th June he
telephoned John Densmore in Los Angeles to find out how the sales of the
new Doors album, L.A. Woman, were going. He was very pleased with the
promotion copy the record company Elektra had sent him, the only record
he would listen to again and again in those weeks. John told him
that the record was climbing the US Charts, and that the single Love Her
Madly, which had been written by Robby Krieger, was also selling excellently.
Jim said he saw this as a good reason
to record a further album and maybe go on tour again, as Ray had always
wished, with an expanded instrumental group. John did not tell him that
The Doors were already practicing new material. Without Jim the three
Doors instrumentalists felt a lot freer and not bound to the blues-type
stuff that Jim loved as a basis for his songs. Jim was yet to learn that Riders On The Storm would
shortly be released as the second single off the album, and he told Densmore
that he would probably stay in Paris for another few months. This was
the last The Doors ever heard from Jim Morrison, the man. From now on,
only the myth and the words remained.
On one of his walks through the narrow streets of St-Germain
des-Près one day he discovered a recording studio, and went there
again on June 16th to listen to a reel-to-reel tape of the poetry he had
recorded in March 1969 in Los Angeles. On stepping out of the studio in
search of liquid refreshment, he stumbled upon two young American street
musicians who were playing guitar in front of the Café de Flore.
He decided on the spot to buy them a drink. Later in the afternoon he
invited them to a spontaneous recording session in the studio he had just
come from. Everybody was already drunk. Jim told the engineer it was his
own band called Jomo And The Smoothies and paid for an hour of recording. "I get twenty-five percent of everything that happens,
right?" he told the musicians. The others tuned their guitars. This took
a fairly long time while the tape was running, and it sounded horrible.
Jim grinned "They're tolerating us until we get our asses in gear." he
said. But the three musicians failed to make decent recordings
of songs they knew, although one guitarist suggested songs like 'Little
Miss Five Feet Five', 'Three Little Fishes' and 'I Wanna Dance With My
Indigo Sugar'. Even when it came to his own material, Jim couldn't quite
remember all the lyrics of his ode to Pamela, 'Orange County Suite', screaming
and yelling the hazy parts. The session ended after only 14 minutes and
the engineer cut the tape. Jim and the two others listened to the tape
again, but decided not to record more. Jim scribbled "JOMO AND THE SMOOTHIES"
onto the box and put it into a plastic bag in which he also put the poetry
tape and a few other belongings. Then they left the studio and split. Jim wanted to
go for some more drinks but wasn't into carrying the bag around. After
all, the poetry tape was the master copy from Elektra Records' archives,
and together with the master of the recording he and the musicians had
just made as Jomo and The Smoothies, the risk of losing the plastic bag
somewhere in a Parisian bar during the night would have been too great.
So he decided to pay a visit to Philippe, a friend of his who used to
live just round the corner. "I used to be a friend of Jim's when he was in Paris",
Philippe told The Doors Quarterly Magazine in 1994. "I met him quite often
because I was in love with a girl who was Pamela's friend. But it wasn't
that much we did together, you know, a few meetings here and there. We
all went out a couple of times to bars and restaurants in the Quartier,
the Marais and Les Halles, where we had drinks together. He always was
very quiet, not talkative at all. Very shy. But there always was a good
feeling between us." They shared a few drinks while copying some poetry
tapes on cassette. When Jim left, he took the dubbed cassettes, but not
the plastic bag with the two reels. Philippe ran after him shouting, "Jim,
you forgot your bag!" but Jim was a ready going down in the elevator yelling
back, "Keep it for me, I'll pick it up later!". Philippe never saw Jim Morrison again. Of course he
was curious and looked into the bag. Jim was carrying not only the two
reels with him that night, but also a note book full of poetry, a bunch
of private photos (including a polaroid showing Jim standing at the window
of his Rue Beautreillis apartment looking out in the street) and official
Elektra press pictures, also two newspaper articles. One was an interview
with film director Jean-Luc Godard called l Film And Revolution, the other
was an article torn out from Patricia Kennealy's Jazz And Pop magazine
named Morrison Hotel Revisited. Philippe put the plastic bag into a cupboard
and forgot about it until he attended a celebration concert for Jim Morrison's
50th birthday in Paris in 1993. He thought it would be too selfish to
keep the tapes and decided to give DAT-copies to fans. Months later, in
1994, a bootleg CD came out in Canada called Jim Morrison - The Lost Paris
Tapes, containing complete recordings of the two master reels... The original tapes, however, were sold for $10,000
to a German fan in 1995. In the last week of June Jim wrote a letter to Bob
Greene, which he received on 3rd July: Give our best to all, This letter doesn't sound like a burnt out Jim Morrison,
allegedly wasted both physically and emotionally by this time. It does,
however, feed the rumors that claim that Jim wanted to clear off. The letters Jim wrote to Patricia Kennealy, the New
York journalist, who in a witches' ceremony had become his wife, and who
today carries the name Morrison, sound on the other hand very bitter,
and talk of frightening visions. In his last letter from Paris he describes
his yearning for her, in his own unique poetic language. He stresses that
he has got to get out of this city, because "the air was full of lies".
He further expresses his wish to die, and asks Patricia to confirm that
he has not sold himself. From the letter it follows that it was written
after a long walk which, following his own words, had completely exhausted
Jim. Apparently Jim's exile in Paris had not been as peaceful
and harmonious as Pamela had always described in her stories after Morrison's
death. Jim had reached the end of his life, and apparently he knew it.
He was tired of being stood up by Pamela on the one hand, and tired of
having to put up with her almost motherly protectiveness on the other.
His asthma had flared up, and the many alcohol excesses over the years
had provoked a terminal weakening of his body. The polluted Parisian air
did the rest. On 26th June, Pamela who was hanging out at the Café
de Flore with a few of her count's French friends, and a friend from Los
Angeles, the female journalist Tere Tereba. Pamela invited her to come
to Rue Beautreillis the next day. Tere visited them on the afternoon of
the 27th June, and met a relaxed Jim, who told her that he had lost a
lot of weight, on account of recently cutting out the alcohol. He showed
her an almost finished manuscript, and went into raptures about the city
of Paris. Pamela said that Jim wanted to become immortal, a status that
could be easier achieved as a poet than as a rock star. For supper Tere
suggested La Coupole, which Jim and Pamela hadn't discovered yet - Hemingway
had also been a frequent visitor to this bar. On their way to Boulevard
du Montparnasse Jim talked about the experiences of the past few months,
and mentioned that they had booked a flight to London, to spend a few
days with Michael McClure. At La Coupole, which reminded Jim of Ratner's, the
delicatessen restaurant in New York, he said that he had been offered
the leading part in the film Catch My Soul, starring with Tina Turner,
Joe Frazier and Melanie. He was also supposed to play the part of a bear
hunter, co-starring with Robert Mitchum, in Norman Mailer's film Why Are
We in Vietnam. "I'm turning down the play, and I don't think I'll do the
movie because it will take up too much time when I could be writing."
He also mentioned to Tere his plans to show his own films, the ones he
had brought with him, to a select audience there in Paris. "What I am going to do though is have a screening here
for some people of my three films - first a documentary of a Doors concert
made by some slick, professional film-makers, then another Doors documentary,
a much more human, violent look made by the friends I work on films with,
sort of how a similar event, a concert can be seen in different contrasting
ways, and last I will show my film HWY. S'il vous plait, may we have some
chocolate mousse for the ladies, please?" On their return to Rue Beautreillis they got caught
up in another student demonstration, this one at Place St. Michel. Jim
and Pamela were fascinated by the hustle and bustle in the square, but
they then decided to avoid trouble and did not stay. When Tere took her
leave, saying that she was looking forward to getting back to Los Angeles,
Jim said that he would definitely not be back before September. The contradictory
nature of Jim Morrison as a person becomes apparent. On the one hand he
is plagued with self doubts, depressed with his immediate surroundings
and his poor physical condition, even mentioning the wish to die, while
on the other he's playing the carefree poet, with lots of plans on his
mind, seemingly very glad to be in Paris. It can be supposed that he had
only trusted Patricia, his intimate friend in far away New York, with
the full truth of his condition. In his letter he declared that he would
never lie to her, because she possessed his full trust. He also told her
he would move to New York to live with her in October 1971, after finishing
it off gently with Pamela. Had he become an actor in Paris, with Pamela
and Tere as spectators? Frank Lisciandro says: "My feeling now is that Jim
was somewhat lonely for his friends in Paris and that he was lonely for
communications and conversations because he didn't speak any French. How
he had gone to live in a place where I suspect he might have assumed that
there would be more English spoken than there was. But in Paris in 1971
there were not a lot of people who spoke English. Back then, there were
precious few that really spoke English and you would have a conversation
with. He was lonely because he loved talking, he loved listening to people,
he loved asking questions. I think this was one of the drawbacks of his
being in Paris, this sense of isolation because of the language. He was
one with no language ability at all - none!"
At the end of June 1971, Jim went to Père Lachaise
Cemetery. Alain remembers an evening in early June 1971 they spent on
the steps of the Sacré Coeur, when Jim had asked him about a hill
he saw in the distance, the location of the cemetery. Jim said he would
go there another day. The gravestones and monuments left a deep impression
on him, when he did so. He spent a whole day in the cemetery, visiting
the graves of Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Honore de Balzac and Frederic Chopin.
Jim hardly spoke a word, and eventually mentioned to an unnamed friend
who was accompanying him that he wished to be buried in this cemetery. In the last week of his life Jim began to drink again,
although the French doctor had prescribed him some medication for his
heavy asthma which explicitly warns against alcohol consumption. According
to one of Morrison's close friends, Jim could not have taken this warning
seriously, as he had not read the instruction leaflet that was in French. On 28 June, Jim and Pamela, accompanied by Alain Ronay,
made a trip to Chantilly on the Oise, north of Paris. There, in a small
village called Saint-Leu-d'Esserent, Alain took what were probably the
last photos of Jim Morrison, photos which didn't see the light of day
until they were finally published in April 1991 in the magazine Paris
Match and additional ones in the Italian King Magazine. In those pictures
taken next to the Hôtel de l'Oise, Jim appears relaxed and in a good
mood, although his face seems bloated and flabby. In many of the photos
Pamela is clinging on to him, while in others Jim is flashing the Morrison
smile at Ronay's camera.
On 1st July 1971 he and Pamela had dinner at Le Beautreillis,
the restaurant opposite their house, at about 8 p.m. Jim was rather depressed,
as he had apparently not been able to write anything that day, and he
wasn't in any mood to venture further than 10 yards away from the apartment.
They had a fight while eating. Two German students recognized that they
had been sitting at the same table with Jim and Pam only after some minutes
when Pam threw some cash on the table and shouted something like "Fuck
you, Jim Morrison!" Jim had left the restaurant a minute earlier, and
the two students watched him disappear behind the door of Rue Beautreillis
17 while they were looking out of the window. Pamela followed him. Later
that night, after 11 p.m., a quiet Jim Morrison was recognized and photographed
by an American fan as he was drinking Bordeaux wine and eating a Croque
Monsieur in the Le Mazet bar on Rue St. André des Arts. He had obviously
gone there by himself. His condition was still the same on 2nd July. Alain
Ronay noticed his depressions, and without Pamela they had dinner at a
restaurant on Rue St. Antoine, where Morrison ate his food in silence.
Alain later remembers that Jim Morrison's face looked like a death mask,
and that he had had a bad hiccoughing fit.
Afterwards Jim sent a telephone telegram to his publisher,
Jonathan Dolger, in New York, asking him not to use the Joel Brodsky photo
for his paperback edition of The Lords And The New Creatures, but to use
a newer Edmond Teske photo instead, a photo showing him with full beard. After this, he and Pamela went to a cinema near the
metro station Pelletier, to watch the film Death Valley. They returned
to the apartment at about 1.00 a.m., and Jim sat down at his desk for
a short while, but again could not concentrate. He decided to replay a
few of the Super-8 films that he and Pamela had shot during their holiday.
Subsequently he listened to a few Doors albums, during which he was plagued
by coughing fits, and then went to bed, in which Pamela already lay sleeping.
Later on in the night he woke up and had to vomit several times. Pamela
later reported that he threw up a torrent of blood and blood clots. He
didn't want her to call a doctor. Instead, he sent Pamela back to bed,
and filled up the tub for a hot bath. He thought this would make him feel
better... In the early hours of the morning Pamela woke up and
found the bathroom door locked from the inside. She felt that something
was wrong, and in a panic she called several friends (Alain Ronay, Agnes
Varda and the count, Jean DeBreteuil), who all hurried to Rue Beautreillis
No. 17 straight away. The count was allegedly accompanied by the singer
Marianne Faithfull, who he had just spent the night with. Together they
broke down the bathroom door and found Jim Morrison lying lifelessly in
the tub, a smile playing on his lips. A trickle of clotted blood ran from
his nose to his upper lip. The count and his accompaniment left the apartment
before the emergency doctor was called. They didn't want to make a statement
to the police, as they were both known drug addicts. At 9.30 a.m. an ambulance was called. Jim was lifted
out of the tub and a cardiac massage was applied. However, the uselessness
of resuscitation was soon realized, and his body was carried to the bedroom
and covered with a dressing gown. In the meantime the police had arrived, and were questioning
the persons present. The French doctor Max Vassille only arrived at the
apartment at 6.00 p.m. He examined the body and established that the cause
of death was heart failure, which he estimated had occurred at approximately
5.00 a.m. A notary assigned by the police had already made out the official
French certificate of death at 2.30 p.m. at the registry office in the
Mairie du 4e Arrondissement. The certificate described Jim Morrison as
having been an author. He was also described as having been single. His
full name is printed on the form: Douglas Morrison, James. For this reason
the authorities did not realize that this was the American singer Jim
Morrison, also well known in France, and he was regarded as an ordinary
tourist who had died accidentally in Paris. The doctor's report does not give details on why his
heart failed, but describes Morrison's death as a "natural" one. The reason
for his heart failure remains unknown, as an autopsy was never done. However,
Bill Siddons later remembered Pamela saying that she heard the physician
talk about a blood clot blocking the cardiac artery, which had apparently
been the cause of death. The most probable cause of death, however, was the
dangerous cocktail of the asthma medication and the copious amounts of
alcohol Morrison was wont to put away. According to several physicians,
even a small dose, taken during heavy consumption of alcohol, can be toxic
and eventually have a lethal effect, especially when the body is already
in a weakened state. One can assume that on 2nd July Jim Morrison was
drinking highproof alcohol in his depressive state, and at the same time
tried to battle the return of his respiratory symptoms with a dose of
his tablets. This was a lethal mixture for him. One can also assume that
the wound in his lung he had obtained from the fall from the balcony at
the Chateau Marmont had opened up again from his coughing fits. This would
explain the vast amount of blood that Jim had thrown up in the early morning
hours of 3rd July. It is also possible that an untreated stomach ulcer,
which can cause the vomiting of blood, played a small part in it. Only in April 1991, after 20 years of silence, did
Alain Ronay share his thoughts with the world. In an article in the magazine
Paris Match he describes the last hours of Jim Morrison's life, according
to Pamela's version of events. Apparently, on 2nd July Jim had snorted
some heroin that Pamela had got him in the afternoon. In the evening both
of them had taken a further dose of the drug, and Jim had started listening
to every single old Doors record. After they had both gone to bed, Jim
had snorted some more heroin and had apparently fallen asleep, while the
song The End had drifted into the bedroom from the record player. The further course of Ronay's report is basically identical
with the above mentioned description. One cannot be sure for certain which
version is nearer the truth. For the simple reason that - an autopsy was never performed.
Neither the emergency service, nor the police officials and not even Dr.
Max Vassille, none of them showed the slightest amount of suspicion that
it was a drugrelated death. If it had been, an autopsy would surely have
been undertaken. Alain Ronay reports that he had not seen Jim Morrison's
body. If one considers Pamela's confused state of mind, as well as her
now published police report, there is no certain proof that the cause
of death was a "heroin overdose". Above all, people who were close to
him knew he had a horror of heroin. Apparently, after his arrival at Rue
Beautreillis, Bill Siddons had found a wooden box in which Pamela used
to keep her drugs. He had tasted the substance, but could not determine
what it was. Years later he reported this finding to the press, and the
sensation-hungry journalists were sure that it could only have been heroin. This all leads up to the inevitable conclusion that
Pamela was substantially responsible for his death. She stated in the
official police report that Jim (after coughing three bowls of blood)
insisted on taking a warm bath. Why didn't she stay with him then instead
of sleeping off her own smack? Nobody in their right mind would have left
someone alone in a horribly vulnerable state like that. If it was a heroin
overdose - why did she ever offer him the stuff, knowing he was ill? Or
- if he was alone in the flat while she was staying with the count, not
returning until early morning, why then did she leave pure smack in a
box on the table, knowing he would find it and take it to feel better
or to commit suicide? Why did she, after she allegedly "found" him, call
Varda and Ronay first, instead of an emergency service? It seems nobody
from The Doors' family wants to answer questions like these. On the morning of 5th July, an undertaker laid out
Jim Morrison's body in a veneered coffin in the bedroom of the apartment,
all according to Pamela's wishes. She, for unknown reasons, had chosen
the cheapest coffin the undertaker offered, a so-called cercueil chène
verni for just 366 (old) Francs. To counteract the decay of the body,
dry ice was added, and the coffin was sealed with screws. The total costs
of the funeral were just 878 (old) French Francs. Agnes Varda spoke on the telephone with several cemetery
authorities in smaller towns, to find a burial space for Jim outside of
Paris, but all without success. Eventually, Alain Ronay remembered Jim's
wish to be buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery and contacted the authorities.
On 6th July he and Pamela went to Père Lachaise and purchased a double
grave for 4,600 (old) French francs with an indefinite time limit, which,
in this case, means 30 years. Although the district authorities, as well as Jim's
friends, had kept totally quiet about his death, and the American Embassy,
which in the meantime had been contacted, had not realized that the person
in question, "James Douglas Morrison", was, in fact, the singer of The
Doors, the rumor that Jim Morrison had died in Paris had already started
to spread on 4th July 1971. Eventually the rumors reached London. Clive Selwood,
the London manager of the Elektra label, called Bill Siddons in Los Angeles.
When the telephone rang in his bedroom, his wife, Cherry, jumped up and
said: "Something's happened to Jim!" It was 4.30 in the morning, and after
Clive's call, Bill immediately tried to reach Pamela in Paris. Nobody
picked up the receiver. At 8.00 a.m. Siddons tried again, and this time Pamela
answered. "She was very nervous, and I asked whether the rumor that Jim
was dead was true. She said that it wasn't true, but she sounded completely
despairing. I told her that I called as a friend, and that I only wanted
to help her. This was when she started to cry. I told her that I would
take the next plane to Paris." Bill informed Ray Manzarek. Ray remembers: "The telephone rang early in the morning.
It was Bill, and he said that Jim had possibly died. I said that there
had often been rumors such as that before in the past, and that I couldn't
believe it without any proof. However, Bill said that this time it was
probably true though, and that he had already booked his flight to Paris." Frank Lisciandro looks back: "It was July 4th that
we heard the news. Babe Hill, probably Jim's closest friend, was at our
apartment, and we were intending to have a meal on this big American celebration
day. Then came the call from Bill Siddons who told us the news. He talked
to Babe, he talked to me, then to Kathy. I was shocked beyond comprehension.
Sometimes you don't internalize news very quickly, you have the information
but not the body reactions to the information. The emotional and spiritual
reaction to the information. That just developed after a period of time.
I was just shocked, speechless." Siddon's plane touched down in Paris at 6.30 a.m. on
6th July. He took a taxi to Rue Beautreillis and there found a completely
distraught Pamela, who had not slept a wink since the discovery of the
body. Robin Wertle was with her. She had been trying to calm her down
for days. In the bedroom of the apartment Bill found the coffin, tightly
sealed with screws, and so had no opportunity to see the contents. Even for the usually calm and collected Bill Siddons,
this situation was rather strange. Pamela seemed confused, cried, and
went about doing apparently nonsensical chores. Somehow Agnes Varda and
Alain Ronay had managed to keep the news of rock star Jim Morrison's death
out of the police protocol, and so they were able to prepare a quiet and
secret funeral at Père Lachaise on 7th July. In the meantime, Marianne Faithfull and the count -
still in shock - had traveled to Marrakech and told DJ Roger Stephens,
who she met there, the story. Stephens, however, also kept quiet about
it until he revealed the story to John Densmore in a 1989 L.A. radio show.
Mrs Faithfull, however, still vehemently denies her part in this story. Everyone agreed that the kind of media frenzy, as had
been witnessed happened at Jimi Hendrix's funeral, should definitely be
avoided. On the burial certificate of 7th July, Pamela poses as Morrison's
cousin, while at the notary's office, Marks, Sherman & Schwartz, she
had described herself as his wife. However, in the report for the American
Embassy Pamela called herself his girlfriend, which was the truth finally.
On the morning of 7th July 1971, at 8.30, Jim Morrison
was buried in the 6th Division, 2nd Row, Grave No.5, in the presence of
a small funeral procession consisting of Pamela, Bill Siddons, Agnes Varda,
Alain Ronay and Robin Wertle. Pamela said that Jim had wished to have
a few verses spoken at his funeral, so she said a few words in a subdued
voice, which nobody present understood. Everybody threw some flowers on
the coffin and said their goodbyes. A French lady, Madame Colinette, witnessed
the burial. She later told the press that it was disgraceful. "Everything
was done in a hurry. No priest was present, everybody left quickly. The
whole scene was piteous and miserable", she said in the German TV feature
Jim Morrison - Quiet Days In Paris. The next day Bill Siddons returned to Los Angeles.
Pamela Courson was with him. In her luggage was a big metal box with most
of the scrap books and note pads that Jim had written during his days
in exile. This box was marked 127 Fascination. Bill immediately drove down to the Doors office, and
met Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek there. "We have buried Jim", he told
the stunned musicians. Ray Manzarek could not believe it. "Did you see
the body? How did Jim look?", he wanted to know. When Bill thereupon explained
that he had only seen the sealed coffin, but not Jim's body, Ray became
agitated. "How can you be so sure about it? How do you know whether Jim
is really inside that coffin?" "I hadn't really thought about asking the
question, whether I could see Jim one more time," Siddons answered. "Besides,
Pamela was totally distraught...". Despondently, the three Doors went
back to their studio on the ground floor of the office, to continue working
on their new songs. Frank Lisciandro remembers the week following Jim's
death: "We would spend virtually an entire week at The Doors' office answering
phone calls, writing letters to people, trying to console absolute strangers
and friends of Jim's who would call daily. Dozens and dozens of calls
came into that office, expressing grief and horror at Jim's death, and
we who were very close to him had to play the role of consoling all these
other people. But after a week we got on the plane and flew to Paris.
Within a day we visited the cemetery and I came to grips with the fact
that I wouldn't see Jim anymore, although it's hard to put a person to
rest when you don't see their dead body." Until recently, Ray Manzarek did not believe that Morrison
was dead. He did not want to believe it, speculated on Jim's sudden return,
created theories about where he could be, and lost himself in mystical
hints that Jim had possibly only faked his death. "He could be just off
wandering around somewhere", Ray said in a 1974 interview. Robby Krieger and John Densmore look back more soberly
"With all the talk circulating amongst the Doors family, he would probably
by now have raised his voice," says Densmore in an interview with The
Doors Quarterly Magazine. Robby Krieger makes it clearer. "Jim would never have
wanted the copyrights of his poems to fall into his parents' hands. At
that time, at the latest he would have surfaced to avoid this. I am sure
that he is dead." Back in Los Angeles, Pamela began to lead an unsettled
and restless life. To everyone she seemed disturbed, and couldn't allegedly
remember anything in relation to Jim's death. In spite of this, it was
her only topic of conversation. She would go out to clubs for nights on
end, started injecting heroin, and took home men for just one night. Soon
after her return from Paris, she paid a visit to her boutique Themis,
and poured gallons of perfume over all the clothes, much to her sister's
horror. When Themis was to be shut down shortly after, she drove a car
into the showroom window. The glass shattered, and the front of the building
was severely damaged. From the Doors' money she wanted to arrange to have
a tombstone erected on Jim's grave. "She has injected the money into her
veins", John Densmore said. "No gravestone was erected from that money." Jim Morrison had left everything in his Will to Pamela,
a fact disclosed by his lawyer, Max Fink, a few weeks after his death.
The Will made her the sole heir to his fortune. In the event that Pamela
should outlive him or fail to survive for a period of three months following
his death, Jim ordered that it should be bequeathed to his brother Andrew
and his sister Anne. Jim determined that the Will should be executed by
his lawyer, Max Fink (who died in the autumn of 1990) and Pamela. After
Morrison's death, on 12th July 1971, Fink applied for the disclosure of
the Will. In this application, Jim's fortune is described as follows:
"Royalties from musical compositions, non-material oil shares, value above
$75,000; annual income approximately $50,000." Jim possessed land (maybe
even without his knowledge), and an oil field under it, in which he had
a share of the mining rights. The total sum of his fortune seems disproportionately
small As there were estimations from other sources amounting to $3,000,000,
one can assume that a deliberately low sum was stated in the application. However, the three remaining Doors' financial interests
interrupted the easy execution of Jim's Last Will. Pamela Courson was
sued for the return of a sum of between $150,000 and $258,000, that Jim
had "been lend" by The Doors. Jim's "partnership contract" had supposedly
been well overdrawn. Max Fink also eventually demanded a fee of $50,000
for Morrison's defense during the Miami trial. Only on 6th May 1974, two
weeks after she died, Pamela was awarded the fortune, which had in the
meantime (officially) grown to more than half a million dollars. In addition,
she was allowed a quarter of any future royalties of The Doors, from the
record sales with Jim Morrison as singer. However, she would not have
the taste of a carefree life again. On 25th April 1974, one of Morrison's old friends,
John Mandell, with whom she was living at the time, had found Pamela dead
in her apartment, with fresh needle marks on her arm. The medical report
states the cause of death to have been an overdose of heroin. Apparently
Mandell and another friend, Clifton Dunn, who both lived with Pamela in
an apartment at No. 105 North Sycamore on the ground floor, had seen her
lying on the sofa, thinking that she was asleep. Both men had prepared
supper, and had then tried unsuccessfully to wake Pamela up. The police
had arrived soon after, and had found a syringe, but no other drug utensils.
It is mentioned in the police report that there had been a "girlfriend"
(Diane Gardiner, one of Jim's and Pam's old friends) present at the time
when Mandell and Dunn returned to the apartment, who had, however, left
shortly afterwards. Apparently, Mandell (this report was made on the strength
of his testimony), who was already known to the police with several offenses,
told them that the "husband" of the deceased had died from a heroin overdose
in Paris four years earlier, a piece of information that he had presumably
got from Pamela. Considering the fact that after Morrison's death Pamela's
mental state was extremely unstable, and that she had even told some people
that Jim was not dead, and would return in a short while (in addition,
she always talked about Jim in the present tense), this information should
be treated with extreme care. On the other hand there are some unanswered questions
concerning the last few hours of Pamela Courson. The two reports Mandell
gave the police within a few hours time difference present a few oddities.
First of all, he mentioned Diane Gardiner being at the apartment on that
very day. She left at 6.30 pm in the first version of the report but at
11.00 pm in the second version. Diane herself reported being there last
on April 24th, a day before Pamela died. Mandell also said Pamela was
drunk that night, but at the autopsy they found no alcohol in her blood.
Mandell mentioned he was cooking dinner - in the first report he took
2 1/4 hours to prepare it, in the second he needed only 50 minutes. In
the first version, John Mandell and Clifton Dunn are gone for shopping
until 9.30 pm, while in the second one Mandell and Pamela are out shopping.
And last but not least, in the first version Pamela is seen to be apparently
asleep at 9.30 pm, but the second version has her talking to her parents
until at least 10.00 pm. On 29th April 1974 a memorial service for Pamela and
Jim was held at the Old North Church in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Burbank.
The guests were told not to wear black, and Ray Manzarek played several
Doors songs on the church organ, including You're Lost Little Girl. Her
body was cremated, and the urn was taken to Fairhaven Memorial Park &
Mortuary Cemetery in Santa Ana, near Disneyland. This is where her last
resting place is, in the Garden Courts of the cemetery, compartment No.
164. The rarely visited grave is covered in cobwebs, and the small bronze
plaque bears the inscription "MORRISON, PAMELA SUSAN, 1946 - 1974". Even
in death, her illusion of having been married to Jim Morrison lives on. For a long time there was a rumor that Pamela had been
buried in Jim's grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery. This rumor was based
on some of Ray Manzarek's earlier speculations, when in several interviews
after Pamela's death he expressed his hopes that the urn would be taken
to Paris "It's a Rock'n'Roll love story", he said "They should be together
in one grave. Those two belong together". Apparently the Courson family
was against this idea, or Jim's parents simply didn't want Pamela to be
buried in Jim's grave. Pamela's fortune, which consisted almost exclusively
of the money she had received from Morrison's will, now went to her parents.
The latter shared the sum with Morrison's parents. All of Jim's current
income through his 1/4 share of The Doors royalties, is also split between
the Coursons and the Morrisons. Jim Morrison's wish, that his parents
should not receive a single penny, was accordingly ruined three years
after his death. On 8 July 1971 Bill Siddons prepared a press announcement
that was spread the following day via the media: "I have just returned
from Paris, where I attended the funeral of Jim Morrison. Jim was buried
in a simple ceremony, with only a few friends present. The initial news
of his death and funeral was kept quiet because those of us who knew him
intimately and loved him as a person wanted to avoid all the notoriety
and circus-like atmosphere that surrounded the deaths of such other rock
personalities as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. I can say that Jim died
peacefully of natural causes - he had been in Paris since March with his
wife, Pam. He had seen a doctor in Paris about a respiratory problem,
and had complained of this problem on Saturday - the day of his death.
I hope that Jim is remembered not only as a rock singer and poet, but
also as a warm human being. He was the most warm, most human, most understanding
person I've known. This wasn't always the Jim Morrison people read about
- but it was the Jim Morrison I knew, and his close friends will remember." On 10th July 1971, England's Melody Maker were still
denying the rumors of Jim's death. An employee of the press agency United
Press had found out the telephone number of the apartment in Rue Beautreillis
No. 17, and had reached Pamela on 5th July. She told the journalist that
Jim was staying at a special clinic outside Paris, to convalesce. The
press announcement was copied and printed by further newspapers, completely
ignoring Bill Siddons' statement. On 8th July the front page of the French
magazine Pop Musique announced: "Jim Morrison n'est pas mort" (Jim Morrison
is not Dead) although disc jockey Cameron Watson, who had been told about
it by Marianne Faithfull and her count, had already announced the news
over the microphone in the nightclub La Bulle. When Patricia Kennealy received the news of Jim's death,
she immediately flew to Paris. She found the soil around the grave surrounded
by shells, with a wooden plaque with Morrison's name on top of it. At
that time hardly anybody knew where the grave was situated, so Patricia
was alone in her mourning. A few days later a black metal plaque was erected,
with the singer's name printed incorrectly by the French: "Morisson, James
Douglas". This plaque was also stolen by grave robbers. In 1973 a small
stone plaque, with the surname again spelt incorrectly, was screwed onto
the grave, which had in the meantime been edged by narrow stone slabs.
After this plaque was stolen, the cemetery authorities decided to mark
the grave. In the meantime, visitors had started to 'decorate' the immediate
surroundings of the grave, first with chalk, then with paint and spray
cans, with morbid slogans and lines from Doors songs. The tourist invasion
began slowly at first, but then with increasing violence. The 'high points'
so far: 3rd July 1981, Morrison's 10th anniversary, when The Doors visited
the grave, and approximately 150 fans tried to get autographs, pushing
and shoving in the narrow alleys between the graves; 3rd July 1985, when
the National Guard was called in and threw tear-gas grenades amongst the
crowds to control the chaos created by noisy fans and a few rioters; 3rd
July 1986, when the relatively quiet and peaceful visitors were beaten
out of the cemetery, and 3rd July 1991, when a crowd of thousands (many
of them were from the East visiting Paris for the first time) were rioting
at the grave, and, having been thrown out of the cemetery, continued their
desecrating actions in front of the cemetery gates. At midnight they set
fire to the iron main gate, pushing a wrecked car towards it in order
to open it. Another smaller riot erupted on 8th December 1993, Jim's 50th
birthday, when fans started to sing at the grave and were immediately
thrown out of the graveyard, only to continue their chants in front of
the gates till late at night. Many fans had left the place early to catch
a concert of the New York coverband The Soft Parade with a guest appearance
by Robby Krieger, so the police didn't have much trouble to chase the
rest away.
The uncertainty that was apparent a few days after
Jim's death, the silence of Morrison's close friends, the unclear comments
from Ray Manzarek, as well as Jim's own remarks that he was sick of leading
the life of a rock star, were all good nourishment for rumors that Jim
just faked his own death. Only a short while after this, there were comments
from people who bad apparently seen him at the beginning of July, as he
was booking a long distance flight. Other people swore that he had been
seen in Marrakech. Two DJs spoke up in the mid 70s, saying that they had
interviewed Jim, and that he had sung along to a recording of Light My
Fire. There are journalists who claim that he was killed by Pamela and
a girlfriend in some kind of witch ceremony, and that photos of Morrison's
body, covered in knife wounds, are in Bill Siddons' possession. Others
claimed that he was killed by the Mafia, because he had drawn America's
good reputation through the dirt in France. Or that he was murdered by
jealous ex-groupies. And then there was yet another rumor of him having
taken a heroin overdose at the Rock'n'Roll Circus and that his body was
taken back to his apartment to avoid a scandal. Apparently, Morrison had
wanted to buy heroin for Pamela and had taken a sample of the stuff, which
had then caused his death, as it had apparently been pure, unprocessed
heroin. A fool-hardy theory, which is supported only by statements from
exjunkies, with no facts to substantiate it. Even today, many of the numerous fans that visit the
grave doubt that Jim Morrison is really dead, or that he died of natural
causes. An American journalist thought that the coffin had
actually been put into the grave, but that it had been filled with rocks.
At the same time, he demanded to open up the grave to be certain. This
demand is as absurd as it is impracticable. To be able to exhume a body
buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery, besides having the family's approval,
one not only needs to have special approval from the C.I.D., but also
the consent from seven French cardinals, who can each demand a right of
veto for themselves. It goes without saying that the mere assumption that
someone has only faked his death, and had his coffin filled with rocks,
would not prompt anybody fill in an application for exhumation.
As Jim was, however, an American citizen, his mortal
remains can be transferred to the USA at any time at the request of his
family, as is explicitly stated in the certificate from the American Embassy. There have been persistent rumors that for years the
cemetery management has been appealing to Morrison's heirs to have his
transferal of the coffin mae, due to the graffiti, vandalizing and rioting
of numerous fans. However, this could not have been done before July 7th
2001, 30 years after the burial, without the permission of Jim's parents. On 1st March 1996, at long last, the minister of culture
of Paris announced that Jim Morrison was not to be removed. His grave
was declared to be a cultural monument. Of course, this declaration was
also made because the minister knew the thousands of fans are bringing
money into the city, money the city of Paris surely does not want to miss. In December 1990, a new, monumental gravestone was
erected on Jim Morrison's grave. Attached to it is a bronze plaque, which
carries the singer's name, birth and death date, as well as a Greek epitaph,
KATA TON DAIMONA EAYTOY ("To the divine spirit within himself"; different
translations could be made from Old Greek "The devil within himself" and
Modem Greek "The genius in his mind", but also "He caused his own demons").
Then, in March 1991, Jim Morrison's parents visited their son's grave
"George Morrison appeared composed, almost stony, while Clara Morrison
wiped the tears from her eyes with a handkerchief", photographer Michelle
Campbell, who was an eye witness to this scene, commented. Jim's parents
had arranged and paid for the erection of the new tombstone. The flood of fans that has visited Jim Morrison's grave
since late 1971 does not look set to ebb. Even on cold, foggy November
days, countless people from all over the world turn up during the course
of the day, and speculate about the different theories on how Jim died,
or if he was still alive. Agnes Varda, Jim's close friend, broke her silence
for the first time 18 years after Jim died, and with it, made an end to
all rumors: "There was the gossip, that Jim had not died, but that he
was still alive. I got a lot of phone calls from his family, managers,
and friends, who asked me if I could tell them whether I had seen him
dead. These rumors were pure nonsense. There was the doctor's certificate
- we don't bury the dead just like that. Only a doctor can release someone
for burial. Jim is dead, unfortunately!" |