The death of Jim Morrison has been greatly exaggerated

 

Invocation. If you want to invoke some instant street cred or hip props one of the easiest ways to invoke the name of The Doors or Jim Morrison. Both Ashlee Simpson and Paris Hilton (no, I’m not hyper linking to them) have both worn Doors T-shirts to heighten their hipness factor. It’s been suggested that there should be a law regulating the wearing and usage of T-shirts in this manner, you have to prove you’re hip.

Writers do it too. On any given day Google The Doors and Jim Morrison and you’ll get references from Australia to an obituary of Ted Kennedy and everything in between. One that caught my eye was by a fellow Examiner writer ruminating on the deaths of our icons and the conspiracy theories that surround them. It seemed to infer that Jim Morrison was killed by a Government plot to kill rock stars and that Morrison knew it, saying after the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin that he was number 3, and the writer infers that Morrison thought his death would be “mysterious.” Morrison did say this, it was his famous gallows humor and the superstitious belief that the famous die in groups of 3, such as Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson and Dominick Dunne. Morrison and The Doors are misunderstood as a group, and to the average Rock fan there is a lot of mystery and speculation surrounding the death of Jim Morrison. I’ve read every book about The Doors and Morrison so for those casual fans I’d like to give you a quick run down on the facts, some rumors, and leave the decision to you.

The Known

 Jim Morrison was found dead in the bathtub of his Paris apartment in the early morning hours of July 3^rd 1971 by Pamela Courson his longtime girlfriend and “cosmic mate.” Not knowing how to speak French, Pamela called French friends, Alain Ronay and Agnes Varda, who came to the apartment and they called the police. Upon arrival the fire brigade concluded Morrison was dead and there was nothing that could be done for him. He was taken out of the tub and placed on his bed, and a doctor Vassille was called to sign a death certificate, with heart failure listed as the cause of death. There was no sign of foul play so by French law an autopsy wasn’t necessary. A wooden casket was purchased and Morrison was packed in dry ice until his burial on July 8^th. The funeral was attended by Pamela, Doors manager Bill Siddons, and Varda and Ronay.

The Unknown

 Over the years quite a few rumors have arisen over Morrison’s death. Pam was known to use heroin and various scenarios have arisen from that information, from the rather pedestrian, that Morrison known for his excessive drug use in the past, thinking he found Pam’s stash of coke did a few lines and on top of his alcoholism, his heart stopped. Or there’s the story that Marianne Faithfull and her then boyfriend, decadent French count Jean DeBritti, who was making a living selling heroin, were visiting the Morrison’s, when Jim OD’d, they cleaned up the scene, dumped Jim in the bathtub in an attempt to resuscitate him, and then split, hightailing it to Morocco. It should be said that Faithfull has said she never met Jim Morrison. A third theory is that Morrison was at the club, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus drunk, and trying to score some heroin which he was finally able to do, he went into one of the stalls in the bathroom and snorted the heroin and OD’d, dying almost immediately, with a few bouncers finally wrangling the body to a taxi cab and taking it back to his apartment, and a few minutes later the club DJ was said to announce Morrison’s death over the PA system. Or if you want to trip seriously to the weird side that Morrison was murdered with witchcraft by Patricia Keaneally, with whom Morrison participated with in a Wiccan hand fasting ceremony recreated in Oliver Stone‘s movie The Doors. And possibly because of the couple of lines of poetry Morrison wrote “A young witch from N.Y. is laying novice hexes on my brain-pan.“ There are a few theories that say Morrison was murdered outright by various people, for various reasons but there’s no evidence of this and these theories seem to come from a misinterpretation of Pamela’s grief stricken statements after returning to the U.S. that she killed Jim, probably because she felt guilty that he got into her stash.

 Deathwell Mystery

The most enduring myth seems to be that no one saw Morrison’s body. Quite the opposite lots of people saw Morrison’s body, Pam, Varda and Ronay, the French fire brigade, the doctor. One of the few people who didn’t see Morrison’s body was Bill Siddons and he reported this back to Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek and this seems to be the genesis of this myth.

 Then there’s the Morrison faked his death theory most notably played up in the Morrison biography No One Here Gets Out Alive. Morrison himself also has a hand in that myth, at the beginning of The Doors’ career Morrison suggested pulling a death stunt to get them some publicity. In the aftermath of the Miami incident and trial he told Rolling Stone interviewer Jerry Hopkins that he could see himself coming back as a banker in a suit and tie. The myth has also been perpetuated by The Doors themselves after Morrison’s death, most notably Ray Manzarek who has until very recently refused to close that door. He even wrote a novel The Poet in Exile , which while perpetuating the myth, is a novel of missed opportunities.

There are various adherents to each theory, some reputable, some not, if you’re interested read the most definitive Morrison biography Break On Through, or The Essential Jim Morrison. I also used The American Night; The Writings of Jim Morrison volume 2 as a source.

If you’ve read my previous article on the Doors documentary When You’re Strange and want to know how the screening at the Deauville Film Festival went, director Tom DiCillo has a new entry to his blog.