“CAN YOU FIND ME SOFT ASYLUM?” Paris 1971..

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

[glow=red,2,300]“CAN YOU FIND ME SOFT ASYLUM?”
A DEFINITIVE REFERENCE GUIDE TO JIM MORRISON’S FINAL DAYS

QUESTIONS, QUOTES & CONFLICTS[/glow]

Q. WHAT WAS MORRISON’S HEALTH AND STATE OF MIND JUST PRIOR TO HIS TRIP TO PARIS?

PATRICIA BUTLER: When Jim would pick up an occasional venereal disease. Max Fink sent him to an old friend of his, a gynecologist in the Wilshire district who would treat Jim quietly, after regular office hours. Most of the Doors and their wives used the services of Dr. Arnold Derwin who would later be cited as an authority on why Jim’s death could not have been caused by respiratory distress, based on the fact that Derwin himself had not been aware of Jim’s existing asthma condition, nor had Jim seemed ill the last time Dr. Derwin had seen him. PG. 175 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE
DR. ARNOLD DERWIN: Jim was in excellent health before he went to Paris...The fall from the Chateau Marmont did not do any serious damage. His lung was not punctured, only bruised and there was nothing from that injury that would create a blood clot, result in a respiratory condition, or cause him to spit up blood”. PG. 457 BREAK ON THROUGH
PATRICIA BUTLER: But Derwin had no access to Jim’s past medical records, nor was Jim likely to provide an accurate history, assuming one had been requested. At the time Jim left for France, Derwin had not seen the singer for a year or more, making it unlikely the doctor would be able to speak with authority on Jim’s physical condition at that time. PG. 175 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE
MONDO 2000... Hey! No one wants to be expunged from the Book of Life. How many medical workers at UCLA knew that Jim Morrison was being treated for gonorrhea in the Fall of 1970? Knew of the biopsy that confirmed adenoma of the penile urethra -- often consequence to repeated gonorrhea? This is a particularly swift form of cancer whose only alternative may have been radical castration...“Queen Mu, PP. 131 MONDO 2000 MAGAZINE
PATRICIA BUTLER: Paul Rothchild had also tried to get Jim to seek professional help on more than one occasion. “Oh! Everybody tried!” Rothchild recalled. “I tried a lot, especially when he brought up repeatedly his problems getting hard”, said Rothchild, referring to Jim’s increasing bouts with impotency, a problem not uncommon in alcoholics, which both Pam and Jim had spoken about with Paul. PG. 146 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE.
PATRICIA BUTLER: His steady weight gain was compounded by the ever present layer of bloat caused by his chronic alcoholism. The stress of the [Miami] trial, together with a viral infection he’d picked up a short time before, had triggered Jim’s childhood asthma, leaving him with a deep cough that he was making worse by chain smoking. PG. 157 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

Q. WHAT LED JIM MORRISON TO LEAVE FOR PARIS IN 1971, NEVER TO RETURN? GIVEN THE POPULAR AND CRITICAL ACCLAIM GARNERED BY L.A. WOMAN, AND NOW THAT THE BAND SEEMED TO BE WORKING TOGETHER BETTER THAN THEY HAD IN YEARS, ONE WOULD THINK THAT MORRISON WOULD WANT TO RIDE OUT THE WAVE OF POSITIVE DEVELOPMENTS.

HANK ZEVALLOS: Hey, I knew Jim Morrison since before “Light My Fire” and was with him his last night in Los Angeles. His whole last year he had been more into his writing, film making and doing an album on the lines of “Horse Latitudes.” When he left for Paris he was to pursue those artistic directions, not so much as run away from anything. FEBRUARY 2000

BILL SIDDONS: He went off to Paris to concentrate on his writings. He was working on two different screenplays as far as I know, and he was working on his poetry. But he went off to stop pursuing the rock and roll dream because he’d achieved it and he didn’t like it. And he said ‘What am I but a writer?’ PG. 448 BREAK ON THROUGH

PATRICIA KENNEALY: “I still don’t understand why you’re going” is what I say instead. “It’s hard to explain” he says after a long silence. I kind of feel responsible for [Pamela]. She’s not like you, she can’t do anything on her own, can’t take care of herself – it’s over, but I think I owe her this.” PG. 296 STRANGE DAYS

LINDA ASHCROFT: I was thinking I might use the time in Paris to write some one-act plays. At this point, movies are so far beyond me financially, I want to work on something I can do in the street if I have to. I want to be the writer I am. There is my poetry. I have that novel kicking around in my head. I still hear music. There is no end to the work.” PG. 478 WILD CHILD

BILL SIDDONS: "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." FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

The sessions for L.A. Woman were positive and the band felt better about matters than they had in ages. Although he and Pamela had planned the trip for some time (she had traveled in advance of Jim so as to secure living arrangements) it is indicative of the lack of communication between Morrison and the others that the news came as a bit of a surprise to his band mates; they clearly had been kept in the dark about his specific intentions.

RAY MANZAREK: And then he dropped the napalm. “I’m going to Paris” he said. ...We’re close to being finished here” he continued. Most of the mixes are done. Everything sounds great. Why don’t you guys go ahead and finish it up? I’m leaving for Paris in two days. Pam’s already there, she’s got a little apartment...got it all set up. I’m going to join her over there.” PG. 8 LIGHT MY FIRE

Although Ray states that it came as a bit of a surprise, Robby Krieger states that they had reason to anticipate it:

ROBBY KRIEGER: 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." FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

Others, too, were aware that Morrison intended to join Pamela Courson in Paris:

LINDA ASHCROFT: Though he didn’t set a departure date for Paris – he wanted to wake up one day and get on a plane, not dread it – we knew it would be soon. Any day. Pg. 477 WILD CHILD

DANNY SUGERMAN: [Morrison said] That’s exactly what I’m doing – a semi-sabbatical, a career break. I’ll be back in no time. Pg. 178 WONDERLAND AVENUE

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Q. HOW DID HIS FRIENDS AND BANDMATES REACT TO THE NEWS THAT JIM MORRISON WAS GOING TO PARIS?

Manzarek sensed that “something was wrong”, as Morrison had always been involved in the final mixes of the albums but tried his best to be supportive and not over-react.
RAY MANZAREK: “Paris, huh?” I said. “Now, that’s interesting, man. That would be a good place to get away for a while. “ “Yeah, I think so, too” he said. PG. 9 LIGHT MY FIRE
RAY MANZAREK: To be honest, I hoped Jim would use the break to get away from his drinking buddies; get away from the hangers-on who were always attaching themselves to him and taking him to the too many bars, dives, gin mills, and wherevers. The sycophants. The leeches, as John and Robby and I called them. His “friends,” as they became called in later years...they were just sucking up his energy, keeping him from being a poet...and he wouldn’t be writing. He wouldn’t be creating. He should have been spinning out great passages of new verse, instead of talking it out and staggering home to Pam way past the midnight hour. How many great lyrics got lost in that senseless flood of drunken activity? How many great poems fell victim to those bad habits...

...They [Jim’s drinking buddies] were a real sore point with Pam Courson, Jim’s live-in lady and soul mate. Pam was always angry because Jim was running around and getting drunk with his friends...So to make things up to her, on her suggestion, he was going to take her to Paris.

Hell, it seemed like a good idea; at least at the time...He could be the next generation of the bohemian ideal, an American in Paris...I wanted him to go to Paris and write again. Forget about being a rock star. It was time for Jim Morrison to be an artist again. Just like in the beginning. PGS. 10 – 122 LIGHT MY FIRE

FRANK LISCIANDRO: "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." THE DOORS QUARTERLY INTERVIEW.
RAY MANZAREK: So off he went. Left the session, just like that. John and Robby and I just looked at each other, dumbfounded. All we could do was shrug our shoulders. “I think it’s a good idea” said Robby. “Me too” I agreed. “Paris and writers, it’s a natural.” “Maybe he’ll get the muse back” Robby said hopefully. PG. 12 LIGHT MY FIRE

Q. HOW LONG DID MORRISON INTEND TO STAY IN PARIS? DID HE HAVE ANY CONCRETE LONG-TERM PLANS, OR EVEN A GENERAL SENSE OF WHAT HE WAS GOING TO DO LONG-TERM? DID MORRISON GIVE ANY INDICATION THAT HE INTENDED TO RESUME HIS ACTIVITIES WITH THE DOORS?

RAY MANZAREK: “How long, uhh...how long you gonna be there?” “You know, Ray, I don’t know” Jim said...”I don’t have any plans yet” he said. “I just need a break. Some time to myself. A couple of months, six months. Maybe a year. Who knows, man? I don’t.
“It’ll give you a chance to work on those notes from Miami” I encouraged. “I want to read that book.” It was to be called Observations on America, While on Trial for Obscenity. He smiled. “I’m gonna rake ‘em over the coals. This time it’s my turn.” “A new de Tocqueville,” I said. “We need one for the twentieth century. “ He just smiled that sheepish little-boy grin of his and waved his hand at me. “Oh, man.” “Hey, you can do it. Who better?” PG. 9 LIGHT MY FIRE
LINDA ASHCROFT: [Upon Morrison presenting Ashcroft with a diamond ring, Ashcroft replied ]Give this to me in September. When you get back from Paris”. PG. 475 WILD CHILD
PATRICIA KENNEALY: [In his letters he writes about]...how much he looks forward to our being together in New York as he has promised, by October at the latest, so he can catch the fall colors. PG. 315 STRANGE DAYS
LINDA ASHCROFT: ...He’d give [Pamela] six months to help her get off heroin, a settlement to give her a start, and she would sign an agreement not to sue. I had a hundred misgivings, but he said “I need to do this to be the man I want to be.”...Finally, he repeated himself about the six months promised Pam to get her on her feet. “I owe her that” he said. PG. 476 WILD CHILD

DANNY SUGERMAN: "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,
Danny Sugerman, Doors Productions." On 27th April 1971, LETTER TO FAN

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

PATRICIA KENNEALY: ...And then he gets into us, him and me, how we will be together in New York, in the fall, for the start of “the season” as he puts it, how we will get a loft downtown, have poetry readings of his stuff at the St. Mark’s Church poetry project where Tandy Martin’s husband reads his own work, I can write my novels and Jim will do poems and films, maybe we will even write things together... PG. 296 STRANGE DAYS
ALAN RONAY: [Jim Morrison said] I’ve no intention of leaving Paris. FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH””

ROBBY KRIEGER: We never really broke up…It was understood that it was gonna be a long vacation for everybody. But there was no talk of breaking up The Doors…We finished our contract with Elektra, as far as albums go…we were gonna take a long vacation for sure, but we didn’t say okay, let’s break up the group…you do a solo album, you do a solo album, and whatever….” PG. 447 BREAK ON THROUGH

PATRICIA KENNEALY: When Jim left LA in March 1971, he left The Doors as well – whether they knew it or not, whether they believed it or not.

JOHN DENSMORE: "... I am sure that he wanted to come back." FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

LINDA ASHCROFT: Jim was leaving for Paris. We were running out of time together. He pulled me over to him and asked ‘Is it too much to ask that you wait six months for me?...drawing his finger along my body, he repeated “Wait for me. Wait for me”. PG. 481 WILD CHILD

PATRICIA BUTLER: I won’t be back in the States until September at the earliest, he told [Tere Tereba]. PG. 163 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

JIM MORRISON: "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." ROLLING STONE INTERVIEW WITH BEN FONG-TORRES A FEW DAYS BEFORE HIS DEPARTURE
According to Densmore, when he and Jim Morrison spoke on the phone in late June Morrison himself suggested they record another album upon his return from Paris.

JOHN DENSMORE: “How’s L.A. Woman doing?”…”Great! It’s really doing great,” I said enthusiastically…”Well, maybe we should do another one?” “Sure Jim, good idea.” “When do you think you might come back?” I asked him...”Oh, a few months.”… PG. 7 RIDERS ON THE STORM
RAY MANZAREK: The next day John reported in. Everything was okay. Jim was feeling good, having a good time. He had shaved his beard, he was excited about the critical acclaim for [L.A. Woman] and, best of all, he was looking forward to playing again. “As soon as I get back we gotta go on the road,” he told John. “I want to play those songs live. We never got a real chance to do that.”...”Well, shiiiit, John, let’s just book a little tour. What d’ya say?” “When?” “When I get back.” “When’s that?” “I don’t know...I’m having a pretty good time,” Jim answered. “I’ll be here a while yet.” “Well, okay,” said John. I’ll tell the guys.” “Good, give ‘em my love” answered Jim. PG. 13 LIGHT MY FIRE
RAINER MODDEMANN: 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. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE
JERRY HOPKINS/DANNY SUGERMAN: When John told Jim how well the album and single were selling and how much the press liked the records, Jim was amazed. “If they like this, wait’ll they hear what I got in mind for the next one,” he told John. PG. 361 NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE
ROBBY KRIEGER: In fact Jim had never quit The Doors, what else could he do, he would have been dead-bored after a couple of months. I think he always would have come back to the group. INTERVIEW WITH RAINER MODDEMANN, 1999 DOORS QUARTERLY MAGAZINE

HANK ZEVALLOS: There also were no future Doors plans in the works. They had completed their contract extension with Elektra and there was only a very loose “we’ll meet in maybe a year and see what happens.” FEB 2000 –<br>
RAY MANZAREK: "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." FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE
FRANK LISCIANDRO: 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." FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE
HERVE’ MULLER: I remember that he honestly wanted to settle in France. PG. 163 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

PATRICIA BUTLER: [Morrison] grew somewhat evasive when talk would inevitably turn to The Doors... PG. 162 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

BILL SIDDONS: “We talked to him about coming back” says Siddons, “and all we ever got was ‘Ah. No plans! I’m having a great time. Maybe someday we’ll do another record, but no plans!” … PG. 162 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE
Q. WHAT, IF ANY, COMMUNICATION DID MORRISON HAVE WITH HIS BANDMATES WHILE HE WAS IN PARIS?
JERRY HOPKINS/DANNY SUGARMAN: [Morrison] placed an early morning call to John Densmore and asked him how the material was coming. PG. 361 NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE

RAY MANZAREK: John [Densmore] finally said, impatiently, “I’m gonna call [Jim].” I said “Why? Let him alone for a while. He doesn’t want anybody bugging him. He’ll call when he’s ready.” John paced the rehearsal room, unable to control his anxiety. “I just gotta know” he said. “I can’t wait any longer.” And so he called him. PG. 13 LIGHT MY FIRE
Contrary to Manzarek’s statement that John Densmore initiated the call, Densmore claims that Morrison called him.

JOHN DENSMORE: The phone rang on a Thursday morning. “Hey, man, how ya doin’?” said the voice I knew only too well, the whiskeyed voice that struck terror in me. PG. 6 RIDERS ON THE STORM

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

And in contrast to what Densmore states, Rainer Moddemann claims Morrison calls on a different day:

MODDEMANN - On (Monday) 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. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

Q. MORRISON’S RELATIONSHIP WITH PAMELA COURSON WAS STORMY AND TEMPESTUOUS FROM THE START. HOW DID THEY GET ALONG IN PARIS? SOME HAVE IT THAT MORRISON INTENDED TO DISSOLVE THEIR RELATIONSHIP ONCE AND FOR ALL, AND OTHERS CLAIM THAT THEY FURTHER DEPEND THEIR BOND FOR ONE ANOTHER IN PARIS.

ALAN RONAY: “…[Pamela] led her own independent life in Paris and did not live with him. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

JERRY HOPKINS/DANNY SUGERMAN: To ZoZo (Elizabeth Lariviere) it seemed a peculiar relationship. Whenever she talked with Pamela, Pamela spoke only of Jim and how wonderful he was, “everything was Jeem, Jeem, Jeem.” But then when Pamela stayed out all night with some of the French friends she’d made through the rich count, in the mornings on the telephone she begged ZoZo to tell a lie for her. “Oh please say to Jeem I was in your friend’s house all the night and I’m going to come back at twelve.” I always used to have to say that to [Jim]. PG. 351 NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE

LINDA ASHCROFT: “Pamela is having this fantasy about our getting back together. She seems to have confused the public image we’ve had for some time with the reality of the trip. If she introduces herself as Mrs. Morrison one more time, she’s going to have to slap me out of hysterics.”. ..Delighted by the sound of his voice, I had to make myself pay attention to what he was saying...September seems awfully far away.” PG. 483 WILD CHILD

PATRICIA KENNEALY: [Morrison said] it’s over, but I think I owe her this...” ”This isn’t doing her any favors –“ “I know, I know, I just want to end it off gently”. PG. 296 STRANGE DAYS

PATRICIA BUTLER: For the first time he began talking about having children [with Pamela]... As they had done several times before in the States, the couple obtained another marriage license. PG. 158 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

BILL SIDDONS: [Referring to a marriage license allegedly taken out while in Paris] I know because I saw it.” PG. 473 BREAK ON THROUGH

JERRY HOPKINS/DANNY SUGERMAN: [For a period of time, while they traveled through the South of France] Jim and Pamela were getting along well, nearly as well as she’d one day boast. Living together for an extended period in a car and in small hotel rooms provoked small arguments, but the distractions were numerous and marvelous. PG 355 NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE

LINDA ASHCROFT: The thirtieth of June Jim’s voice was so tired, I wanted to send him my exuberance over the wire... “Pamela and I had our last fight. She made confetti of all my recent work. She’s never destroyed my writing before. I told her that ends my obligation to her.” PG 486 – 487 WILD CHILD

JIM MORRISON: Hello Bob, how are you? The weather today finally turned sunny, after a month of gray. Paris is beautiful in the sun, an exciting town, built for human beings. Speaking to Bill (Siddons) a while back I told him of our desire to stay here indefinitely. Will that be possible? Could you write and give me an idea of how long we can stay on living at our present rate, a sort of financial statement in general? Also, a copy of the partnership agreement, if it was ever completed. We have decided to turn the shop (Themis, Pamela's boutique) over to Tom and Judy (Pamela's sister and her husband), so they can seek alone. All but the furnishing sans some personal things, which we ought to keep. Eventually, we'd like to be completely clear of any involvement. Could you help to figure out the best way to do this? Incidentally, would you ask Judy for her parents' address and send them 100 bucks for the dog (Jim and Pamela's dog Sage)? Any luck on the credit cards? We Could use them made out in both our names. What's the problem? And if you'd send our cheque when you receive this - house bills are catching up. Please send $3,000. Give our best to all, later, Jim . LETTER TO BOB GREENE, RECEIVED ON JULY 3, 1971

PATRICIA KENNEALY: [In his letters to me] ...He speaks tenderly of how he misses me, of how it is winding down at last to the final break with Pam, of how there is so much history there, both good and bad, but that this is really it, as far as he’s concerned...” PG. 315 STRANGE DAYS

PATRICIA BUTLER: Jim told Bill [Siddons] that he was doing fine, that he and Pamela were living together and doing well… Jim and Pam talked briefly about buying a house in the French countryside. PG. 162-163 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

HERVE’ MULLER: [Pamela] wanted to find an old church or chapel and turn it into a house. PG. 163 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

KATHY LISCIANDRO:...maybe he did marry Pam but I know from a phone conversation with him in may that he kept up his old on-again-off-again style of living, one apartment with her, one without. PG. 113 THE DOORS COMPANION (ROCCO)

Q. WHERE EXACTLY DID MORRISON STAY WHILE IN PARIS?

RAINER MODDEMANN: 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....To begin with, they lived at the Hotel Georges V in Avenue Georges V. 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... FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE
PATRICIA BUTLER: When Jim first arrived in Paris in March, he stayed only one night with Pamela at the elegant Hotel Georges V before declaring it a little overdone for his maturing tastes. “It’s like a New Orleans bordello” he complained. So the couple had spent a few weeks at the more modest Hotel Du Nice, where Jim had again experienced problems with – and rejected medical treatment for – his asthma, before moving into the spacious but sparsely furnished apartment just off the rue St. Antoine that Pamela had arranged for them to sublet. Jim seemed pleased with Pamela’s choice. “Can’t get anything like this in L.A.,” he said. PG 159 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE
PAMELA COURSON: Before living at rue Beautreillis, my boyfriend and I lived for three weeks at the Hôtel de Nice, rue de Beaux Arts, I think...” FROM PAMELA COURSON’S POLICE STATEMENT
RAINER MODDEMANN: 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. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Q. DID MORRISON FIND HIS MUSE IN PARIS? WAS HE TRULY PRODUCTIVE AS A WRITER?

LINDA ASHCROFT : Jim sent a postcard from Los Angeles, before he even took off for Paris...Ten days later, I received a note from Paris. A few hurried lines questioning what in the world he was doing...there were two more letters that, to my disappointment, included no poems. One page each saying he was lonely and tired and not finding the time to write...[subsequently speaking on the phone to Morrison, who had called from Paris] The writing isn’t going well? I asked. He’d hinted at writer’s block in his brief letters. “Not going at all. I thought talking to you might help. This is a bigger strain than I’d expected,” Jim admitted. Pg. 483 WILD CHILD

PATRICIA KENNEALY: …In April, I get my first communiqué’ from Paris…May brings a real letter, June two more letters and a small package – the last things I am ever to receive from Jim’s hand. The gifts are as they are; but the letters are alarming. Not so much the first two, save only between the lines: Outwardly Jim speaks with real feeling of the beauty of Paris but then admits that he has been ill and unable to write as much as he would like, that he cannot seem to settle into a productive creative groove, cannot find his writing voice, and this makes him unhappy and uncertain. PG. 314 STRANGE DAYS
LINDA ASHCROFT: Jim gathered his strength by telling me he had made a tape in a studio of his three new songs to send to the other Doors as a peace offering...I wrote down the lyrics on the newspaper that was spread out on the table. In case Pamela got her hands on them, I told myself, I’ll have copies to present him at the airport. The songs were so beautiful, they made me cry. PG 498 WILD CHILD

ALAN RONAY: ...He wrote all the time. FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”.

LINDA ASHCROFT: “What makes dealing with Pamela worse is that I can’t write worth shit. I keep telling people about this novel I’m working on. Don’t remember what the hell I’ve told them, but it sure isn’t on paper...I sit with paper in front of me but I can’t write a goddamn sentence. Did I ever write anything? I can’t remember what I sounded like. PG 483 – 484 WILD CHILD

ALAN RONAY: He wrote practically every day.” PG. 158 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

LINDA ASHCROFT: He read from a long poem he had teased about in his postcard. A man in Paris reflects on America. The expatriate has a love / hate relationship with his own heartbeat of a country...The new poem was angry. PG. 486 WILD CHILD

KATHY LISCIANDRO: Maybe he was doing something close to a reasonable amount of writing. Maybe. The Jim I knew had a king-size block as a writer. For him to get off even a few lines a week might look like a burst of productivity from up close. PG. 113 THE DOORS COMPANION (ROCCO)

LINDA ASHCROFT: Jim’s next letter implied the writing was rolling; the next, a false start. Then he wrote a postcard claiming at least he was writing a poem about the blues...On the very day I received the postcard, Jim made a second call. ..[After meeting with an analyst who reassured him that he need not lose his creative edge by operating within a normal sphere, he realized] He had gone to help Pamela and found help for himself. PG. 485 WILD CHILD

Q. WHAT WAS JIM MORRISON’S GENERAL STATE OF MIND WHILE IN PARIS?

JERRY HOPKINS/DANNY SUGERMAN: ...It was calm, at first. PG. 350 NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE

ALAN RONAY: In the beginning he was very hopeful and bright about a new life. Most of the time he was very calm and wasn’t drinking very much. He wrote practically every day…I rally felt that he totally reclaimed himself. BREAK ON THROUGH PG. 445

PATRICIA KENNEALY: [In his first two letters to me]...he ends both missives on determinedly upbeat notes, as if he were trying to convince himself as well as me. Still, the subtext of depression is there in both letters, and much plainer in the second than in the first. PR. 315 STRANGE DAYS

RAINER MODDEMANN: Although it would seem that Morrison enjoyed traveling and certainly relished not having to put on airs or be hounded by paparazzi he nonetheless seemed to edge more and more into a state of depression. Morrison continued to struggle with his alcoholism and was probably wracked with guilt indecision and relative to his personal relationships (should he break it off once and for all with Pamela, should he return and live with Patricia Kennealy? What of the unborn child Kennealy had aborted? What was to become of the band? What did he want to do with his life? FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE
KATHY LISCIANDRO: I suppose he’d have been pleased to find himself but my impression was he didn’t know where to look and had long ago given up trying, except maybe in the bottle. You know what people find in vodka bottles, vodka. PG. 113 THE DOORS COMPANION (ROCCO)

LINDA ASHCROFT: Jim sent a postcard from Los Angeles before he even took off for Paris...Ten days later I received a note from Paris. A few hurried lines questioning what in the world he was doing...There were two more letters that, to my disappointment, included no poems. One page each saying he was lonely and tired and not finding the time he had counted on to write.” PGS. 482 – 483 BREAK ON THROUGH

BILL SIDDONS: I spoke to Jim on three separate occasions. He always seemed to be in good spirits, happy that he’d gone [to Paris], and optimistic.” PG. 162 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

PATRICIA KENNEALY: I had eight or ten cards and letters from him in the three months he spent there. Some were exalted and joyous and others were veiled in despair. The last letter he wrote me was mailed only a few days before he died. He wrote of how tired he was and how much he missed me. "My side is cold without you..." he told me. The letter was to weep for, and I did, and still do. INTERVIEW WITH AMERICAN LEGENDS

Frank Lisciandro’s recollections seem to corroborate this:

FRANK LISCIANDRO: “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 motor drive 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.".” FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

…as do Alan Ronay’s, who paints a picture of Morrison’s time in Paris as one of peacefulness and serenity.

ALAN RONAY: Therefore, with a few exceptions, Jim and I spent almost the whole month of June alone together. Our days were tranquil and were probably the best we shared....In that brief period he was happy, calm and free. Paris was good for him. FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>
PATRICIA KENNEALY: …But it is the third letter Jim sends me, the last one, the June one, which genuinely frightens me…he calls to mind joyful things…but otherwise there is little joy here. He speaks of standing on the down slope to a void and not knowing where, or even if, he is; of crying himself to sleep on a night of rain and wondering if I heard him; says that for the first time he is uncertain of where I am, says that he reaches out for me in his sleep but his side is cold with my absence.

He writes that he thinks he really wants to be dead, not mad, after all, and how I always thought it was the other way around…he says that he feels cornered, says that he’s not even going to mail this to me after all.

And toward the end he writes that he is tired…says that he walked for miles and came home limping; says he doesn’t really know why he does these things and yet seems to learn so little... [He] says that now he requires that reassurance {that he hadn’t sold out – ed.} from me; says he wants me to look at him and tell him that he has not sold anything that could not be bought save by honest coinage.

There is much more in the same dreadful despairing vein: The pages seem frosted with hopelessness…The more I read and reread, the more I weep for him, and the more I want to jump on the first plane to Paris and drag him back with me to safety in my arms, forever, away from his pain.

But his pain seems to be his fellow-traveler, and other people are hearing very different things from him, seemingly, at this very moment… To some he talks of getting back in the studio in September; to others he speaks of having finally, definitively, broken with Pam...and wanting to return home before the fourth of July (bitter irony); to others still he extends invitations to come stay with him and Pam in their Parisian idyll. It is all probably true and meant, and to weep for. PGS. 315-316 STRANGE DAYS

RAINER MODDEMANN: 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? FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE
JOHN DESNMORE: “Hi Jim” I replied tentatively…”How is it over there? …How’s France?” “Okay. Not bad” Jim said noncommittally. PG. 6 RIDERS ON THE STORM

PATRICIA KENNEALY: [Recalling the last time she spoke with Morrison] He called for my birthday, the first week of March, and apologized for his behavior in L.A. Then I got a couple of letters from Paris promising he’d be with me in New York in the Fall. I think we both wanted to believe it. By now I was absolutely convinced he was going to die. It felt as if he wasn’t even there anymore. I could feel him leaving, disengaging, like the moon. Like the tide. Just getting the hell out. I don’t think anybody – not Pam, not me, not the other Doors, or his other friends – could have stopped him by then, and I’m not even sure it would have been kind or wise to try. We had all tried in the past, of course, but it was like jumping in front of a runaway car as it heads for the cliffs – it goes over regardless and if you don’t go over with it you are left bleeding in the dust. I’d have sold my soul to save him, but I knew that it wouldn’t have helped. PG. 449 BREAK ON THROUGH

FRANK LISCIANDRO: 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. 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. " FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE
PAMELA COURSON: “Jim’s suicidal.” PG. 401 WILD CHILD

PATRICIA KENNEALY: I think he was just incredibly depressed. I heard stories and I have letters that are just so down. Nothing was happening. He wasn’t writing. He wasn’t able to get past whatever it was. Paris was really not what he thought it was going to be. He claimed he was winding up his relationship with Pam and that he’d come back in the fall and we would be together. It made me happy that he wrote that, but I didn’t believe it…I think he was just casting around at that point, looking for something to believe in.” PGS. 461-462 BREAK ON THROUGH

Q. CLEARLY THERE ARE DIFFERING REPORTS ON MORRISON’S STATE OF MIND WHILE IN PARIS. HOW WAS HIS PHYSICAL HEALTH?

JAMES RIORDAN/JERRY PROCHNICKY: In France, [approximately 4 months after his February fall from the Chateau Marmont] Morrison was said to be having some sort of respiratory trouble, even coughing up blood now and then. Pam later claimed that Jim saw two doctors during the time and even complained of the condition on the day before his death. PG. 453 BREAK ON THROUGH

PATRICIA BUTLER: But Paris was proving to be good for Jim, and in a matter of weeks his physical appearance reflected that benefit. PG. 157 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

RAINER MODDEMANNN: To cover up his now already uncomfortable and corpulent figure he wore baggy shirts and dark striped trousers, together with his old, worn out suede boots. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

JERRY HOPKINS/DANNY SUGERMAN: But contrary to Pamela’s fantasy, Jim was still drinking – and heavily. PG. 352 NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE

JAMES RIORDAN/JERRY PROCHNICKY: By late June, whatever Morrison had hoped to accomplish in Paris was becoming lost in a sea of booze and he slid into a massive depression. The last thing to go was his art, and though Morrison could still create, he could no longer be satisfied with his creations. PG. 449 BREAK ON THROUGH

PAMELA COURSON: [In Morocco] I woke up one morning and saw this handsome man by the hotel pool, talking to two young American girls. I fell instantly in love with him. Then I realized it was Jim. I hadn’t recognized him. He had got up early and shaved his beard, and he was so lean from losing so much weight, he seemed a new man. PG. 350 NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE

PATRICIA BUTLER: The excursion to London…was cut short when Jim’s asthma once again flared up. This time his breathing was affected to the point where a doctor had to be summoned to the couple’s hotel room in the middle of the night. Again the doctor wrote out a prescription for asthma medication, but whether Jim followed through with this course of treatment is doubtful. PG. 163 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

RAINER MODDEMANN: [Phil] Trainer particularly remembers Jim's coughing fits in between deep inhalations from the cigarettes he smoked. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

RAINER MODDEMANN: 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. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

JAMES RIORDAN/JERRY PROCHNICKY: Morrison had come to realize that he was an alcoholic and he struggled to stop drinking. Spent three weeks in April and May traveling across France, Spain and Morocco, and another 10 days at the end of May visiting Corsica...PG. 448 BREAK ON THROUGH

We know for a fact that, contrary to Ronay’s clam that Morrison “had almost Stopped drinking”, that Morrison was in fact drinking heavily and often.

JAMES RIORDAN/JERRY PROCHNICKY:– He took to wild partying again and he and Pam clashed regularly. Often she ran with her friends and he with his just like they had so many times in L.A. Jim met a whole new set of drinking buddies in Paris and he started hanging around sleazy French nightclubs…within a few months he had brought about the very same life he had tried to run away from. PG. 449 BREAK ON THROUGH

GILLES YEPREMIUM: He drank like hell, every day. INTERVIEW WITH RAINER MODDEMANN IN DOORS QUARTLERY, APRIL 1993

SAM BERNETT: He was always high or drunk, in an abnormal state. PG. 148 THE DOORS COMPANION( ROCCO)

HERVE’ MULLER: He was drinking twice as much as anybody else. At the end of the meal they came with two bottles of cognac and asked him which one he wanted. And he just grabbed one of them, tore off the top and raised the neck to his mouth...” PG. 358 NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

RAINER MODDEMANN: 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.
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. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE
Not only had he informed Patricia Kennealy that he had been ill, but Alan Ronay relates that:

ALAN RONAY: While I was coming up the landing…Jim let a bundle of firewood fall (we had just bought the wood for the fireplace). He was winded and couldn’t get his breath back. He complained saying that he needed the firewood to keep warm, in June. “But do you feel OK?”, I asked him. “Look at me, I’m ten years older than you and not exactly in such terrific shape, but I’m not winded either”. FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>RAINER MODDEMANN: 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. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE
ALAN RONAY: He had gotten rid of the damage produced by fame and had found himself again...and he had almost stopped drinking…He didn’t take drugs yet. Pam’s habit hadn’t gotten to him yet. FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>
Allegedly, the physician advised him to stop smoking and drinking heavily. Apparently he had become unable to concentrate on his writing and was victim to severe coughing fits.

PAMELA COURSON: Before living at rue Beautreillis, my boyfriend and I lived for three weeks at the Hotel de Nice, rue de Beaux Arts, I think, and while we were there my friend was sick, he was complaining of difficulty breathing and he also had coughing fits at night. I called a doctor to the hotel who prescribed pills for asthma but my friend didn’t like to see doctors and never looked after himself seriously. I can not say precisely who the doctor was, and I didn’t keep the prescription. During a previous stay in London my friend had already experienced the same problems. PAMELA COURSON’S POLICE STATEMENT

LINDA ASHCROFT: When he told me he felt too tired for one more fight with Pamela, I asked that he go straight to the Paris airport....I owe her a decent goodbye...A few days won’t matter.” PG. 489 WILD CHILD

GILLES YEPREMIAN: "I was there with some friends in the restaurant of the club", Gilles Yepremian "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." INTERVIEW WITH RAINER MODDEMANN FOR DOORS QUARTERLY, APRIL 1993
RAINER MODDEMANN: 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. [Morrison] 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 2ND NIGHT 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. 3RD EVENING? A taxi took him back to the Rue des Beaux Arts, where a furious Pamela was waiting for him. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE
GILLES YEPREMIAN: Hervé and I met a girl several months later, her boyfriend was in jail, and this girl was called Nicole. She told everyone it was her boyfriend who sold the drug to Jim. But who knows. It is very hard to believe what a pusher says. INTERVIEW WITH RAINER MODDEMANN FOR DOORS QUARTERLY, APRIL 1993

PATRICIA KENNEALY: The difficult with the heroin scenario was that anyone who knew Jim at all well had big problems accepting smack as the cause of his death. And not just because he was scared of needles, either...if Jim had ever wanted to do smack, in Paris or anywhere else, he could have always snorted it. And it was always obtainable; he had only to ask Pam...But Jim’s horror of heroin was deep-seated and strong, well know to those who were close to him. He never evidenced to me anything other than loathing and distaste for the idea of the drug, and contempt for those who used (oh yes, including Pam). Although he tolerated her habit...in all the time they were around each other he never joined her in her indulgence...I myself will never believe that Jim was a junkie; that he habitually used heroin and none of us knew it, or that we would have kept quiet about it had we known. PG. 386 STRANGE DAYS

GILLES YEPREMIAN: …We never saw him take drugs; alcohol seemed to be more his thing.” INTERVIEW WITH RAINER RODDEMAN DOORS QUARTERLYAPRIL 1993

LINDA ASHCROFT : “You don’t do that [heroin]?” “No. I tried opium in college. Wound up spitting blood. Decided I was allergic to opiates.” PG. 379 WILD CHILD

Q. HOW EXACTLY DID JIM MORRISON SPEND HIS FINAL DAY IN PARIS?

Hopkins / Sugarman tell us that all day Thursday, July 1, and Friday, July 2, 1971, Morrison was deeply depressed and that Alan Ronay and Pamela Courson tried in vain to cheer him up. They report that “Alan Ronay had never seen him so low, and Pamela was frightened.” On the evening of Friday, July 2, on the suggestion of Ronay, the three of them ate dinner at an outdoor café located in close proximity to the apartment Jim and Pamela shared. In her statement to police, Pamela states that Morrison ate dinner alone and that she had not joined him.
We know that after dinner Morrison sent a telegram to his editor Johnathan Dolger requesting that the cover of the soon-to-be-released paperback “The Lords And The New Creatures” be altered (replacing the famous “young lion” photo with a more recent picture that better represented who Morrison was these days). And then it is precisely at this point that events become shrouded in mystery and incongruities.
Some reports – those most frequently circulated - have it that Jim Morrison went by himself to see the movie “Pursued”, starring Robert Mitchum. After watching the movie Morrison returned to the flat he shared with Pamela Courson.
Other unsubstantiated reports, claim that Morrison was driven to the airport and was witnessed boarding a plane. There is no reliable source, nor any documentation, to substantiate this.
And still others have it that Morrison went to the Rock And Roll Circus, a club that Hopkins claims “By the Spring of 1971, the club had become a heroin marketplace that was frequented by the professional underworld; the whores, the thieves, the pimps.”<br>
HERVE’ MULLER: “Jim was supposed to finance a drug deal for Pamela and her Parisian junkie friends there. Pamela had been a heroin addict for a long time. The dealer offered him to test the wares. Although Morrison is no junkie himself, he is drunk enough to agree. He goes to the restroom and sniffs a little of the heroin the dealer gave him. In the presence of Pamela’s drug friends he passes out. The heroin is very strong and Morrison already completely drunk – a deadly combination.” PG. 15 MUSIK EXPRESS SOUNDS MAGAZINE

RAINER MODDEMANN: 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. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

ALAN RONAY: I can’t believe some of the things written about Jim dying in a nightclub or there being bloodstained daggers found under his bed…Some accounts even have us eating at a sidewalk café on the night of his death and me saying that I thought he was terribly depressed. None of that’s true. We didn’t dine together that night and I didn’t say I thought he looked depressed. I had been living with them but had moved out a few days before that. On July 2nd I spent the whole day with Jim but I left him and Pam around six or seven in the evening because I had a date for dinner. I did recommend that he see Pursued and he was trying to get me to meet them at the movie. When I saw Pam the next day, amid all the drama, it was like we were in shock. I said “Did you go?” and she said they had gone, but that he didn’t like the movie very much.” PG. 459 BREAK ON THROUGH

In the official statement made to police, Pamela stumbles over her words before explaining that Morrison went out to dinner alone the night before his death, followed by their mutual night out at the cinema:

PAMELA COURSON: Last night I had dinner with my friend. I am not explaining myself properly. I didn’t have dinner last night, my friend went out to a restaurant on his own, probably in the area. When my friend came back we went to the cinema to see the film Death Valley. PAMELA COURSON’S POLICE REPORT

BOB SEYMORE: He and Pam went to the cinema where they saw the late evening screening of Death Valley at around 11.00 PM. After the film they returned home. PGS. 66 – 67 THE END

JAMES RIORDAN/JERRY PROCHNICKY: The following day Alan Ronay stopped over and recommended that Jim see a Robert Mitchum film, Pursued, knowing that Morrison admired the actor. According to Pam, Morrison decided to go and see the movie and set off for the cinema alone. PG. 450 BREAK ON THROUGH

'PAMELA COURSON: When my friend came back from the restaurant, we both went to the cinema to see the film Death Valley. The cinema is beside the Metro Station Le Pelletier, I think it is called Action Lafayette. We came back from the cinema around 1.00 AM.” PAMELA COURSON’S POLICE REPORT

ALAN RONAY: 'I did recommend that he see Pursued and he was trying to get me to meet them at the movie. When I saw Pam the next day, amidst all the drama, it was like we were in shock. I said, "Did you go?" And she said they had gone, but that he didn't like the movie very much.' PG. 459 BREAK ON THROUGH

RAINER MODDEMANN: After this, he and Pamela went to a cinema near the metro station Pelletier, to watch the film Death Valley. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

JERRY HOPKINS/DANNY SUGERMAN: He then took Pamela home, going on alone to a movie that Alan had recommended (Pursued with Robert Mitchum). PG.365 NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE

PAMELA COURSON: …we came back from the cinema around 1:00am. I did the dishes and my friend watched an amateur film from a projector. My friend looked in good health; he seemed very happy. However, I have to say, my friend never complained; it wasn’t in his nature. We then listened to records; I should say that the record player is in the bedroom and we were both listening to the music lying on the bed. I think we went to sleep at 2:30am approximately, but I can’t say exactly because the record player stops automatically. No, we didn’t have any sexual intercourse last night. PAMELA COURSON’S POLICE REPORT

In stark contrast to the domestic scene she had presented to the authorities, Courson gave a far different story to Alan Ronay. According to Ronay, who kept the secret until his confessionary article. Pamela Courson said:

PAMELA COURSON: “The other night we came home right after the movie. When we arrived we immediately began to sniff heroin and Jim began to play his songs. He played all of them, one after another, even ‘The End’. Then we went to bed. Jim asked me to give him some more stuff, that’s how it happened that he took much more than me, especially since he’d taken some on his own during the day. We also did a little on the night before.” FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>
This alleged confession was purportedly made in the presence of Agnes Varda, Ronay’s companion.

Q. WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE ACTIVITIES OF THE HOURS DIRECTLY PRIOR TO MORRISON’S DEATH?

There are a variety of accounts of the sequence of events of the night proceeding the actual death, as well as on the morning of Morrison’s death.

Pamela Courson’s official statement to police was recorded as follows:

PAMELA COURSON: Round about 3:30am I think, because there was not a clock in the bedroom and I didn’t notice the time, I was woken by the noise my friend was making with his breathing. His breathing was noisy and I thought he was choking. It was noisy…

I shook my friend. I slapped him a few times to wake him. I shook him and he woke up. I asked him what was wrong. I wanted to call a doctor. He got up, walked about in the bedroom and then told me he wanted to have a bath. PAMELA COURSON’S POLICE STATEMENT

Pamela’s confession to Ronay of this sequence was virtually identical:

PAMELA COURSON: We fell asleep. I didn’t know what time it was when Jim’s heavy breathing woke me up. He was still asleep, but the poor guy had problems in breathing. I tried to wake him up but he didn’t react. I panicked and began to cry and hit him. I hit him hard once, twice, three times; nothing happened. I slapped him a couple of times. Then, he came to, but he didn’t seem much like himself. I was very tired but just the same I was successful in dragging him to the bathtub. FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>
In her confession to police Courson then stated:

PAMELA COURSON: He headed toward the bathroom and ran his bath. When he was in the bath he called to me and said that he felt sick and felt like vomiting. On my way I picked up an orange colored bowl. He vomited food into the bowl I was holding. I think there was blood in it. I emptied the content then my friend vomited into the container again, only blood this time and then a third time blood clots. Each time I emptied the bowl down the washbasin of the bathroom, then I washed the bowl. My friend then told me he felt strange but he said “I don’t feel sick; don’t call a doctor. I feel better. It’s over!” He told me to “go to bed” and said that he was going to finish his bath and would join me in bed. At this time it appeared to me that my friend felt better because he had vomited and his color had returned a bit. I went back to bed and I immediately fell asleep. I was reassured.

I don’t know how long I slept. I awoke with a start and I saw that my friend wasn’t lying next to me. I ran to the bathroom and saw that my friend was still in the bath, a little blood was running from his nostril. I shook my friend, thinking he would wake up. I thought he had fainted and was unconscious. I tried to get him out of the bath but I couldn’t. Then I phoned up Mr. Ronay. He came with his girlfriend, Ms. Agnes Demy, and they called, I think, the Fire Brigade or the Police. PAMELA COURSON’S POLICE REPORT

Again, save for the revelation that the two snorted heroin, Pamela Courson is very consistent in recounting the sequence of events that unfolded after their return home the apartment.

Pamela allegedly told Ronay:

PAMELA COURSON: “I woke up later in a cold sweat. Jim was not in bed with me. I found him in the bathtub, unconscious. Blood was running down his face, then he had those red marks on the right side of his chest. Suddenly, he began to vomit into the tub. Then, I ran tot he kitchen to look for a basin. I went back to him and in the basin I saw little pieces of pineapple that we had for dinner and then blood. I had to empty and wash the basin three times. The third time I noticed a bloodclot. I was so tired and he told me he felt better or something like that, so I went back to bed and fell asleep again.” FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>
Remember, in her statement to police Pamela had said that they had not eaten dinner together.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

ALAN RONAY: I received a phone call from Pam early that morning saying that Jim was dead and I was with her almost all the time from then on. Pam didn’t speak French and Robin Wertle, their secretary, was not in town that weekend, so we were alone in the apartment most of the time. While Pam was in a shocked sort of state for a while, she did recover within a few hours. I found her rather remarkable. She was really a strong person. Though it completely devastated her, in one sense she also showed enormous strength. PG. 459-460 BREAK ON THROUGH

On the morning of July 3, 1971, Alan Ronay was awakened twice (he was staying with Agnes Varda at her house). The first time he was awoken was at approximately 6:00am, when he thought he heard a telephone ringing. He got up and checked the phone, located in the wing of the apartment where Agnes Varda slept. There was no one on the line when he picked up. Ronay returned to bed, and was again awoken at 8:00am, this time most definitely by the sound of a ringing telephone. Ronay is certain about the time as:

ALAN RONAY: “When I had awakened for the second time, I was sure I heard the telephone ring. Outside the typical sounds of the market day could be heard. I heard the thump of the mail that fell through the mail slot in the doors. This meant it was 8:00am. The mail always arrived punctually.” FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>
On the phone was a Yoga teacher, whom Ronay had contacted on behalf of Jim Morrison. After conversing for perhaps a minute or so they hung up. Then, according to Ronay:

ALAN RONAY: “A few minutes later the phone rang again. It was Pam. She usually spoke in a soft tone, but this time there was a note of fear.…’Jim’s unconscious and bleeding! Call an ambulance! You know I don’t speak French…Hurry up!’ Pam was sobbing. Then, she added ‘I think he’s dying!” FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>
Because Ronay was unfamiliar with the French phone system, he had Varda call an ambulance to Morrison’s apartment. She could not get through immediately but was successful after several tries.

We believe that Pamela then called Max Fink, Morrison’s personal attorney, in Los Angeles. Most accounts have it that she called twice. At some point during this timeframe Pamela also called Jean de Breteuil and asked that he come over immediately.

There remains, of course, the question of precisely who actually called the Fire Brigade. Pamela claimed that the firemen were called for after Alan Ronay arrived at the apartment, whereas Ronay claimed originally that the firemen were already in attendance when he arrived (Rocco 152). In April 1991 Alan Ronay shared details about what he encountered upon his arrival in Morrison’s apartment.

ALAN RONAY: The third floor door was flung wide open. I saw Pam standing all alone at the end of the entrance corridor, but I couldn’t see too well because of a group of officials standing in the way. They moved out of the way when I tried to reach Pam who told me that Jim was dead. “My Jim is dead, Alain, he left us, he’s dead.” She added “I want to be alone now, please leave me alone”.

…He very courteously replied that they were unable to do anything for him since they had arrived at least an hour too late. FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>
LEUTENANT ALAIN RAISSON: This morning at 9:20am I went as commander of my unit to 17 rue Beautrellis, Paris 4th, the third floor, right hand side of the flat in answer to a report of ‘asphyxiation’. When we reached the flat, the door was opened by a young woman who could not speak French and who took us to the bathroom. In this room there was a man in the bath, completely naked and heavily built. His head was above the water, resting on the edge of the bath. The bath was full of water, slightly pink in color and his right arm was resting on the side of the bath. The water was still lukewarm, as well as the body. Together with my men, I took the body out and laid it on the floor of the bedroom where I started giving heart massage but I immediately realized that the victim was dead and I had the boy placed on the bed. When I went into the bathroom there was some water on the floor beside the bath and the dressing gown of the person who opened the door to us was wet. A little blood ran down from his right nostril when we laid the body on the floor. LT. ALAIN RAISSON’S OFFICIAL REPORT

DR. VASILLE: I note that the body does not show, apart from the lividity of death, any signs of suspicious traumatism or lesions of any kind. A little blood around the nostrils. DR. VASILLE’S OFFICIAL REPORT

Despite the blood that ran from his nostril, and notwithstanding Pamela’s statement that Morrison had coughed up blood clots, no autopsy was performed.

DR. VASILLE: The history of Mr. Morrison’s condition, such as it was described to us by a friend present at the scene, can be summed up as follows: Mr. Morrison had been complaining for a few weeks of chest pains with dyspnoea, it is evidently coronary problems, possibly aggravated by excessive drinking. One can imagine that on the occasion of a change of outside temperature, followed by a bath, these troubles were suddenly aggravated, leading to a classical myocardial infarction, causing sudden death. I conclude from my examination that death was caused by heart failure (natural death).” DR. VASILLE’S OFFICIAL REPORT

Although the official cause of death as listed by French medical examiner Dr, Max Vasille was heart failure”, Morrison was not known to have had any problems with his heart.

DR. ARNOLD DERWIN: Jim was in excellent health before he went to Paris...The fall from the Chateau Marmont did not do any serious damage. His lung was not punctured, only bruised and there was nothing from that injury that would create a blood clot, result in a respiratory condition, or cause him to spit up blood...He didn’t have anything like an embolism, pulmonary thrombosis, or any kind of advanced liver disease at all. I don’t believe his drinking could have caused a blood clot. PG. 457 BREAK ON THROUGH
According to Ronay, after Pamela Courson confided in him the events of the prior evening, he took a short walk outside and then returned to the apartment. Moments after returning, the doorbell rang and there were two men standing there.
ALAN RONAY: “I had hardly closed the door behind me when the two guys rang the bell. The tall one introduced himself as Jean, the short one as Jean-Lois. They asked for Pam. I explained to then that Pam couldn’t see anyone and I advised calling her the next day...“Look, she was the one who called me”, Jean said aggressively. “I know everything. I really do.”’ FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

According to Ronay, Varda then appeared and the taller man introduced himself to her:

ALAN RONAY: As his opening line Jean immediately said “I lived with Pam for six months…[Agnes] would have thrown them out right away if Pam hadn’t intervened by calling Jean, telling him to come in.

…On the landing, Jean told me that he was leaving for Marrakesh, where he had a house. He would have arranged everything in case Pam had wanted to join them there. In case it should become necessary he would even make his London apartment available. In exchange, I promised to keep him informed of further developments.” FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>
Ronay soon questioned Pamela about the heroin and other drugs.

ALAN RONAY: ‘“Pam, is there any stuff left in the house?’ I asked. ‘No’ she immediately protested. ‘The first thing I did was to flush everything down the toilet. There’s nothing left.’

‘Agnes just told me that Jean [de Breteuil] found a hashish pipe under the carpet in the foyer.’” FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>
ALBERT GOLDMAN: [Herve’ Muller] actually phoned [Morrison’s] apartment on the morning of his death, only to be told by Alan Ronay that the couple had gone out of town for the weekend. PG. 147 THE DOORS COMPANION (ROCCO)

By the time Siddons arrived on July 6, 1971, Pamela must have scored some more heroin:

BILL SIDDONS: Once, while alone in the living room, I opened a carved box on the coffee table and found a white powder in a clear envelope. Pam was in the kitchen, so I decided to try a little to see what it was. It wasn’t coke. Soon afterward I became nauseous and felt very sick. It sure was something I’d never tried before.” PG. 155 THE DOORS COMPANION (ROCCO)

MARIANNE FAITHFULL: [Jean de Breteuil and I] were staying at L’Hotel when he got a call from Pamela Morrison and he had to leave very suddenly. “Jean, listen to me,” I told him. “I’ve got to meet Jim Morrison.” “Not possible, baby. Not cool right now, okay?” “You’re an idiot and a fucking prig!” “Not now. Je t’explique later, okay? Be right back.” He slammed out of the room. But he didn’t come right back. He returned in the early hours of the morning in a very agitated state and woke me up. ..I lit a cigarette and asked him: “So, did you have a good time over there?”...”Get packed.” “Are we going somewhere?” “Morocco.”...”Uh-oh...What happened over there?” “Shut up, goddammit!” Oh, shit.” “Yeah, it’s fucked.” He was scared for his life; Jim Morrison had OD’d and he had provided the smack. Jean saw himself as a dealer to the stars. Now he was a small-time heroin dealer in big trouble...We were frenziedly throwing things into suitcases the way people do in crises...Subsequently, I read in some magazine that I was supposed to have been at Morrison’s when they broke down the bathroom door and found his body floating in the bath with the big purple bruise over his heart. Or alternately that I gave him the coup de grace (I never gave anyone a fix in my life...). PGS. 205 – 206 FAITHFULL
Based on Faithfull’s timeline, Jean de Breteuil was called away and spent some time before returning in the early hours of the morning. Also according to her, she did not accompany him and never went to the apartment.
MARIANNE FAITHFULL: I think I’d remember something like that. I never even met Jim Morrison. PG. 459 BREAK ON THROUGH

DIANE GARDINER: It’s ridiculous. Pam would’ve told me if the count and Marianne Faithful were involved. I don’t think that she’d be that detailed in making anything up about finding him and then talking and talking to him. “Oh c’mon Jim” she said she kept saying. “You know the way he always had that smile” she told me. When she realized he was dead she didn’t know what to do so she packed his body in ice. She got blocks of ice and packed them all around his body PG. 459 BREAK ON THROUGH

Alan Ronay’s story also places the time in the early morning:
ALAN RONAY: Early the next morning...I woke up with a start with the sensation that the telephone was ringing. Since I was a guest [of Agnes Vardas’] I never answered. But I wasn’t sure it was the telephone in the wing of the apartment where Agnes was slept that was ringing. I hurried across to the living room...Light was coming in from the garden. It must have been around 6:00am and I went back to bed with the tense nerves wondering if the telephone really had rung. When I was awakened the second time I was sure I heard the telephone ring...I heard the thump of the mail that fell through the mail slot in the doors. This meant it was 8:00am. The mail always arrived punctually...”<br>The call was from Monique Godard, a yoga teacher and spiritual healer offering to accept Pamela Courson as a patient. The conversed for several minutes and then bid each other goodbye. Then, at approximately 8:15 am or thereabouts,...
...A few minutes later the phone rang again. It was Pam [Courson]. She usually spoke in a soft tone of voice, but this time there was a note of fear...”Jim’s unconscious and bleeding! Call an ambulance! You know I don’t speak French...Hurry up!” Pam was sobbing. Then, she added, “I think he’s dying!” FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>
ROGER STEFFANS: …I know the people who found his body. One of the people was Marianne Faithfull, and it’s amazing to me that she has never come out in public and talked about it. To make a long story very short, I was living in Marrakesh at the time; a man who is mentioned in [“No One Here Gets Out Alive”] a great deal, a French count, his name was Jean de Breteuil, was one of Pamela’s lovers – Morrison’s old lady’s lovers – and when they were all in Paris together, Pam called Jean and Marianne and said ‘Jim is in the bathroom, the door is locked, I can’t get him out, will you come over immediately?’ The story they told me two days later was that they had broken down the door and found Jim dead in the bathtub. They flew the next morning to Marrakesh where I was living and told me the story, and they were still shaking as they told it. I have no doubt that what they told me was the truth. PG. 290 RIDERS ON THE STORM

Author’s note: There is no report by any authority that the bathroom door was found to be in a state of disrepair, and certainly none that it had been “broken down”.
DIANE GARDINER: [Jim] would never inject himself. PG. 458 BREAK ON THROUGH

PATRICIA KENNEALY – Jim was not a junkie. He scorned skag and those used it (yes, even Pam), only very exceptional circumstances - such depression as was evident in his letters to me, perhaps, combined with Pam pushing it on him, or maybe just one what-the-hell mood too many – could have made him try it. If he did, which I still do not know for sure, it would have been a onetime thing, not anything habitual...PG. 339 STRANGE DAYS

KATHY LISCIANDRO: Of course he didn’t O.D. No chance”. PG. 113 THE DOORS COMPANION (ROCCO)

The official death certificate states that the cause of death was “heart failure”, and many reputable publications took this as gospel:

L.A. TIMES: Jim Morrison…died Saturday of a heart ailment in Paris, a spokesman for the group said here Thursday. The spokesman, Beverly Hills attorney Max Fink, said…Morrison was buried in a Paris cemetery ‘because he really loved that city’.”<br>
And yet a number of other respected publications claim that Morrison died of a “heart attack”, which is indeed quite different.

NEWSWEEK: “Police listed a heart attack as the cause after Morrison was found dead in the bathtub of his apartment in Paris.”<br>

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

TIME MAGAZINE: “Although Morrison at times drank heavily, he did not have a reputation as a drug user, and he died of a heart attack.”<br>

ALAN RONAY: “Pam took off the fur coat and quietly finished her work of research and destruction.” FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”

Q. WHY WAS THERE NO AUTOPSY PERFORMED?

LINDA ASHCROFT : Pamela was adamant about not wanting an autopsy. She insisted fans would carry away parts of Jim’s body. PG. 494 WILD CHILD

BILL SIDDONS: Just because we didn’t want to do it that way. We wanted to leave Jim alone. He died in peace and dignity.” PG. 369 NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE

JAMES RIORDAN/JERRY PROCHNICKY: Further investigation has disclosed that not one but two doctors came to the apartment to examine Jim Morrison’s body. The first doctor was someone brought in by Pam and Alan Ronay to sign the death certificate without asking a lot of questions so that when the police were called there would be no need for an examination. Without an official death certificate the police doctor would have requested an autopsy under the circumstances, but once the cause of death had been determined no further examination needed to take place. PG. 460 BREAK ON THROUGH

Q. WHAT WERE THE EVENTS OF THE DAYS IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING MORRISON’S DEATH?

JAMES RIORDAN/JERRY PROCHNICKY: By Sunday morning there were rumors all over Paris that Jim Morrison had died sometime over the weekend, but when reporters called Pam’s flat, they reported being told that Morrison was “not dead but very tired and resting in a hospital.” PG. 453 BREAK ON THROUGH

On July 5th, 1971, a journalist for the NME reached Pamela Courson to confirm rumors he had heard that Morrison had died in Paris. Courson told the journalist that Morrison was staying at a special clinic outside of Paris convalescing. The press announcement was widely distributed and appeared other notable newspapers.

On the strength of their conversation with Courson, as late as July 10th (two days after Siddon’s press release) the NME continued to hold that Morrison had not really died but rather was holed up somewhere in private.

RAINER MODDEMANN: 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...to counteract the decay of the body, dry ice was added, and the coffin was sealed with screws. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

PATRICIA BUTLER: By the time all the necessary arrangements had been made, Jim’s body had been in the apartment for three full days. Because it was July and the apartment had no air conditioning, the body had been packed in dry ice, which was delivered to the apartment in great chunks several times over the weekend, to help delay decomposition. The man delivering the ice warned that the summer heat would soon make the situation untenable, and particularly discouraged Pamela from lingering near the body. But the iceman’s warnings couldn’t possibly dissuade Pamela from spending as much time as possible with Jim, holding his hand, talking to him, and spending the night next to him PG. 179 - 181 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

BILL SIDDONS: “I finally got Pamela on the phone around 10:00, 10:30 Monday morning [July 5th, 1971]…but she wouldn’t admit [that Morrison had died]. I just remember her being evasive. I finally said ‘Pamela, I’m your friend. You may not see me as that sometimes, but if Jim has died, I want to help you through whatever you have to go through. I want to come there and assist you, not as a representative of The Doors, but as your friend.” PG. 181 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

BILL SIDDONS: It was 4:30AM, Monday, July 5. I got a call from Clive Selwood in London, saying “I don’t want to upset you, but I’ve gotten calls from three different writers asking me to confirm that Jim Morrison is dead.’ Now, we’ve had scares before; Jim’s death had been rumored several times over the years, but Clive respected the writers who had called, so I was anxious. I sat upright in my bed real fast. I called Jim and Pam’s apartment in Paris and got no answer….since I couldn’t reach Pam, though, I went back to bed.” PG. 454 BREAK ON THROUGH

According to BREAK ON THROUGH, Siddons got up around 8:00AM and called Jim and Pam’s apartment in Paris again. This time, Courson answered the phone, but denied initially that Morrison was dead.

BILL SIDDONS: [Pamela] sounded upset, so I pressed her a bit…You see, she perceived the other three Doors as enemies who were keeping Jim from doing what he really wanted and she considered me part o that circle…I said ‘Look, I’m calling as a friend, not as a business representative. I don’t want to do anything but help you. If there’s anything happening I want to know so I can help. Tell me, please, the truth – is Jim alive or dead?’ She started to cry, so I told her I was taking the next plane to Paris. PG. 454 BREAK ON THROUGH

The version told in NO ONE HERE GETS OUT A LIVE differs slightly, in that the claim is “Pamela answered the phone and told Bill he’d better come right over, as if Bill only had to travel around the corner. “<br>
After booking his flight reservation, Siddons called Ray Manzarek, who pressed him to make sure that this was not just another rumor.

BILL SIDDONS: I went over to the apartment right away. PG. 454 BREAK ON THROUGH

PATRICIA BUTLER: Siddons arrived in Paris early Tuesday morning, too early, he felt, to go directly to the apartment. Instead, he decided to stop at a sidewalk café’ on rue St. Antoine and have some coffee while he waited for time to pass...”I learned a lot about the French culture as all these workmen came in and had their morning drinks of alcohol at six a.m.” he says. PG. 181 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

BILL SIDDONS: Pam was awake and sitting with Robin (Wertle, who was her an Jim’s secretarial assistant and a fluent French speaker. Neither Jim nor Pam knew any French. I talked to them for a long time and they confirmed that yes, Jim had died a couple of days earlier. Pam said that she and Jim had been out for the evening and had come home. She went to bed and Jim decided to take a bath. She got up four hours later and found that Jim had died in the bathtub. By the time I got there the authorities had already been by, put Jim in a casket which was still in the apartment, and filed a death certificate that said Jim had died of a heart attack. It was some sort of heart failure complicated by a lung infection. Blood probably collected from a clot and worked its way up the chest and blocked a heart valve. And that caused the heart attack. Jim was very strong but he pushed himself to the limits. PG. 454 BREAK ON THROUGH

RAINER MODDEMANN: 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. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE
RAY MANZAREK: "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." FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE
FRANK LISCIANDRO: "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." FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

Q. WHAT DETAILS DO WE HAVE ABOUT THE BURIAL OF JIM MORRISON?

Alan Ronay admits to having reversed Jim Morrison’s first and middle names so as to throw off the authorities. Ronay allegedly did this in an effort to prevent the paparazzi from getting involved and making the event more complicated and difficult than it already was.

ALAN RONAY: “I just gave Jim’s name backwards. I mean I put Douglas first, then James. It could put them off the track for a while.” FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>
BILL SIDDONS: We wanted to avoid all the notoriety and circus-like atmosphere that surrounded the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin…so Robin and I got together and tried to figure out how to get Jim in the ground without notifying the media. Basically, we didn’t tell anyone. The police knew, of course, but some French friends of ours somehow managed to prevent the news from hitting the police blotters for about three days. Robin and I went down to the funeral home and arranged for Jim’s burial. We wired for money from the states, paid for it right there, and bought a gravestone which never appeared, for reasons I’ll never quite understand. Perhaps it was the language barrier. PG. 454-455 BREAK ON THROUGH

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

ALAN RONAY: I got him into Pere Lachaise. There are no spaces left and at the time getting a foreigner buried there was not a particularly easy thing to do. While I can’t reveal the details, it didn’t prove to be an enormous hurdle, though, and I was even able to choose between two spaces. PG. 460 BREAK ON THROUGH

BILL SIDDONS: There were just a few of us at the gravesite. A truck carrying Jim’s casket drove up to the grave…there was no real service and that made it all the better. We threw flowers on the grave, said our goodbyes, and that was it. We got him buried without publicity and sensationalism which I’m sure is the way Jim would have wanted it. And we buried him where he wanted to be. That afternoon I flew back to Los Angeles and got together with some newspaper writers and told them the whole story. I went to be about 11:00PM, totally exhausted from the ordeal. I got up the next day and then spent the next few weeks dealing with all the phone calls…. PGS. 455-456 BREAK ON THROUGH

Here’s what we know about the actual burial.

Morrison’s burial occurred at 8:30 am. at Pere Lachaise cemetery – 6th division, grave #5 in the second row. The funeral procession was notably small and subdued, consisting of either five or six people: Pamela Courson, Bill Siddons, Alan Ronay, Agnes Varda and Robin Wertle, for sure, and possible the actor Jacques Demy (Agnes Varda’s husband).

Pamela spoke a few words to or about Morrison, her voice so low as to be barely audible, with no one who was present understanding what she’d said. The parties apparently tossed some flowers on the grave and quickly departed.

JERRY HOPKINS/DANNY SUGERMAN: Five mourners were present: Pamela, Siddons, Alan Ronay, Agnes Varda and Robin Wertle. PG 367 NO ONE HERE GETS OUT ALIVE

PATRICIA BUTLER: Attending at the graveside were Pamela, Bill, Alain, Robin, Agnes and a friend Agnes had brought along. Included with the funeral package was a group of “wailers” who accompanied the small funeral procession. As the civil service was being conducted, these professional mourners, dressed in black and draped in veils, seemed consumed by abject grief, rocking back and forth, moaning, wailing, sobbing. Later, Pamela told her mother “I almost wanted to giggle, it was so absurd. I just knew Jim would’ve gotten the biggest kick out of that!” PG. 183 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

Other than the aforementioned, there was but a single witness to the event: a French woman by the name of Madame Colinette. In an interview with Rainer Moddemann, Publisher of The Doors Quarterly, she said:

MADAME COLINETTE: “Everything was done in a hurry. No priest was present, everybody left quickly. The whole scene was piteous and miserable.” FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>
Recounting everything about the funeral that she had come to learn, Patricia Kennealy stated:

PATRICIA KENNEALY: The entire burial…took only eight minutes. Two bearers brought the casket to the site; the attendees (Pam and her merry band, whom I refuse to dignify with the honorable title of “mourners”) were all dressed in light-colored clothes, and the impression received by Mme. Colinette, to her horror, was they the couldn’t get him into the ground and get themselves out of there fast enough…there was no priest, no service, no private prayers, no flowers even. [Madame Colinette] goes on to say that she felt so moved and distressed by the lack of respect and love shown Jim (of whose identity she was completely unaware) that, after waiting an hour or so to see if anyone returned, finally realizing no one would (they never did), she herself went over to Jim’s newly-filled gravemound and left a single flower upon it.

…The casket (not the white-oak number alleged in other accounts, but little better than plywood; Mme. Colinette says she has never seen a cheaper, shoddier coffin than the one Pam put Jim in) cost all of 366 francs. And the entire cost of the funeral…was…878 francs. A franc, back then, was about five to the dollar.”

RAINER MODDEMANN: [Pamela] for unknown reasons, had chosen the cheapest coffin the undertaker offered, a so-called cercueil chˆne verni for just 366 (old) Francs.... The total costs of the funeral were just 878 (old) French Francs... 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. FROM RAINER MODDEMANN’S “QUIET DAYS IN PARIS” ARTICLE

In other words, the coffin cost approximately $73.00 US dollars, and the funeral itself ran approximately $176.00 US dollars.

On July 9, 1971, in an official press announcement, Bill Siddons stated:

BILL SIDDONS: …I can say that Jim Morrison 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.” BILL SIDDON’S OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

Q. HOW DID THE DOORS AND MORRISON’S FAMILY AND FRIENDS FIND OUT ABOUT HIS PRESUMED DEATH, AND HOW DID THEY REACT?
Three weeks after speaking with Morrison on the phone, Densmore was notified of his death by Robby Krieger.
JOHN DENSMORE: “Jim’s dead,” Robby said to me as I entered The Doors’ office in West Hollywood....I was the last band member to speak with him....
“I got a call from Bill [Siddons] last night” Ray said as he sat down next to me. “He said the European branch of the record company called and said Jim had died. He doesn’t have any details.” In his most avuncular manner, Ray went on to say that he had taken the liberty of telling Bill Siddons, our manager, to get on the next plane to Paris to check it out and call the minute he had more information. PGS. 8-9 RIDERS ON THE STORM
RAY MANZAREK: I got a phone call from this guy who was, ostensibly., our manager. Actually, he was our roadie and we promoted him to phone answerer, but wouldn’t you know it , it went to his head...”Ray, I got some bad news. I just got a phone call from Paris. Jim’s dead.” Bullshit, I thought. PGS. 13-14 LIGHT MY FIRE
Manzarek was understandably skeptical, as there had been numerous reports of Morrison’s demise previously.
RAY MANZAREK: So when Siddons told me our singer was dead again, I didn’t believe him...I thought about how ridiculous it all seemed that night and decided to dismiss the whole thing – treat it like a thousand other half-cocked legends I’d heard before...And I sure as hell wasn’t going to Paris...”I think it’s serious this time, Ray,” Bill said...”I tell you what,” I said. “There’s a noon flight to Paris, right? Book a ticket, first class, and get over there.” “I’ve already done that, Ray. I just need your okay.” “You’ve got it, man. Now go.” “I’ll call you,” he said, “from there.” “And, Bill,” I cautioned, “just make sure, will ‘ya? This time make sure.” And I hung up the phone.
Three days later, he did call. “We just buried Jim Morrison,” [Siddons] said...”It’s true this time, Ray.” “How could that be? What...what happened? I mean, was he hit by a car, or was he in an accident? Or did a fucking building fall on him?”...I was pissed. “We don’t know.” “...or was he murdered, for cri-sake? Did somebody shoot him, or stab him to death?” “I don’t know, Ray.” “Ass hole, what do you mean you don’t know?” “It was none of those things. He just...died.” “Jesus Christ.” I tried to let that sink in. It didn’t computer. “What?! Where?” “In his apartment. In the bathtub.” “Did somebody try to drown him or something?” “No,” Bill said. “The doctor’s certificate says something like ‘his heart stopped.’ It’s all in French, and I can’t read it. “Oh man, Well, how did he look?” “I don’t know, Ray.”...And then he drops another bomb on me. “I don’t know. I never saw his body.” “How could you not see his body?”...”It was a sealed coffin.” “You’re telling me you never saw Jim’s body? Why didn’t you open the coffin?” I was livid. His voice got quavery. “I couldn’t.” “Why didn’t you demand to see it? Why didn’t you say “Let me see Jim Morrison. I’m the Manager and I have to see his body!” Why didn’t you do that?”...”I was afraid,” he said. “So you buried a coffin?” “That’s right, Ray. We buried him this morning. “How do you even know he was in the coffin?” I raged at him. “How do you know it wasn’t one hundred and fifty pounds of fucking sand?” “Well, uhh, Pam was all broke up, crying and everything. And, uhh, I mean...he was in there. I know.”...”Bill, I told you to make sure. And you don’t know squat...You buried a sealed coffin, man. We’ll never know the real truth now. It’s all gonna be stories and rumors from here on out.”...I just hung up the phone. There was nothing else to say. I later found out that Agnes Varda, Alain Ronay, Pam and Siddons were the only ones there. PGS. 15-17 LIGHT MY FIRE

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Q. DID PAMELA EVER ADMIT TO GREATER INVOLVEMENT IN, OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR, JIM MORRION’S DEATH?

LINDA ASHCROFT : “Baby’s dead,” Pamela Courson’s voice, then silence. My first thought was ‘she killed him!’...”What happened” I asked, twitching like electricity had been shot through my body. “He OD’d” she said. “That’s not possible” I argued. “He’d been drinking, just a few drinks the evening before and when we got to our flat, we had an argument. Just a tiff”, she assured me. “He caught me snigging and he did some heroin too...” I interrupted. “You mean cocaine?’ “He thought it was...” she said quickly. And he got sick and wanted to take a bath because he felt hot.” That didn’t sound much like Jim....She went on, “I went out...when I saw he wasn’t in bed, I went to check on him. He was still in the bathtub. I told him to get his shriveled ass to bed, but he was asleep. I couldn’t wake him. I couldn’t lift him out of the tub.” When she paused for a breath I jumped in. “What did the doctor say?” “There wasn’t one.” ...”How do you know he’s dead?” I asked near hysteria. I snapped orders at her. Go to him. Pull the plug. Get in the tub. Resuscitate him! “Oh,” she cried. “I did that. I called the fire department. They said he was dead. They said there was nothing I could have done. He was gone.”...”Could you think of a story?” she asked in her little girl voice. She complimented my intelligence. “I don’t want people to think he died like Jimi and Janis. I want him to be remembered as a writer, like Hemmingway.” PGS. 492 – 493 WILD CHILD

LINDA ASHCROFT : So I asked aloud over whatever [Pamela] was saying, “Is Jim really dead?” Silence on her end....The longer the silence the more I hoped there was hope. “He’s really dead” she said at last, sobbing. “I was there.” “What happened?” I asked. “Another time”, she answered. PGS. 502-503 WILD CHILD

JOHN DENSMORE: “Danny Sugerman recently said that he was around Pam after [Jim Morrison’s] death and she felt terribly guilty because it was her stash.” PG. 291 RIDERS ON THE STORM

GILLES YEPREMIAN: “Herve’ (Muller) and I met a girl several months later, her boyfriend was in jail, and this girl was called Nicole. She told everyone it was her boyfriend who sold the drug to Jim. But who knows. It is very hard to believe what a pusher says.” INTERVIEW WITH RAINER MODDEMANN FOR DOORS QUARTERLY, APRIL 1993

JOHN DENSMORE: “Paul Rothchild said that after Pam returned to the U.S. from Paris, she started coming over to his house at all hours of the night, offering him reds and skag. There was only one topic of conversation. Every session ended the same. Talk of your death, accompanied by the most deep and tragic grieving Paul had ever witnessed.” PG. 292 RIDERS ON THE STORM

LINDA ASHCROFT : “He was so depressed,” Pamela sighed. I’m afraid he killed himself”...”I spoke to him Wednesday, Pam. He wasn’t suicidal,” I said.... PG. 493 WILD CHILD

DANNY SUGERMAN: “You don’t get it, do you? [Pamela said to Sugerman]. I killed him. It was my dope”....Pamela took a deep breath and let it out. ..”He’d never done it before and I gave it to him. Then he said he didn’t feel well, that he was going to take a bath. I should’ve gone in and checked on him but I nodded out. I didn’t think it would hurt him” she said, sounding full of remorse.... “When I woke up at dawn”, she continued, “I went in the bathroom and there he was in the tub. You know cute little boyish smile he had that was so serene? He was smiling like that and I thought he was putting me on. Then that’s when I freaked out and called Bill.” And you only told Bill the part of the story from Jim telling you he didn’t feel well and going to take a bath?” I asked her. She nodded in the affirmative. PG. 251 WONDERLAND AVENUE

LINDA ASHCROFT : “Jim recently told me,” she said, “that he trusted you more than anyone else on earth...Will you support me if I can get a doctor to say that he died of natural causes?”...”What doctor would do that?” I asked bluntly, too shocked to couch it more politely. “I thought I might pay someone,” she suggested, but was concerned about money and went on at length about her straits...Not knowing if it was the moral thing to do, I said softly “Just so you don’t say it was suicide.” PG. 494 WILD CHILD

LINDA ASHCROFT : “I killed Jim” she said quietly...He told me the Thursday before he died that he was leaving [Pamela and going to Mexico to marry Linda Ashcroft]. On Monday he was going to make arrangements for a settlement. He was gonna find someone to see me through. He was so quiet. I told everyone how depressed he was, but he was just...decided. He went out Friday night and came back late. I was out of it. He’d just missed my friend [Jean De Breteuil]...There was a mound of my friend’s heroin on the table. He asked if it was cocaine. I said “yeah”. Jim asked and she lied to him....She said “As soon as he inhaled it, he grabbed his chest and fell on one knee.”...I did try to get help. When I got back with my friend, Jim was dead. “You left him to die alone?...Why didn’t you call an ambulance right away?” “Jim understood”. “Did he tell you that?” I asked angrily. “Could he talk?” I asked in tears. “He fell forward” she said matter of factly. “Like on his face.”...” PGS. 504-505 WILD CHILD

LINDA ASHCROFT : Are you going to call the police?”...For the half hour wait for the plane to Los Angeles Pamela begged me not to turn her in. She couldn’t see that the only evidence I had was a confession she could simply deny making. PG. 505 WILD CHILD

LINDA ASHCROFT : “My condition is that you tell me exactly what happened.” Each time she told the story she came closer to the truth. “Don’t try to protect yourself. You told me you were telling people Jim was depressed. Like you were planning this. That you were going to kill Jim and say he committed suicide.” I meant to ask every question I had. “No. No. I just didn’t want people to know Jim was leaving me. It was a horrible accident. I told you. Truly. Except, well, we didn’t go out. He went out alone. He’d had a bottle of wine. He said he wasn’t going to drink hard stuff anymore. How many times did he say that? He was an alcoholic. He would have died from that eventually.” “His doctor told him his liver was in fine shape. Jim certainly had more time with his drinking, and time to do something about it, than you gave him.” “Jim always said you were so nice” she said bitterly. “I always thought you were too. You aren’t being very nice.” “Don’t expect me to be nice, Pam. I’ve never hated anyone before. Whatever I do is for Jim, not for you. What was the bathtub story?” “Well, you see, I ran out and called my friend Jean de Breteuil. I knew he’d help.” Why didn’t you call from your apartment? Why didn’t you call a doctor? How many times did Jim call a doctor for you?” I asked in a voice more bitter than hers. “I know. I know. I wasn’t thinking straight. I was high. I can’t speak French. And...and I was afraid they’d trace the call to me.” Truth at last. “You were alone with Jim? This Jean didn’t force anything on Jim?” “Jim and I were alone. You can ask Marianne Faithfull. When I called Jean she was with him. “Why didn’t Jean call an ambulance? Sounds like he could speak French.” Jean said if we involved a doctor or the cops that we could be charged with murder because he had supplied the heroin and I was there when Jim took it.” “Why didn’t you tell him it was heroin?” “Well, he was so mad about my still using it. I didn’t want him to be mad at me.” I was scribbling everything we said on the phone pad. “You would rather he died?” “No. No. I honestly didn’t know that would happen. Cross my heart.”...”Was Jim alive when you got back to the flat?” “No, I swear.” “Why this lie about Jim dying in the bathtub?” “I knew you didn’t believe that. It seemed peaceful. That he sort of drifted away.” I didn’t like the hard and flat sound of my voice. “Instead of dying in pain.” “Do you think he was in pain?” “Pamela, you said that he clutched his chest.” “I don’t like to think about that. Jean figured out that if we put Jim in a hot bathtub, it would change the time of death, so he could get out of Paris. He was going to take Marianne to Morocco. And I could say I woke up and found Jim in the morning....I went against my instincts and did what Jim would have. I let Pamela deal with her own conscience. PGS. 507 – 509 WILD CHILD

DANNY SUGERMAN: [Discussing a meeting he had with Pam a year or so after Morrison’s death]: She was very distraught and so vulnerable. If you doubted Jim’s being dead all you had to do was see the condition Pamela was in. The she started telling me something about Jim’s death being her fault and that he had found out she was doing heroin and “You know Jim, of course he wanted to try it”. Then she looked at me and said “It was my stash – Jim didn’t know how to score. He knew how to drink.’ She said that later he didn’t feel well and decided to take a bath and she nodded out. But when I pressed her for details she suddenly denied the whole thing. Later, she extracted a promise from me never to say anything to Jerry Hopkins who wanted to interview her for his book. PGS. 458-459 BREAK ON THROUGH

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

PAMELA COURSON: “Of course, I’m the one who keeps it.” FROM ALAN RONAY’S ARTICLE “JIM AND I - FRIENDS UNTIL DEATH”<br>
ANNONYMOUS: On the night of July 3, 1971, Pam called a very close friend of mine all in tears and said that Jim had gotten into her heroin and overdosed. She didn’t know what to do but she didn’t want it to come out that he died from that, so my friend helped her plan out how to cover it up. Together they worked out all the details and Pam carried out the plan. PGS. 457-458 BREAK ON THROUGH

DIANE GARDINER: [When confronted with information that an anonymous person claims Morrison OD’d on Courson’s heroin] Pamela told me a lot about Jim’s death. It’s true that he got into some of Pam’s drugs and overdosed, but I don’t think Pam tried to cover it up. She was so…for a log time she didn’t even think he was dead. You know Jim’s weird sense of humor. She just kept thinking he was playing dead in the bathtub. She talked to his corpse for so long before it finally even sunk in. The was her state of mind. She was just starkers. I don’t think she was capable of any conscious cover-up. PG. 458 BREAK ON THROUGH
POSTSCRIPTS FROM INVOLVED PARTIES

PAUL ROTHCHILD –- Like Sugerman's trying to keep going the myth that Jim might still be alive! That is pure, total, unmitigated BULLSHIT! If Danny had sat where you're sitting and listened to Pam after she came back from Paris, he wouldn't be trying to perpetuate this myth - and that's what it is. Pam and I were very dear friends. She sat on this sofa night after night and she'd cry, with the DEEPEST grief, over the loss of Jim. Night after night. It became a mania for her. She eventually gave up her life because of her love for Jim. Now Ray is quoted in the book as saying that "none of the Doors saw Jim in the casket, so who knows?" That's Ray trying to maintain the myth. The Doors may not have seen Jim dead, but Pam sure as hell did. I saw Pam, in my house DEVASTATED by her grief. Let me tell you, Jim Morrison IS dead. BAM MAGAZINE – July 3, 1981

DIANE GARDINER: Pam found the notebook [containing Morrison’s last words] the next day [the day after Morrison died]. He’d written “Last words, last words…out.” PG. 458 BREAK ON THROUGH

LINDA ASHCROFT: When Jim went to Morocco, he sent me a postcard with stick figures lined up (as in a family photograph he had fondly admired) in lieu of a written message...A long letter followed in which he detailed an opera...He wrote about searching for a tutor to teach him the wonders of musical composition, because, he admitted, he misunderstood what a downbeat was and had explained it to me wrong. ...It was the last day of June. Jim’s calls were infrequent, but long. PGS. 486-487 WILD CHILD

LINDA ASHCROFT : Jim had intentionally annoyed Rothchild into quitting as Producer for the new album. After a taste of control on Morrison Hotel, he wanted more. PG. 461 WILD CHILD

PATRICIA BUTLER: He had filled a similar prescription for asthma medication at a pharmacy in Los Angeles shortly before he left for Paris, but his drinking at the time was so heavy, it’s likely that remembering to take his medication on a regular basis was nearly impossible for Jim. PG. 163 ANGELS DANCE AND ANGELS DIE

Although Lt. Alain Raisson’s Fire Brigade arrived on the scene first, his report was not filed until 2:30pm. Because of at least one very significant conflict between sworn statements, it is important to present first the statement of Police Officer Jacques Manchez of the Arsenal Police Station at 9:40AM. Officer Manchez spoke with Alain Ronay early in the morning and recorded what had been said. Later in the afternoon, directly proceeding Pamela’s statement, Ronay gave Manchez his “official” statement.

JACQUES MANCHEZ: We are informed by the local police that the police emergency services bus of the 4th district went today at 9:25am to 17 rue Beautreillis in Paris 4th Arondissement, staircase A, third floor flat on the right hand side. The tenant of the flat, Mr. MORRISON, James aged 28, was found dead in the bath by his concubine, Miss COURSON, Pamela. We are reporting to the head of the department who has asked us to proceed with an enquiry.

(signed) Jacques Manchez,
Police Officer

We are going to rue Beautreillis in Paris 4th Arondissement, Staircase A, third floor flat on the right hand side. At the scene we note the presence of firemen from the Sevigne Brigade and the Police Emergency Services bus of the 4th Arondissement.

The fire chief informs us that he took the body of Mr. MORRISON, the tenant of the flat, from the bath, and that his body was placed on the bed in the bedroom after having tried, without success, to resuscitate him by heart massage.

We then go to the bedroom where we find the body of a young man, quite heavily built, lying on the bed. The body is covered by a bedspread which we removed; he is lying on his back, completely naked, with his arms by his sides. His eyes are half closed and his mouth is slightly open, a trickle of blood coming from his right nostril and his left nostril obstructed by a clot. The body is still supple and bears no trace of traumatism or lesions of any kind.

We do not notice any signs of disorder in the room where we are. Continuing on with our observations we go to the bathroom where we find the bath in which Mr. MORRISON’s body lay before it was taken to the bed by the firemen. This room is connected with the bedroom by a secondary corridor which also leads to the kitchen. The bath is situated on the left hand side in front of a bidet, on the right hand side there is a wash basin and a little cabinet. The outside dimensions of the bath are 1 metre 50 x 65 centimetres, inside the bath there is still some slightly pink coloured water. The bath is 35 cms. Deep and the water is 19 cms. Deep. The water is still lukewarm. On the floor next to the cabinet we notice a container, yellow/orange in colour and empty. We leave this room to go to the lounge where we find three people. Two women and a man, they are all America; a policeman tells us that it is Pamela COURSON, Mr. MORRISON’s girlfriend with whom he lived, Mr. Alain RONAY, compatriot and friend of the MORRISON – COURSON couple and Ms. Agnes DEMY, Mr. RONAY’s concubine.

In questioning Mr. RONAY, WHO IS THE ONLY ONE TO SPEAK French, he tells us verbally, that this morning between 8:30 and 9:00am, he didn’t know exactly, he received a call at his home, 86, rue Daguerre, Paris, 14th, from Miss COURSON asking him to come straight away as her friend MORRISON had fainted in the bath and that she could not call the doctor herself as she was unable to speak French. Mr. RONAY came immediately, accompanied by his girlfriend, Miss DEMY and when he saw his friend MORRISON unconscious in the bath, he called he fire brigade.

Through Mr. RONAY, Miss COURSON tells us that her friend got up this morning around 4:00am to have a bath because he was not feeling well. Miss COURSON had gone back to sleep and when she woke around about 8:30am she realized that her friend had not come back to bed. She had then gone to the bathroom and seen her friend unconscious in the bath with his head outside the water. She had tried to take him out of the bath but couldn’t do it because of Mr. MORRISON’s height (1 metre 86).

We request Ms. COURSON and Mr. RONAY to attend a hearing.

(Signed)

Police Officer
Jacques Manchez

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Lt. Alain Raisson and the Fire Brigade had arrived shortly before the police (note also the postscript about Pamela Courson’s gown being wet):

LT. ALAIN RAISSON: "This morning at 9.20am I went as commander of my unit to 17 rue Beautreillis, Paris 4th, the third floor, right hand side flat in answer to a report of 'asphyxiation'. When we reached the flat, the door was opened by young woman who could not speak French and who took us to the bathroom. In this room there was a man in the bath, completely naked and heavily built. His head was above the water, resting on the edge of the bath. the bath was full of water, slightly pink in colour and his right arm was resting on the side of the bath. the water was still lukewarm, as well as the body. Together with my men, I took the body out and laid it on the floor of the bedroom where I started giving heart massage but I immediately realized that the victim was dead and I had the body placed on the bed.

(N.B.: When I went into the bathroom, there was some water on the floor beside the bath and the dressing gown of the person who opened the door to us was wet.)

(N.B.: A little blood ran down from his right nostril when we laid the body on the floor.)

(signed) Manchez, Jacques,

(signed) Raisson, Alain.


To the best of our knowledge the next to arrive on the scene were the Parisian police. Police Superintendent Robert Berry, following standard protocol, submitted his report to the State Prosecutor, as follows:

ROBERT BERRY: I have the honour to send a diligent account of the proceedings according to my investigation concerning the death of the named: MORRISON, James Douglas, born on 8th December, 1943, at Clearwater (Florida, U.S.A), an American writer living since March 1971 at 17 Rue Beautreillis, Paris 4th Arrondissement, Home address 851a Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles (California) 90069.

“On July 3rd between 8:30 am and 9:00am Miss Pamela COURSON – MR. MORRISON’S concubine – noticed that her boyfriend who had got up in the middle of the night, apparently around 4 o’clock in order to have a bath, had not returned to bed. Miss COURSON went to the bathroom and saw that Mr. MORRISON was in the bath unconscious, with his head above the water and resting on the side of the bath. Miss COURSON, who does not speak French, telephoned a couple of compatriots and friends, Mr. RONAY and his girlfriend Miss DEMY, temporarily in Paris at 86 Rue Daguerre, who came straight away and called the Fire Brigade and Police.

The Fire Brigade men took Mr. MORRISON’s body out of the bath, the water of which was still lukewarm, and tried to massage his heart, without any success. Enquiries brought to light that Mr. MORRISON had been feeling faint in the middle of the night; according to his concubine he was breathing with difficulty and decided to have a hot bath. According to Miss COURSON’s statement he started vomiting and she collected this vomit in a container which she rinsed afterwards before going back to bed, thinking that the vomiting would have helped and that he would return to bed after his bath. She went back to sleep. Nothing suspicious was noticed on the spot either in the flat or on the body, which bore no trace of blows, lesions or needle marks.

Dr. Vasille conducted the medical examination and concluded that death was by natural causes due to heart failure, which could have been caused by a change of temperature, following a bath, causing the classical “myocardial infarction”, a case of sudden death.

It is significant that Mr. RONAY and Miss COURSON had already noticed the Mr. MORRISON had been suffering from respiratory problems for several months and that he looked unwell. Despite the advice given to him, Mr. MORRISON had always refused to see a doctor.
Consequently, I submit your burial certificate. The body is at 17, Rue Beautreillis. Miss COURSON and Mr. RONAY wish to organize the funeral arrangements.

The Superintendent
R. Berry

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Jacques Manchez worked for the Criminal Investigations Department and, in addition to submitting his personal report earlier in the morning, was also the person to whom Pamela Courson gave her official statement from 3:40pm to 6:40pm (Alain Ronay acted as Translator):

PAMELA COURSON: 1. 1. Pamela Susan COURSON, born 22nd December 1946 at Weed, California. An unemployed American, living at 17 rue Beautreillis, Paris 4th.2. I am Mr. MORRISON's girlfriend and have been living with him for five years.3. Last March, I came to France with my friend. During a previous short stay I had found rented accommodation at the address 17 rue Beautreillis, third floor, right hand side. My boyfriend was a writer but mostly lived on a personal fortune.4. Before living at rue Beautreillis, my boyfriend and I lived for three weeks at the Hôtel de Nice, rue de Beaux Arts, I think, and while we were there my friend was sick, he was complaining of difficulty in breathing and he also had coughing fits at night. I called a doctor to the hotel who prescribed pills for asthma but my friend didn't like to see doctors and never looked after himself seriously.N.B. I cannot say precisely who the doctor was, and I didn't keep the prescription. During a previous stay in London, my friend had already experienced the same problems.5. Last night I had dinner with my friend, I am not explaining myself properly, I didn't have dinner last night, my friend went out to a restaurant on his own, probably in the area. When my friend came back from the restaurant, we both went to the cinema to see the film Death Valley. The cinema is beside the Metro Station Le Pelletier, I think it is called Action Lafayette. We came back from the cinema around 1am, I did the dishes and my friend watched an amateur film from a projector. My friend looked in good health, he seemed very happy. However, I have to say, my friend never used to complain, it wasn't in his nature. We then listened to records; I should say that the record player is in the bedroom and we were both listening to the music lying on the bed. I think we went to sleep at 2:30am approximately, but I can't say exactly because the record player stops automatically.6. N.B. No, we didn't have any sexual intercourse last night.7. Round about 3:30am I think, because there was not a clock in the bedroom and I didn't notice the time, I was woken by the noise my friend was making with his breathing. His breathing was noisy and I thought he was choking. It was noisy....I shook my friend, I slapped him a few times to wake him, I shook him and he woke up. I asked him what was wrong. I wanted to call a doctor. He got up, walked about in the bedroom and then told me he wanted to have a bath. He headed towards the bathroom and ran his bath. When he was in the bath he called to me and said that he felt sick and felt like vomiting. On my way I picked up an orange coloured bowl. He vomited food into the bowl I was holding, I think there was blood in it. I emptied the contents then my friend vomited into the container again, only blood this time and then a third time blood clots. Each time I emptied the bowl down the wash basin of the bathroom, then I washed the bowl. My friend then told me he felt strange but he said, "I don't feel sick, don't call a doctor, I feel better. It's over!" He told me to 'go to bed' and said that he was going to finish his bath and would join me in bed. At this time it appeared to me that my friend felt better because he had vomited and his colour had returned a bit. I went back to bed and I immediately fell asleep. I was reassured. 8. I don't know how long I slept. I awoke with a start and I saw that my friend wasn't lying next to me. I ran to the bathroom and saw that my friend was still in the bath, a little blood was running from his nostril. I shook my friend, thinking he would wake up. I thought he had fainted and was unconscious. I tried to get him out of the bath but I couldn't. Then I phoned up Mr. RONAY. He came with his girlfriend, Miss Agnes DEMY, and they called, I think, the Fire Brigade or the Police.9. N.B. I live in the U.S.A. at the following address? 8216 NortonAvenue, Los Angeles, California. My sister lives at the same address andnormally I live at my sister's.10. I am going to organize the funeral arrangements with Mr. RONAY's help.11. Miss COURSON does not speak French so Mr. RONAY has been acting as an interpreter.Signed,PAMELA COURSON. Ten minutes after Pamela Courson finished giving her statement to the police, at 6:50pm Alain Ronay gave his statement, also to Office Jacques Manchez: ALAIN RONAY: Born 16th June, 1933, at Neuilly (Seine), a Cinema Technician, of American nationality, living temporarily at 86, rue Daguerre, Paris and usually at 14527 Dickens Avenue, Los Angeles, (California). I have known Mr. MORRISON since 1963, he was one of my friends. Mr. MORRISON came to see me in London on the 5th June last month, when I was on holiday there. He was with Miss COURSON. I knew that my friend had been living with Miss COURSON for several years. This morning around 8:30 am, I was woken by a telephone call from Miss COURSON asking for help. She asked me to come at once, she was crying. She told me that her friend was unconscious. I got up and went straight to rue Beautreillis with my girlfriend, Miss DEMY. When I arrived I saw the firemen in the street and asked them what was going on but they didn’t tell me. I went up to the flat and saw Miss COURSON who was crying and who told me that her friend was dead. I refused to see the body but I know that when I arrived he was already on his bed, out of the bath. N.B.: My friend MORRISON was a heavy drinker but he couldn’t really take alcohol. N.B. I am sure that my friend didn’t use drugs. He often talked about how foolish it was of young people to take drugs and regarded this as a very serious problem. I was with Mr. MORRISON, the whole of yesterday afternoon and I left him around 6:00pm. I thought that he looked unwell and I told him. He said that everything was fine. As a matter of fact, he never used to complain. I went for a walk with him yesterday afternoon, he told me he felt tired. During the walk he had a fit of hiccups. It seems to me this fit lasted about an hour. At one point he closed his eyes in order to concentrate and get rid of the hiccups. We also took some logs up to the flat from the courtyard. My friend struggled. It was an effort for him. I am going to organize the funeral arrangements with Miss COURSON. (signed) Jacques Manchez, (signed) Alain Ronay

BILL SIDDONS: 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 Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix." Siddons, 23, made the statement on his return from Paris, where he, Pamela, and three friends had attended the burial, at Pere Lachaise cemetery. So far, no marker has been erected, and Siddons said there would be no services in Los Angeles, where Morrison had attended UCLA and began singing with the Doors in 1965. "The whole reason I went to Paris and didn't announce the death was ... he went there in March to write and rest. In Paris, he'd found some peace and happiness and worked L.A. out of his system. It may be hard to understand, but it was hard to live here [in Los Angeles] and live what everybody thought he was. "There was no service, and that made it all the better. We just threw some flowers and dirt and said goodbye." There was also no autopsy, "Just because we didn't want to do it that way. We wanted to leave him alone. He died in peace and dignity." Rolling Stone Magazine

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

RAY MANZAREK: We don’t know what happened to Jim Morrison in Paris. To be honest, I don’t think we’re every going to know. Rumors, innuendos, self-serving lies, psychic projections to justify inner needs and maladies, and just plain goofiness cloud the truth. There are too many conflicting theories.
PG. 1 LIGHT MY FIRE

Jerome L. Wallerstein Livermore, California:2004