Post by darkstar3 on Jan 30, 2011 22:00:17 GMT
PAMELA MORRISON: A FINAL CURTAIN ON HER AFFAIR WITH LIFE
By: Judith Simms
Rolling Stone Magazine
June 6 1974
LOS ANGELES – “Pamela was Jim’s other half,” said ex-Door Ray Manzarek, “The two of them were a perfect combination; I never knew another person who could so complement his bazarreness.”
Pamela Morrison, widow of the late rock star, Jim Morrison, died April 25th in her Hollywood apartment of a suspected heroin overdose. She was 27 – the same age as Morrison when he died of a heart attack on July 3rd 1971, but there the similarities end. Pamlea’s death is certified; Morrison’s was mysterious. None of Jim’s friends saw his body, which mystery has caused a number of people to claim he’s still alive. Pamela herself who discovered Jim’s body in their Paris bathtub, later said she couldn’t remember what happened, didn’t recall seeing his body taken away or buried. She was severely depressed after his death, and in recent months had started talking about “us” as though Jim were alive – though she had no evidence to support that theory.
“She lived in fantasy,” said Danny Sugerman, a longtime friend of Jim and Pamela. Another friend, who didn’t want to be named, was less generous, “She flirted with death all the time. She wanted people to pay attention to her, always living this precarious existence.”
Pamlea Susan Courson Morrison met Jim in Los Angeles in 1965 when the Doors were playing their first gig at the London Fog. For the next six years, until his death, they had an on-again, off-again relationship, sometimes living together, sometimes apart, sometimes taking up with other partners for brief flings. “Jim finally met his match in Pamela,” said an anonymous friend.
“They used to love to get in car accidents, that was their idea of a good time,” said Marandi Babitz, a friend of Pamela since they were both 19 and studying art at Los Angeles City College together. “I think they were made for each other, they had exactly the same kind of mentality. They liked things to get upsetting and dramatic; they had huge brawls and really fucked each other over.”
Few of their friends believe that Jim and Pamela were married, although they did take out a license in Paris. “I know because I saw the license,” said former Doors manager Bill Siddons.
Another friend, Jerry Hopkins who is writing a book about Jim Morrison said, “I saw some papers that said they had had blood tests, and Pamela used to say they were married in Mexico, but I just don’t think so. But she called herself Mrs. Morrison, and Jim never complained.”
“Pamela once told me they hadn’t been married, that she just changed her name,” said Babitz.
Babitz said that Pamela was once busted: “Jim had bought her a Porsche, and then she got involved with someone else and went to New York with this other person and left the Porsche at the airport with a kilo in the trunk. She didn’t come back for two months, so the police towed her car away and searched it, and when she came home they were waiting for her. They kept Jim’s name out of it, and she got off. But that was the way she lived.”
In 1968 she decided to open a boutique in West Hollywood, called Themis. She traveled all over the world picking out items for the store, and Jim paid for all of them. He ended up losing about $300,000 on the venture, Sugerman said.”But I kept Pamela happy so he didn’t consider it a loss.” When Pamela returned from Paris in the summer of 1971, after Jim’s death, she walked into Themis one day and poured perfume over all of the clothing. Friends say she was delirious with frustration and grief. Themis closed soon thereafter; Pamela drove a truck headlong into the store front, breaking a window and damaging the front of the building.
Friends of Jim and Pamela claim they were heavy drug users (mostly phychedelics – staggering amounts of acid) in the mid sixties, but that Jim had narrowed his drug use to liquor by the time he died. Not so Pamela, who continued to use drugs of varying danger and degree. “She occasionally used smack, but I was never a habit,” Sugerman said. “She would sometimes use it when she got depressed, but mostly, she was a downer freak. She definitely was not a junkie.”
Police said Pamela’s body was found by John Mandell, an old friend of Jim’s who had been staying with her. When police arrived they found fresh needle marks in her left arm and a hypodermic syringe nearby. Jim Martin, detective with the Wilshire division said, “We’re calling it accidental heroin overdose; we won’t know exactly what toxic substance killed her until the coroner’s report comes through, and that can take some time.”
Martin said police had evidence that Pamela had threatened suicide in the past but made no attempt on her life; they did not believe her death was suicide. “We believe she’s been using heroin for about a year,” Martin said, but he couldn’t explain why the police believed that. (Police possibly met Pamela about a year ago when another man staying with her was arrested for pimping. Pamela’s friends claim that he was not pimping at the time and that, contrary to rumor, she was not part of his stable. She wasn’t involved in his arrest.
Sugerman said Pamela had been despondent lately because of business affairs. Generally, she felt she wasn’t being consulted enough by the attorney’s and other ex-Doors; specifically she had protested a plan to sell the rights to the Doors song, “Light My Fire,” for a Tiparillo commercial. Publishing rights to Doors songs are owned jointly by the Morrison Estate and ex-Doors, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger. Manzarek met with Pamela and agreed not to sell the song.
Diane Gardiner, publicist for Budda Records and perhaps Pamela’s closet friend, had little to say about Pamelas’ death except, “She didn’t seem depressed. I had lunch with her the day before she died and she talked about going to Mexico. My only comment is that she was a real beauty and was the toast of four continents.”
“She really was beautiful,” Marandi Babitz said. “She had a prevailing innocence, in and of the fact that she lived hard didn’t stop at anything. She still managed to stay young and pretty. Men just fell in love with her, I guess because she always seemed to need protection.”
Jim Morrison tried to protect her with his will, in which he bequeathed everything to Pamela. Pamela received no money from the estate for almost two years because she objected to approximately $75,000 in attorney’s fees submitted by Max Fink and other for work on Morrison’s Miami trial among other duties. According to Hopkins, :It was a standoff for a while. Pamela changed lawyers four times and finally gave in and agreed to pay. She got about $150,000 cash (plus the investments in oil land) and she got that less than a year ago. The first thing she did was buy a VW and a mink coat.”
Max Fink said Morrison’s total estate including all assets is now between $300,000 to $400,000. “There were some provisions in the will (in case of her demise). The only provision was that she had to survive Jim for a period of six months after his death to inherit, which she did. It all belongs to her parents now.” Had she died before the six month period, Jim’s brother Andrew and sister Anne would have inherited the money. It now goes to Mr and Mrs Columbus Courson; he’s a high school principal in Orange County, a retired Naval commander. (Jim’s father is an Admiral.)
In late April, before Pamela’s death a lawsuit was filed in L.A. Superior Court on behalf of the three x-Doors, suing for $250,000 allegedly advanced to Jim Morrison as loans before his death. The lawsuit alleged that Pamela Morrison refused to let the surviving Doors deduct those advances from their royalties.
When asked to comment on the lawsuits, Ray Manzarek exploded, “I don’t know anything about that. What a fucking bummer! It’s just lawyers getting their stinking excrement-encrusted fingers into it. It’s the tackiest thing I ever heard of.”
Abe Somer, encrusted attorney for Manzarek and the other Doors said, “Certain things have to be done with judicial approval. The documents speak for themselves.” He would not elaborate on the lawsuit. Somer said he was sure the Doors knew about it; “If they don’t their business manager certainly does.”
Bob Greene, the business manager said, “There’s no significance to the lawsuit; it’s a protective move, a legal maneuver, because Pamela’s attorneys didn’t prepare certain papers in time. It’s not a real lawsuit; it doesn’t mean the estate will actually have to pay any money. There won’t be a trial.”
On April 29th at Forest Lawns Old North Church, a memorial service was held for Pamela and Jim; Pamela’s body was not displayed, and guests were asked not to wear black. Ray Manzarek played several Doors songs on the organ, (“When The Music’s Over,” “Love Street,” and “Crystal Ship”). Pamela was cremated and her ashes buried in Jim’s plot in the Cimetiere Pere Lachaise in Paris.
END.
By: Judith Simms
Rolling Stone Magazine
June 6 1974
LOS ANGELES – “Pamela was Jim’s other half,” said ex-Door Ray Manzarek, “The two of them were a perfect combination; I never knew another person who could so complement his bazarreness.”
Pamela Morrison, widow of the late rock star, Jim Morrison, died April 25th in her Hollywood apartment of a suspected heroin overdose. She was 27 – the same age as Morrison when he died of a heart attack on July 3rd 1971, but there the similarities end. Pamlea’s death is certified; Morrison’s was mysterious. None of Jim’s friends saw his body, which mystery has caused a number of people to claim he’s still alive. Pamela herself who discovered Jim’s body in their Paris bathtub, later said she couldn’t remember what happened, didn’t recall seeing his body taken away or buried. She was severely depressed after his death, and in recent months had started talking about “us” as though Jim were alive – though she had no evidence to support that theory.
“She lived in fantasy,” said Danny Sugerman, a longtime friend of Jim and Pamela. Another friend, who didn’t want to be named, was less generous, “She flirted with death all the time. She wanted people to pay attention to her, always living this precarious existence.”
Pamlea Susan Courson Morrison met Jim in Los Angeles in 1965 when the Doors were playing their first gig at the London Fog. For the next six years, until his death, they had an on-again, off-again relationship, sometimes living together, sometimes apart, sometimes taking up with other partners for brief flings. “Jim finally met his match in Pamela,” said an anonymous friend.
“They used to love to get in car accidents, that was their idea of a good time,” said Marandi Babitz, a friend of Pamela since they were both 19 and studying art at Los Angeles City College together. “I think they were made for each other, they had exactly the same kind of mentality. They liked things to get upsetting and dramatic; they had huge brawls and really fucked each other over.”
Few of their friends believe that Jim and Pamela were married, although they did take out a license in Paris. “I know because I saw the license,” said former Doors manager Bill Siddons.
Another friend, Jerry Hopkins who is writing a book about Jim Morrison said, “I saw some papers that said they had had blood tests, and Pamela used to say they were married in Mexico, but I just don’t think so. But she called herself Mrs. Morrison, and Jim never complained.”
“Pamela once told me they hadn’t been married, that she just changed her name,” said Babitz.
Babitz said that Pamela was once busted: “Jim had bought her a Porsche, and then she got involved with someone else and went to New York with this other person and left the Porsche at the airport with a kilo in the trunk. She didn’t come back for two months, so the police towed her car away and searched it, and when she came home they were waiting for her. They kept Jim’s name out of it, and she got off. But that was the way she lived.”
In 1968 she decided to open a boutique in West Hollywood, called Themis. She traveled all over the world picking out items for the store, and Jim paid for all of them. He ended up losing about $300,000 on the venture, Sugerman said.”But I kept Pamela happy so he didn’t consider it a loss.” When Pamela returned from Paris in the summer of 1971, after Jim’s death, she walked into Themis one day and poured perfume over all of the clothing. Friends say she was delirious with frustration and grief. Themis closed soon thereafter; Pamela drove a truck headlong into the store front, breaking a window and damaging the front of the building.
Friends of Jim and Pamela claim they were heavy drug users (mostly phychedelics – staggering amounts of acid) in the mid sixties, but that Jim had narrowed his drug use to liquor by the time he died. Not so Pamela, who continued to use drugs of varying danger and degree. “She occasionally used smack, but I was never a habit,” Sugerman said. “She would sometimes use it when she got depressed, but mostly, she was a downer freak. She definitely was not a junkie.”
Police said Pamela’s body was found by John Mandell, an old friend of Jim’s who had been staying with her. When police arrived they found fresh needle marks in her left arm and a hypodermic syringe nearby. Jim Martin, detective with the Wilshire division said, “We’re calling it accidental heroin overdose; we won’t know exactly what toxic substance killed her until the coroner’s report comes through, and that can take some time.”
Martin said police had evidence that Pamela had threatened suicide in the past but made no attempt on her life; they did not believe her death was suicide. “We believe she’s been using heroin for about a year,” Martin said, but he couldn’t explain why the police believed that. (Police possibly met Pamela about a year ago when another man staying with her was arrested for pimping. Pamela’s friends claim that he was not pimping at the time and that, contrary to rumor, she was not part of his stable. She wasn’t involved in his arrest.
Sugerman said Pamela had been despondent lately because of business affairs. Generally, she felt she wasn’t being consulted enough by the attorney’s and other ex-Doors; specifically she had protested a plan to sell the rights to the Doors song, “Light My Fire,” for a Tiparillo commercial. Publishing rights to Doors songs are owned jointly by the Morrison Estate and ex-Doors, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger. Manzarek met with Pamela and agreed not to sell the song.
Diane Gardiner, publicist for Budda Records and perhaps Pamela’s closet friend, had little to say about Pamelas’ death except, “She didn’t seem depressed. I had lunch with her the day before she died and she talked about going to Mexico. My only comment is that she was a real beauty and was the toast of four continents.”
“She really was beautiful,” Marandi Babitz said. “She had a prevailing innocence, in and of the fact that she lived hard didn’t stop at anything. She still managed to stay young and pretty. Men just fell in love with her, I guess because she always seemed to need protection.”
Jim Morrison tried to protect her with his will, in which he bequeathed everything to Pamela. Pamela received no money from the estate for almost two years because she objected to approximately $75,000 in attorney’s fees submitted by Max Fink and other for work on Morrison’s Miami trial among other duties. According to Hopkins, :It was a standoff for a while. Pamela changed lawyers four times and finally gave in and agreed to pay. She got about $150,000 cash (plus the investments in oil land) and she got that less than a year ago. The first thing she did was buy a VW and a mink coat.”
Max Fink said Morrison’s total estate including all assets is now between $300,000 to $400,000. “There were some provisions in the will (in case of her demise). The only provision was that she had to survive Jim for a period of six months after his death to inherit, which she did. It all belongs to her parents now.” Had she died before the six month period, Jim’s brother Andrew and sister Anne would have inherited the money. It now goes to Mr and Mrs Columbus Courson; he’s a high school principal in Orange County, a retired Naval commander. (Jim’s father is an Admiral.)
In late April, before Pamela’s death a lawsuit was filed in L.A. Superior Court on behalf of the three x-Doors, suing for $250,000 allegedly advanced to Jim Morrison as loans before his death. The lawsuit alleged that Pamela Morrison refused to let the surviving Doors deduct those advances from their royalties.
When asked to comment on the lawsuits, Ray Manzarek exploded, “I don’t know anything about that. What a fucking bummer! It’s just lawyers getting their stinking excrement-encrusted fingers into it. It’s the tackiest thing I ever heard of.”
Abe Somer, encrusted attorney for Manzarek and the other Doors said, “Certain things have to be done with judicial approval. The documents speak for themselves.” He would not elaborate on the lawsuit. Somer said he was sure the Doors knew about it; “If they don’t their business manager certainly does.”
Bob Greene, the business manager said, “There’s no significance to the lawsuit; it’s a protective move, a legal maneuver, because Pamela’s attorneys didn’t prepare certain papers in time. It’s not a real lawsuit; it doesn’t mean the estate will actually have to pay any money. There won’t be a trial.”
On April 29th at Forest Lawns Old North Church, a memorial service was held for Pamela and Jim; Pamela’s body was not displayed, and guests were asked not to wear black. Ray Manzarek played several Doors songs on the organ, (“When The Music’s Over,” “Love Street,” and “Crystal Ship”). Pamela was cremated and her ashes buried in Jim’s plot in the Cimetiere Pere Lachaise in Paris.
END.