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Jim Morrison Joins the “27” Club

a poet, a goofball, a genius, a drunk, and a reluctant rock icon

By Kathy Copeland PaddenPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
Top Story - July 2021
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The Lizard King Photo by Visit West Hollywood

While most everyone was singing about incense, peppermints and feeling groovy in the 1960s, there was one group that dared to explore the darker, more chaotic side of the human experience.

Their leader — though he would bristle at being called such — was a poet, a goofball, a genius, a drunk, and a reluctant rock icon who loved to delve deep into the murky waters of the collective unconscious.

Jim was always at home between the worlds. The fantastical tales he shared from his inner journeys, cloaked in the guise of popular music, redefined the genre.

Morrison was a shaman for the T.V. generation.

When his muse called him from Los Angeles to Paris, he left the public eye. On July 3, 1971, he passed from this earth all together.

By 1971, Jim Morrison of the Doors was unrecognizable from his lean Lizard King days when he prowled the bars and nightclubs of L.A. in tight leather pants. He had put on a great deal of weight and his once chiseled features were hidden under a layer of bloat. He easily looked 10 years older than his 27 years. He decided to pursue his first love — poetry — and moved to Paris with his girlfriend Pamela Courson.

According to the most accepted account of the night of Jim’s death, Pam went to bed early while Jim stayed up, suffering from a coughing bout that began earlier in the evening. When he came to bed he told Pam he still felt lousy, and when he got up an hour later he vomited a small amount of blood. Pam wanted to call a doctor, but Jim said he was feeling a bit better and asked her to run him a bath instead. She did, and went back to bed.

Jim and Pam in Paris just days before his death. Photo by Open Culture

When Pam awoke at 6 a.m. the next morning, she called to Jim but was met with silence.

She got up to investigate.

When she entered the bathroom, Jim was submerged in the tub with a smile on his face. Her first thought was that Jim was messing with her (it would not have been out of character), but when she shook him and got no reaction she called the police, but there was nothing they could do.

Here’s where things get weird.

Jim’s body was wrapped in plastic in packed in dry ice, presumably by Pam and Alain Ronay, a friend of the couple’s who Pam had called even before alerting the police. During the next three days, the cheapest coffin available was delivered, and a doctor arrived to sign a death certificate (cause of death: heart failure.) No autopsy on Jim’s body was performed.

When the Doors’ manager Bill Siddons arrived at Jim and Pam’s apartment in Paris on July 6, all he saw was a coffin and a death certificate — he never got a glimpse of Jim’s body. Jim was buried the next day in Pere La Chaise Cemetery with only five people present. Pam told the American embassy that Jim had no immediate family (a lie) to facilitate a quickie burial.

Many people questioned the obvious holes in the story, including Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek, who asked Siddons on his return from Paris:

“How do you even know Jim was in the coffin? How do you know it wasn’t 150 lbs. of fucking sand?”

Indeed.

Jim working

Jim himself had made jokes about just up and disappearing, and told friends that he’d make contact from wherever he ended up using the alias “Mr. Mojo Risin’” — an anagram of his name. And if anyone could pull it off, everyone who knew him agreed it would be Jim.

But another, more sinister rumor has always circulated about what may have caused Jim’s death, and new evidence gives the old stories a bit more credence.

It was common knowledge that Pamela Courson was a heroin addict (she died of an overdose three year after Jim’s death.) Her habit had been a bone of contention between Pam and Morrison during the course of their entire relationship.

Jim used his share of illicit substances, but always shied away from hard drugs.

But for whatever reason, according to Sam Bernett, manager of the Rock and Roll Circus on the Left Bank and author of the book “The End: Jim Morrison,” Jim was in the club during the early morning hours of July 3, 1971 looking to score some heroin, ostensibly for Pam. He disappeared into the club’s bathroom, and when he didn’t re-emerge they busted the door down of the locked stall Morrison was occupying to find him slumped over and unresponsive.

Jim's grave. Pere Lachaise Cemetery, Paris Phtot by Freerange Stock

“We were certain he’d been snorting heroin because there was foam coming out of his lips as well as blood. He was scared of needles so never injected drugs,” Bernett said. To protect the dealers and the club’s owners, Jim was carried back to his apartment and placed in the tub, as many victims of heroin overdoses are.

Why would Jim, who was so vocal about the evils of hard drugs, be snorting heroin? Who knows? We’ll never know for sure if he was, never mind why.

The 20-year statute of limitations to prosecute for criminal charges is long since past, but there are no such limits for civil charges. A spokesman for France’s Police National was quoted as saying, “The new evidence will have to be considered.”

Marianne Faithfull has come forward to claim her then-boyfriend and drug dealer sold Jim the smack that caused his death. He also died in 1971 from an overdose.

No matter what happened to Jim Morrison, Jim himself seemed to know he wasn’t going to be sticking around for long. After the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin the previous year, both at age 27 and of overdoses, (they were the founding members of the “27 Club”), Jim used to like to tell people:

“You’re drinking with number three.”

Sadly, he was right.

Legend.

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About the Creator

Kathy Copeland Padden

Political junkie, history buff, and music freak spending the End Times alternating betweencrankiness and bemusement. Come along! It's fun!

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