Fifty years have passed since Jim Morrison's death, and the last hours of the musician's life are still shrouded in mystery!
He occupies a small hidden corner of a Parisian cemetery, and thousands of fans still search for it half a century later. Jim Morrison is still unavoidable in the City of Light.
The death of the frontman of the Doors that happened on July 3, 1971, was one of the key signs that the optimism of the 1960s was coming to a dark end. Today the ‘king of lizards’ rests in the Pere-Lachaise cemetery at the eastern end of town.
Even with the help of Google Maps, it is not easy to find. It is the decision of a family that rightly feared a flood of fans.
‘It’s a cemetery he especially loved. He often came here for a walk, 'said rock critic and fan Sophie Rosemont.
‘He wanted to be buried next to Oscar Wilde,’ Rosemont said, but the place was too prominent.
The loneliness of the grave has failed to prevent millions of people from paying homage to it for decades. Rock legends like Patti Smith also posed for photos there.
The tombstone is protected by partitions, but there is no doubt that it will be targeted again this week.
He didn't die here
Morrison's last home was a third-floor apartment at 17 Beautreillis Street in the bohemian Marais district.
The owner of the apartment was model Elizabeth ‘Zozo’ Lariviere, and Morrison moved there with his girlfriend Pamela Courson and hoped to escape the madness of fame in the United States and dedicate himself to writing. He moved to Paris in 1971 after being convicted in the United States of public nudity and swearing after allegedly showing more skin than he was allowed to during a gig in Miami in 1969. Therefore, he was sentenced to six months in prison and lived in the French capital while he appealed the verdict.
According to the official version, he died in a bathtub from a heart attack at the age of 27 and was found by Courson. An autopsy was never performed, and many believed he died of a drug overdose, prompting numerous conspiracy theories that are still swirling today.
His death was announced two days later. He was already buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery - the last resting place of Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, and Gertrude Stein - after a funeral attended by only five people.
Courson initially supported the theory that he died of a heart attack, but eventually gave different versions of the cause of his death before she died of a drug overdose in Los Angeles in 1974.
But on the facade of his old building, someone left a message: 'Jim Morrison didn't die here.'
Journalist Sam Bernett has been investigating the case for years and claims that the rock legend overdosed in the toilet of the Rock'n'Roll Circus nightclub.
'His face was gray, his eyes closed, there was blood under his nose, and around his slightly open mouth white foam; he wasn’t breathing ’, Bernett writes in the book‘ The End: Jim Morrison ’.
Singer and icon of the 60s Marianne Faithfull supported the story in an interview with Mojo magazine and said Morrison was given a fatal dose by dealer Jean de Breteuil with whom she was dating at the time.
Toast to Jim
The nightclub at Rue de Seine 57, which hasn’t existed for a long time, ‘was a pretty crazy place,’ Rosemont said.
'It was visited by intellectuals, hippies, small and big bullies, the rich, stars like Mick Jagger ...'
Other places Morrison fans visit include one of Paris ’most beautiful squares, the Place des Vosges, and book kiosks down the Seine where Morrison loved to wander and tried to stay as anonymous as possible.'
They also go to the cult bookstore 'Shakespeare and Company.'
‘It’s a place Morrison got attached to very quickly. He did not speak French well, although he loved Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Mallarme very much, 'said Rosemont.
This regularly brought him to the left bank near the house of his friend, director Agnes Varda, and to the La Palette café where he loved to drink and where people will surely toast in his name on Saturday.
By: Amber V. - Gossip Whispers
