How did Jim Morrison Get a Grave in Pere-Lachaise?

"[Bill] Siddons [Doors manager] arrived in Paris on Tuesday, July 6th [1971]. He was met at the flat by Pamela [Courson, Jim Morrison's girlfriend], a sealed coffin, and a signed death certificate. Funeral arrangements were quickly and secretly confirmed. On July 7 Pamela filed the death certificate with the U.S. Embassy, identifying Jim as James Douglas Morrison, a poet. She said there were no living relatives. The official cause of death was listed as a heart attack. 

"Siddons was efficient, and on Wednesday [July 7th] afternoon the coffin was lowered into the ground at Pere La Chaise, a cemetery Jim [Morrison] had recently visited as a sightseer, seeking the graves of Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Balzac, Bizet, and Chopin. Five mourners were present: Pamela, Siddons, Alan Ronay [Morrison's French-American friend since film school, in 1963], Agnes Varda [celebrated French film director], and Robin Wertle [Robyn was Morrison's secretary - he had employed her since early June 1971 to put some order to his affairs and papers]. They threw flowers on the grave and said their goodbyes." 

[No One Here Gets Out Alive, Hopkins & Sugerman, 1980] 

[My graphic of the five mourners. The pictures of Robyn Wertle and Bill Siddons, are from 1972: the pictures of Ronay and Courson are from June 1971. Only the picture of Varda is a little later, but reflects how she appeared in the early 1970s. The image of Wertle is of poor quality, but there are few pictures of her to be found. But even from this shot we can see that she bore a striking resemblance to Courson] 

[Here I have added Courson's photo of the grave seen just after Morrison was buried]

Cemetery Cold & Quiet 

Nine years after Jim Morrison's death, this was the most detailed description of Jim Morrison's funeral available then. The main author, Jerry Hopkins [a contributor to 'Rolling Stone' magazine, and the author of a biography of Elvis Presley] had interviewed Morrison a few times before the latter's passing, and had travelled with the Doors as an embedded journalist. He gathered the materials for the book between 1971 and 1975, although it was only published in 1980 thanks to the involvement of Doors staffer Danny Sugerman. The book's 'Acknowledgements' states: 

"The year following Jim Morrison's alleged death Jerry Hopkins was sent to Europe as Rolling Stone's roving correspondent. This made it a simple matter for him to research the details of Jim and the other Door's only European tour and of Jim's final months in Paris...." 

 [ib. p 381] 

The 'Acknowledgements' also claim that Hopkins had interviewed Pamela Courson, Bill Siddons, and Robin Wertle, as well as a host of others. However, absent from the two page list of contributors are Alan Ronay and Agnes Varda - two of the only five people at Morrison's funeral, and two people who were at Morrison's apartment on the day of his death. It is hardly surprising then, that the information in this "long awaited biography" is so sketchy when it comes to this pivotal moment: Morrison's death and interment. 

 We are told above that "Funeral arrangements were quickly and secretly confirmed" - what does that really mean? - it sounds like waffle. And, "the coffin was lowered into the ground at Pere La Chaise..." - Just like that - so quickly and secretly, so 'efficiently' and 'confirmedly'. The authors even refer to Morrison's "alleged" death: not only do they tell us little, but what they do tell us seems slightly dubious. 

 While the Morrison and Courson families had been locked in legal combat along with the Doors management over the control and inheritance of Jim Morrison's estate in a long saga, arching over the 1970s and 1980s, a British based American investigative writer, called Bob Seymore, who was not linked to the families or the Doors, sought to do independent research in Paris in order to find out what really happened there in July 1971. 

He had received no response from Bill Siddons, while Agnes Varda, Alan Ronay and Robyn Wertle had all been incommunicado on the subject of Jim Morrison's death throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and of course, Pamela Courson had died in 1974, without making any kind of verifiable statement beyond what she had told the police on the day of Morrison's death, notwithstanding the largely unfruitful contributions she and Wertle are supposed to have made to Hopkins' book. 

In his The End: The Death of Jim Morrison, [1990] the aforementioned Bob Seymore describes a visit he made to the offices of Pere Lachaise cemetery when he was seeking information on Morrison's burial there. He had previously phoned the cemetery, who said they could only answer questions if they were in written form. To that end he faxed over a series of questions to the office, asking when exactly the Morrison grave plot was bought, and who bought it, and other such questions, but no answers had been forthcoming. After a month of waiting, and being given the run-around [the faxed reply had been sent - hadn't been sent, etc., etc.,], he was then told his questions couldn't be answered as the matter was "confidential". 

Making further phone calls, Pere La Chaise relented and told him the grave was purchased on July 2nd [the day before Morrison's death]; they then changed their minds and said it was actually bought on July 7th [the day of the funeral]. They corrected this once more to give their final version: the grave was purchased on July 6th [the day before the funeral, and three days after Morrison's death] and they would fax him a photocopy of the register entry. 

 Not satisfied with this, in his persistence, Seymore went to Pere Lachaise to ask them the rest of his questions in person. While at the cemetery office, the clerk acknowledged the original list of questions Seymore had faxed to them, and set out to answer the questions there and then - faxing the replies, so that Seymore would have them on record. As this was going on, Seymore's French speaking companion, Nadine, noticed that one of the notes the clerk was working from stated that Pamela Susan Courson was Morrison's "cousin". This of course, wasn't true, and contradicts what Pam Courson's report to the police and the American Embassy had always stated: that she was only Jim Morrison 'girl-friend'. 

Seymore indicates the contents of the note, which stated next that Ms Courson's lawyers had requested that 'cousin' be changed to 'wife' in 1977. This was three years after Courson's death, and was also not true, even though Pam was buried as Pamela Courson-Morrison. She never legally married Jim Morrison and at most, could only be viewed as his common-law wife, when he died. The next note following this on the sheet referred to the sculptured bust which was placed on the grave in 1981, to which Seymore also alludes. 

Finding this description of Pamela as 'cousin' - and therefore as a Morrison blood relative, startling, Seymore asked the clerk to stamp the sheet, photo-copy and then fax it with the replies to his questions. Unfortunately, for what ever reason, Seymore did not include a facsimile of this sheet in his book, just as he didn't reproduce all the documents he gathered in Paris. No doubt this was due to limits placed upon him by the authorities and his own publisher. However, a copy of this sheet of notes - along with other documents that Seymore didn't reproduce has turned up, and it is quite revealing. For it suggests strongly that in order to purchase a grave plot for Jim Morrison, Pam Courson [not being married to him] had to pretend that she was a member of the Morrison family, calling herself his 'cousin'. She must have had help in order to convince Pere-Lachaise that this was the case, since she spoke no French.

"They [Pere Lachaise] discovered that the grave was purchased on July 6 and the burial took place the following day." 

[Seymore 1980] 

The Unanswered Question 

But how was it that Jim Morrison [who was being touted only as 'a dead unknown American writer' by Courson] was able to get a double grave plot at such short notice in Pere-Lachaise - and why has this never drawn much suspicion? That Pamela Courson bought the plot from Pere Lachaise on July 6th 1971 became the accepted wisdom and has been reported uncritically ever since, despite the puzzlement as to how this was possible, for even in 1971, the applications to get buried in Pere-Lachaise were exceeding the spaces available. How was the cousin of an unknown American able to get a plot so quickly? Consider that since the 1950s, Pere Lachaise has been fully booked. 

 To be sure of getting a plot at Pere-Lachaise, one needed to 'plan ahead', and make an application in advance, as plots could become available when already acquired graves fell into disuse, and stopped being maintained - or stopped being paid for. Leases ran out on some plots, and if not renewed, any bones could be removed and put into the ossuary, and a new body and grave put into its place. 

How was Pam Courson - a non-French speaker as I've said, able to get a plot a day before the funeral? The answer to this question - which has never before been properly asked - is there in the Pere-Lachaise notes mentioned by Seymore. So interested was he in the false use of the 'cousin' relationship by Pam Courson, he failed to notice the date when Courson 'acquired' the grave. It was not the 6th of July 1971, the day before the funeral, but the 6th of January 1971 - six months before the funeral, and therefore also a good six months before Morrison died. 

 Looking at the date '6.1.1971' on the notes, and after being told that the grave was purchased on the 6th of July, Seymore failed to notice that what he thought was a seven, was in fact a one: it is clearly the 6th of January. 

[The Pere-Lachaise note: The first two lines refer to the date and place of Morrison's death and to the date of his burial. The third line describes the grave plot and its position in the cemetery, while the fourth line refers to acquisition of the grave by his 'cousin'[cousine], Pamela Susan Courson on 6.1.1971. The next two lines indicate that the Courson family's legal team in 1977 request that 'cousin' be changed to 'wife' [epouse]. The remainder of the note, starting with a reference to Rebillon marble, details the bust of Jim Morrison sculpted by Mikulin Mladan and its placing on the grave in 1981] 

[The first section of the note - the word cousin (cousine) I've underlined, and the date, 6.1.1971, encircled in red] 

[The date 6.1.1971 is blown up and compared with other uses of 7s and 1s on the same sheet to show that the 1 is a 1, and that the writer will cross a seven (French 7) to avoid any ambiguity in certain cases] 

This immediately makes more sense and would allow 'cousin' Courson to acquire the plot in advance by putting herself on the waiting list, so to speak. A grave plot could become available any time within that six months. Courson was constantly flying to Europe during 1970-1, as she had a relationship with the wealthy Parisian aristocrat, Jean de Breteuil, know as the 'Count'. She also had the excuse to go on frequent buying missions, to obtain clothing and materials for her boutique 'Themis', which Morrison had bought for her to run in Los Angeles, and which specialised in expensively exotic clothes, and was patronised by the rich and famous. There was also the Parisian couple Agnes Varda, and Jacques Demy - well known new wave film makers, both friends of Courson and Morrison, while Morrison's friend since his college days - the French-American Alain Ronay - was a useful go-between as he was a photographer and film technician who, while living near Courson and Morrison in Los Angeles, often visited Europe and even stayed at times with Varda in Paris. 

 Anecdotal evidence says that Courson was in Paris from October 1970, returning to the US in December for Christmas, and then jetting back to Paris for the new year. She had been repeatedly telling Morrison that he must move to Paris and live there with her permanently, as the Doors recording contract was up, the Miami obscenity conviction loomed, and Morrison needed to strike out as a poet, and stop "wasting his time", as she saw it, with music. She had reportedly made the ultimatum that she would relocate to Paris herself even if he didn't join her. Returning again to the US briefly, she then left for Paris on the 14th of February 1971 to find an apartment: Morrison had finally agreed to go and live in Paris with her - he would follow her out there in a few weeks. 

 Using her network of the wealthy and influential, Courson got the luxury apartment at 17 Rue Beautreillis - near to Pere-Lachaise - for the time being, as its owner, a model friend, was going to be away for the summer. Jim would rent it for 3,000 francs a month. Eventually they planned to convert a derelict church in the south of France into a home. 

So we can establish that on the 6th of January 1971, Courson, calling herself a 'cousin' of Morrison, and a Paris resident, was able to apply for a grave plot in Pere-Lachaise. Interestingly, back in Los Angeles, and the day before this - on the 5th of January - Max Fink, the lawyer of the Doors, and the man who had kept Jim Morrison out of jail despite the best efforts of the Miami courts and the FBI [subsequently FBI files have been released showing that there was a near 100 page dossier on Morrison], formalised the Doors Partnership Agreement. Previously this was a word of mouth understanding between the four members of the group. Now it was set down and legally binding. Ultimately the agreement would make it possible for the Doors to continue as the Doors should one of the group die. This clause would be finalised and authorised by the group the day Morrison left for Paris, on the 11th March 1971. Fink had also warned Morrison that, as he was now appealing his Miami conviction for obscenity, and out on a substantial bond of $50, 000, he needed to move quickly as the authorities were ready to confiscate his passport: Fink was always one step ahead of Jim Morrison's persecutors. 

So we are left with this: Pamela Courson, claiming to be a Morrison cousin, had bought a plot for the Morrison family in the celebrated cemetery Pere-Lachaise, Paris. She had also acquired an apartment near Pere Lachaise, and Morrison himself would visit Pere Lachaise only a week before his death, telling his friend Alain Ronay that he would like to be buried there. While we might speculate as to why this plot was bought in advance, we cannot get away from the evidence that it was, and that Courson lied about her relationship to the Morrison clan in order to buy it. We know that the grave plot belonged to the Morrison family as they had to be asked permission for the marble bust to be placed on it in 1981. We also know that the grave plot was originally bought on a 30 year lease. In 2001, when the lease expired, the Morrison family bought the plot in perpetuity. 

Notes:

1) first edition page 367 - my editorial explanatory additions to the quote are in square brackets. Contrary to what is said here, Rear Admiral George S. Morrison is listed as being Jim Morrison's father on the US Embassy Death of an American Citizen certificate. Also, the funeral did not take place in the afternoon, but in the morning, starting at 8:30am. Documents have come to light since 1980 to show this. However, it still isn't certain on what day the American Embassy in Paris was notified of Jim's death - the first certificate [called a 'preliminary'] from the Embassy is dated 17th July 1971. My point here is that in 1980, Hopkin's book was the 'gospel' in regards to Jim Morrison. It wasn't until Seymore's book of 1990 that many assumptions were challenged.] 

2) page 20

3) thanks to Lilith McGregor for finding this. 

Bibliography:

No One Here Gets Out Alive, Jerry Hopkins & Danny Sugerman, Plexus Books, 1980 

The End: The Death of Jim Morrison, Bob Seymore, Omnibus Press, 1980

Documenting the Death of the Doors/Jim Morrison

Jim Morrison’s life and art entailed a continuous dialogue with death, hence, the absurdity of treating his death, as some writers have done, as an unimportant or uninteresting event. The fact is that not knowing how Jim Morrison died is exactly like having a tragedy whose final act consists of nothing but rough sketches for a half dozen possible endings. 

 [Albert Goldman, The End, 1991] (1) 

 How to get death 

 On the morning show 

 T.V. death 

 [James Douglas Morrison] (2) 

 Partnership Agreements 

 Like the American nation, the Doors rock group was founded on a kind of constitution they called the Partnership Agreement. Essentially the four members of the group agreed that everything should be divided equally between them. That all decisions taken by the group should be agreed unanimously, and each member had a veto. Even more fundamentally, the agreement was that the Doors could only consist of those four members together. Should any one of the four leave the group, the Doors would no longer exist. Not only that, but should any member leave the group, he couldn't use the name of the Doors. It was this esprit de corps that held the group together through its rise to fame and success between 1967 and 1971. 

 On the 5th January 1971, the Doors attorney Max Fink, formalised the Doors Partnership Agreement on paper, dating it retroactively to 1st Jan 1966. It was now legally binding. But it was thought that there was a flaw in the agreement: should a member of the group die, then the group would be no more - the Doors would die too. Surely this was not the same as a member wilfully leaving the group? Shouldn't an exception be made here? If a member died, the group should be allowed to go on. To that end, on the day that Doors singer Jim Morrison left to go and take an open ended vacation in Paris, the Doors thought to make an amendment to the Agreement, which would allow the group to continue if a member of the group should become deceased. 

Uncannily, Jim Morrison himself would die on July 3rd 1971 in Paris, some four months after this amendment was signed by the group. This then is our first document. 

 [The Amendment of March 11th 1971 to the Doors Partnership Agreement] (3) 

 Paris 

The Jury is still out on what happened to Jim Morrison on the morning of July 3rd, 1971. Whether he actually suddenly died or disappeared, remains disputed. However, it must be said that on that date he was declared legally dead, and the documents which help maintain the factual grip of a legal death have long been in the public domain. But have these documents been really examined closely? In this article I wish to subject these documents to a careful study. In so doing, I wish to dispense with all speculation and opinion. I do not want to entertain any hindsight versions, recollections, theories or stories about Jim Morrison's end. I want only to look closely at the contemporaneous facts that have been presented to us as documentation. 

Documentation is vital in the search for truth and for the upholding of fact. Documents tend to be dated as a matter of course. The document is dated and timed itself, and to the events referred to in it, a date and time is usually imputed. That is the value of documentation: arguments end where documents begin. 

Where? 

Map of Paris regions showing the various locations in relation to Jim Morrison's apartment

I made the above map from Google Earth to help me organise my response to the various Paris documents relating to the death of Jim Morrison, and to give an idea of the proximity of the various locations connected to them in relation to his apartment at #17 rue Beautreillis in the 4th ARR, [or district.] To briefly explain the significance of each location - and thereby take care of the question 'where?': 

1) Agnes Varda's House was where Alain Ronay stayed when he wasn't staying at Jim Morrison's apartment. Varda and Ronay [both friends of Morrison] are said to have travelled from her house to the apartment on the morning of Morrison's death 

2) 8 rue du Cloitre is the funeral home of the famous Hospital Dieu, Notre Dame. This is where Michel Gagnepain worked, the man who signed the death certificate, filled out the burial permit and the funeral bill. 

3) The Town Hall in the 4th ARR is from where the death certificate and the burial permit were issued.

4) The Fire Station, very close to the apartment, provided the first emergency workers to reach the scene of the death 

5) Pere Lachaise Cemetery is of course where 'James Douglas Morrison' was buried 

6) The City, or Municipal Funeral Home, at 104 rue d'Aubervilliers, organised Morrison's funeral 

7) The Police Station, the Arsenal, provided the investigating officers, and was where Pamela Courson and Alain Ronay made their witness statements 

8) The American Embassy was where Jim Morrison's death was reported after his funeral 

9) Dr Vassille's address as given on his medical report 

The Vital Documents 

 As regards the death of Jim Morrison, the vital documents are the certificates of death, permits of burial, bills of funeral and reports and findings of officials - such as policemen and doctors - and last, but not least, minuted reports made by witnesses. Keeping only to these things, how could we possibly go wrong? Indeed! These documents seemingly include no opinions and contain only the facts of the matter, or so we might think. 

The documents then, supply a framework of facts which pertain to Jim Morrison's last day in Paris. Stated briefly they tell us this: 

 3rd July 1971 [Saturday] 

 - 0500hrs - Jim Morrison dies in Paris [according to his death certificate and the burial permit] 

 - 0925hrs - emergency services are called to the apartment - report of a dying man 

 - 0930hrs - fire brigade arrive at apartment to find deceased. Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson is present 

 - 0940hrs - police arrive at the apartment. Morrison's friend Alain Ronay is now also at the apartment. 

 - 1430hrs - fire brigade file report 

 - 1430hrs - death certificate produced 

 - 1430hrs - burial permit produced 

 - 1540hrs to 1840hrs, Pamela Courson, only witness to Morrison's death, gives statement to police 

 - 1800hrs - Dr Vassille examines Jim Morrison's body to determine cause of death 

 - 1840hrs - police officer Manchez instigates medical report, including Dr Vassille's findings 

 - 1850hrs - Alain Ronay gives statement to police 

 These are the recorded events of the day of Morrison's death according to the documents. It will immediately be noticed that they tell us it was more than four hours between Morrison's recorded death and the emergency services being called. Nine and a half hours after his demise, the death certificate and the burial permit are issued. However the body isn't examined by the doctor until 6pm - thirteen hours after the death, and three and a half hours after the death and burial certificates have been produced. And yet, according to French law, a death certificate can only be issued after a medical report is submitted by a doctor. Not only that, a witness statement from Alain Ronay had yet to be given, despite the death and burial permits being already issued. 

Even before we examine the documents themselves, we see that the timeline gives rise to serious concerns. And yet, despite what look like suspicious circumstances surrounding the death of a 27 year old in a luxury flat, no autopsy was ordered, the body remaining in the apartment the whole weekend, and into the following week when it was buried on the Wednesday. Similarly, our documentation tells us this of those following days: 

 4th July 1971 [Sunday] 

 - police superintendent Berry makes concluding report of Jim Morrison's death to the Public Prosecutor 

- the body of the deceased remains in the apartment on a bed. 

6th July 1971 [Tuesday] 

 - Pamela Courson makes funeral arrangements -Courson purchases a double grave plot at Pere Lachaise cemetery for Morrison's burial tomorrow 

 7th July 1971 [Wednesday] 

 - Funeral of Jim Morrison - burial in Pere Lachaise Paris. 

We notice here that the case of Morrison's death goes to the Public Prosecutor, but still the body remains in the apartment and no autopsy ordered. Pamela Courson [telling the authorities that the deceased 'Douglas Morrison' is an unknown American writer] is able to buy a double plot at the Pere Lachaise cemetery at very short notice for the funeral the next day. Two days after the funeral, Courson is back in the USA, applying for a disclosure of Morrison's Last Will and Testament, while the American Embassy in Paris is still waiting to be notified of Morrison's death and its cause. Clearly the death was purposely shrouded in secrecy, while the bare events as laid out above, suggest something very untoward. 

Now we need to examine the documents which give us the above string of events in more detail. The two vital documents - the ones upon which everything else hinges - are the death certificate and the burial permit. 

The Death Certificate 

 The French death certificate needs to contain the following basic information: the date and time the deceased met their end. Where they died, and their name, as well as their place of birth, their occupation and their current address. It should also state what their marital status is and who their next of kin are. In addition, the date and time of the certificate's issue should be stated, along with the name of the person who is declaring the death, and the official registering it, and their position/address, plus their respective signatures. [French death certificates do not give the cause of death, which is to be found in the medical report supplied by the doctor]. These criteria are met by the death certificate of James Douglas Morrison, seen below. 

[Death Certificate of Jim Morrison, with translation into English] (4) 

 As aforesaid, this bears the signatures of two people: a Mr Michel Gagnepain, and a Mrs Annie Moreno. The latter is a civil servant at the Town Hall's registry office who registered the death, the certificate of which accordingly bears the address of the Town Hall of the 4th District which covered Morrison's apartment in rue Beautreillis. The former signatory, Mr Gagnepain, is the person who declared the death at the local Town Hall. Gagnepain is stated to be an employee at 8 Rue du Cloitre-Notre-Dame, in the 4th District, which is the funeral home of the Hotel-Dieu de Paris - the oldest hospital in France, if not the world. This hospital is actually located quite near to Morrison's apartment, estimated to be about a 15 minute walk. It would be quite in order if Jim Morrison was taken to that hospital dead or dying, for him to be pronounced dead there by one of the hospital's doctors, and placed in their funeral home - as in this case - in order to present the medical report and the declaration of death to the Town Hall, and so obtain a death certificate and then a burial permit to that effect. Indeed, on the face of it, this is what the death certificate of Jim Morrison tells us happened. This would allow a quick burial within the time strictures allowed in France: 

 The following tasks should be completed following the death in France of an immediate family member: 

 1. Within 24 hours 

 ○ Have a doctor make a medical report of the death

 ○ Contact a funeral service/undertaker to manage the burial 

 ○ Make declaration of the death at the local Town Hall 

 2. Within six days 

 ○ Make arrangements for the funeral and burial or cremation 

(5) 

 When we check the reference works as regards Mr Gagnepain's funeral home as named on the death certificate, we find the following: 

 "At number 8 rue du Cloitre was the funeral home of the [hospital] Hotel-Dieu du Paris, where the bodies of people who died in the establishment [i.e., the hospital] or in connection with a medico-judicial investigation are deposited. The body of Jim Morrison, for example, was deposited there after the discovery of his death." (6) 

A funeral home or burial chamber is a place where the relatives of a deceased person gather before the burial and the funeral. This place makes it possible to participate in the work of mourning by replacing the funeral vigilis. It is also one of the places where conservation care is practiced with the hospital and the deceased's home. Not to be confused with a mortuary, which is located in a hospital. 

In France 

In France, the transport of the body to the funeral home as well as the first three days of it are the responsibility of the State if the body was discovered at home or on a public road by the police. 

The funeral parlour should not be confused with the morgue or burial chamber located within a hospital, where the stay of the body is free for the first three days. 

Funeral homes are managed by authorised funeral directors, but are a public place. All funeral directors may request the admission of a deceased person to any funeral parlour, without access being refused except for reasons of lack of places. The rate applied is the same for all families. The deceased rests in a funeral chamber on a refrigerated bed, or in presentation in a coffin. [ib.] (5) 

While the 'official' story is that Jim Morrison died at home, it also says that his body remained in his apartment, from the moment of his death until the morning of his funeral, five days later, when he was buried in Pere Lachaise cemetery. But the death certificate - an official document - tells a different story: Jim Morrison's body was taken to the nearest hospital, being the Dieu de Paris, pronounced dead there, then placed in its funeral home, and a death certificate was issued at the request of that funeral home from the local Town Hall. Indeed, this is the document we have before us now. 

With the very first document we observe a completely different scenario to that stated in all the 'official' accounts of Jim Morrison's death, this without recourse to any tendentious opinions or conspiracy theories. 

This death certificate links us to the next vital document. 

 The Burial Permit 

 [Burial Permit - copy of original, top, with translated version, below] (7) 

 Just as a death certificate cannot be got without a prior medical report, nor can a burial permit be obtained without a valid death certificate. This burial permit - issued from the Town Hall - echoes the information that is on Morrison's death certificate. It gives the all important date and time of death as Saturday the 3rd of July, 1971 at 5am, and the place of death as 17 rue Beautreillis. The permit has the same issue time too, that of 2:30pm of that same day. 

It will be seen that on the original there are two different hands involved in filling the permit out. The first being the original information of the death, as stated at the Town Hall, and the second being that of when the permit is subsequently handed to the undertakers, and accordingly dated at the bottom on the 6th of July when the funeral for the next day was arranged. However, there seems to be an anomaly in the original issuance of the permit. For instead of the issuer being a 'Mr [name of a] Doctor of Medicine' as the pro-forma insists, rather than a Doctor's name, we have 'Mr Public Prosecutor, Doctor of Medicine'. This cannot be correct. Of course, at a glance, that may look like a proper name with its 'de la' format, but on inspection it is no such thing. The 'signature' at the bottom of the permit doesn't help as it is almost a non-signature, with a too concentrated scribble that makes it invalid as a meaningful signature which cannot be aligned to any name, let alone to a name on the permit, as there isn't one. 

The other writing on the left hand column, and the day, date and time above the stamp, is Michel Gagnepain's, of the death certificate and hospital, as he also signed the funeral bill. 

The Funeral Bill 

 [The Funeral Bill, left, from the Municipal Funeral Home [104 rue d'Aubervilliers], is signed and filled out by Michel Gagnepain, who also filled out the Burial Permit and of course signed the death permit - see insets on right which make these comparisons] (Thanks to Lilith McGregor for helping pointing these out) (8) 

The Funeral Bill is made out to Pamela Courson in name, but doesn't bear her actual signature - someone else signed her name in her stead. Her biographer Patricia Butler [1998] stated that the signature was not Courson's, but couldn't decide who actually wrote it. My assumption is that Michel Gagnepain 'signed' her name as it is similar to the rest of the writing on the form, which is his. It looks, therefore, like Michel Gagnepain was more than instrumental in the three vital documents needed to declare Jim Morrison dead and have him buried quickly, as French law allows. 

From another perspective, mention of the 'Public Prosecutor' on the Burial Permit would indicate that the body had been sent to have an autopsy, possibly due to suspicions of the death being due to drug use, for example. That it cleared such an autopsy would have resulted in the issuance of the burial permit. However, all those authorities who have commented on the death of Jim Morrison have been unanimous on one thing: he did not undergo an autopsy. However, it is possible that his body did undergo an autopsy, but this information has been embargoed by the Morrison family - but I promised not to speculate!

Once again, the documents meant to nail the facts offer us some disquiet: a non-name, a non-signature, a substituting of a signature by an official, a confusion about a possible autopsy, and the monopoly of one man's authorisation over documents which are meant to express independent procedures. And all in all, there is the sense of an undue secrecy and obfuscation hanging over the whole affair. 

The Police Documents 

As the interest in the Jim Morrison case [and in the Doors music] grew during the 1980s, with Hollywood film makers and independent researchers like Bob Seymore and Albert Goldman looking to find out more facts about the mysterious death, a series of documents were published in 1990 which comprised the French Police dossier on the case, including statements from officers, witnesses and the rather late medical report made at 6pm on the 3rd of July for a man who died 13 hours earlier, according to the death certificate. 

The documents were first published and translated in Bob Seymore's book [1990], although he didn't provide facsimiles for all of them. I will take them as set down by Seymore with that caveat. The documents are: 

A] 3-7-71 9:40am: Report of J Manchez Police Officer 

B] 3-7-71 2:30pm: Report of A Raisson Fire Officer 

C] 3-7-71 3:40pm - 6:40pm: Witness Statement of Miss Pamela Courson [girlfriend of the deceased] 

D] 3-7-71 6:00pm: Medical Report of Vassille, Doctor of Medicine 

E] 3-7-71 6:40pm: Requests of J Manchez for a medical report and the Public Prosecutor 

F] 3-7-71 6:50pm: Witness Statement of Mr Alain Ronay [friend of the deceased] 

G] 4-7-71 no time: Concluding report by Police Superintendent Berry to the Public Prosecutor 

Seymore only gives facsimiles of C] and D]. All the others he translates and prints as normal English text in the body of the book. 

When examining these police file documents, rather than look at them one by one, it might be more instructive at first to compare them in relation to our guiding principles: Who, When, Where, What and Why? 

Who? 

It might seem surprising, but the documents vary in identifying the name and age of the deceased. 

The death certificate and the burial permit are uniform in naming the deceased as James DOUGLAS MORRISON. This suggests the surname to be 'Douglas Morrison' [as if it were 'Douglas-Morrison'], rather than just Morrison, whereas Douglas was only a middle name. There has been speculation that this was done initially by Courson to obscure the identity of the famous 'Jim Morrison', and present the deceased as an unknown poet called Douglas. This would also mean that the death would be filed under 'D' and not 'M', and may explain why the Doors office were unable to find out any information about the death before the funeral, whereas the Police file generally reports the name as being simply 'James MORRISON'. 

This is just one indication that there is not the proper chronological relation between the death certificate and the later police file. Similarly, while the death certificate and burial permit correctly give Morrison's age as 27, police officer Manchez in [A] states that Morrison is 28 years old, as does the medical report of Dr Vassille [G]. The latter is a remarkable mistake as this is the last report, made some 13 hours after the given hour of death, and after the correct date of birth had been recorded in previous reports. Less important, but still concerning, is that Dr Vassille also spells Morrison's surname wrong, as 'Morrisson', in his report heading. As the death certificate is meant to be based on the medical report, it is puzzling that the medical report gives the wrong age and misspells the surname. 

This further emphasises the implication that the death certificate and the burial permit, produced at the Town Hall at 2:30pm, were based on another - earlier - medical report which has been expunged [or hidden] from the record, and that Vassille's medical report, issued after 6:00pm the same day, was not based on the correct identification of the deceased, in terms of his name and age [whereas the death certificate and burial permits were]. Also, Vassille's medical report does not include the time of death, an important entry on any death certificate. 

Not only does Dr Vassille not have the exact facts of Jim Morrison's identity to hand, his examination of the body seems cursory, and his concluding that a heart attack in a young male of 27 is a 'natural cause' is unsatisfactory. His mention that there were no "suspicious" "lesions" on the body might imply that the whole reason for this [second] medical report was only to check whether drug use had been involved. 

Medical Report of Max Vassille, Doctor of Medicine 

[Dr Vassille's medical report with added English translation] (4) 

When? 

As already asserted: the death certificate and the burial permit state categorically that Jim Morrison died at 5:00am on Saturday the 3rd of July 1971. This is reaffirmed in the American Embassy reports issued after the funeral, Death of an American Citizen: the time of death was 5:00am. And yet this time of death is not mentioned in any of the police file documents, not even in the statement of the only witness to Morrison's death, his girlfriend Pamela Courson. 

Generally, while the police file statements corroborate each other, they do not corroborate the death certificate. The report of the first on the scene, fireman Alain Raisson, said that when he arrived at 9:30am [4 and a half hours after the death], Morrison was in the bath, the water in the bath was warm, and so was the body. And yet, usually, a body starts to become cold 3 hours after death. Even if there are unusual cases where a body can retain heat longer than that, the bath water would not have been warm after that length of time. 

The firemen pulled the body out of the bath and took it to the bedroom where it was placed on the bed. Police officer Manchez then reports seeing the body at this point, and reporting it to still be "supple". Again, usually after three hours a dead body starts to noticeably stiffen. Manchez then goes into the bathroom and finds that the bath water is still "lukewarm." These observations, made between 9:30 and 9:40am do not accord with Morrison's life [and the bath] ending at 5:00am. 

Even more, Manchez's statement reports that one of those present in the apartment - Alain Ronay - had been called over to the flat by Pamela Courson between 8:30 to 9:00am, being told that Morrison had "fainted". And that when Ronay arrived at the apartment [after 9:00 but before 9:25am] he saw Morrison "unconscious" in the bath [despite Ronay in [F] saying he "refused to see the body", a peculiar statement in itself]. 

This all implies that Morrison might still have been alive between 8:30 and 9:15am, and may explain why his body [and the bath water] were still warm - and supple - at 9:30hrs.

Superintendent Berry, in his summing up report made the following day, confirms this course of events: Morrison was discovered unconscious, not dead. He was still thought to be unconscious at 9:30am. It wasn't until he was removed from the bath at that time, that he was then confirmed to be dead, even though the body was still warm and supple. And yet the death certificate insists he was already dead at 5:00am. Below is a translation of police Officer Manchez's initial report. I have highlighted areas of particular interest 

 (9) 

 And here is the fireman's report: 

 (9) 

Based on these reports, the time of death must have been later than 5:00am. Dr Vassille was called in later that day by Superintendent Berry to examine the body [as we can see from the map at the top of this essay, Vassille was based just over the road from the police station]. In his medical report he did not even offer an estimation of the time of death, as it seems the doctor was mainly concerned with establishing whether or not there were any "suspicious" "lesions" on the body. 

What? 

We note that Manchez's statement, made some nine hours before the Doctor's medical report, said the body didn't show any signs of "lesions" too - a strange pre-echo of a later finding. While Superintendent Berry, the head of the investigation, made certain in his summing up report he presented the next day, that the body bore no traces of "lesions", nor - he added - any "needle marks." 

 [Berry's report translated - my highlights.] (9) 

One can only conclude that the main thrust of the police file and medical report is a negative one: to state what Mr Morrison didn't die of, rather than what he did. Paris was swept at that time by a spate of heroin related deaths: Superintendent Berry was determined that he wasn't going to let a heroin overdose victim go under his radar. As long as Morrison didn't die of a drugs overdose, the case could be closed. In the statement given by Alain Ronay at the police station, he is asked by police officer Manchez if Jim Morrison ever took drugs. Clearly, this was the over-riding concern of the police investigation. 

[Alain Ronay statement to the police translated - note that he says in a response to a question ["N.B."] that Morrison didn't use drugs, and was opposed to their use.] (9) 

 As we can see, Superintendent Berry concludes his report of the 4th of July with "consequently, I submit your burial certificate." Is this the same burial permit which was issued the previous day? It must be, for it bears the same handwriting as that on the funeral bill. This suggests that the burial permit issued on the 3rd of July at 2:30am was confiscated by the police pending this subsequent investigation and what must have been a second medical examination to determine whether drug use had been involved. Satisfied it hadn't, Berry then "submits" the burial permit to the public prosecutor. This might explain why the burial permit bears not the name of a doctor, but merely 'Mr Public Prosecutor, Dr of Medicine', as we noted earlier. 

Soon after Dr Vassille's examination on the 3rd of July, police officer Manchez had filed a report of the case to the public prosecutor which mentions that the death certificate was "prepared at the Town Hall". This must be the one that was issued earlier and which was held back by the police - like the burial permit - pending the investigation and examination by Dr Vassille, which must have been a 'second opinion'. 

 [translation of police officer Manchez's report to the Public Prosecutor] (9) 

Dr Vassille is therefore content to conclude his own sketchy medical report with the diagnosis that 27 year old Morrison died of a sudden heart failure, brought on by drinking too much alcohol, and a too sudden change in body temperature due to taking a bath. He drew this conclusion from the admissions of the only witness to the death - Pamela Courson - who was making her statement in the police station at the same time as the Doctor was in the apartment with the body. Vassille says "as it was told to us by a friend at the scene." But Dr Vassille was not 'at the scene'. He must therefore be basing his assumptions purely on what Superintendent Berry has told him- and what Berry has told him to look for. 

Why? 

Back at the police station, Pamela Courson is confusedly telling the investigators that, not long before his death, Jim Morrison had often "complained" of "breathing difficulties", but on the other hand he "never used to complain," and he was in "good health." The morning of his death she said he felt ill and told her he would take a bath, which he did, but then called Ms Courson to the bathroom saying he needed to vomit. He vomited up blood, including "blood clots". She wanted to call a doctor, but he told her not to worry as he now felt better, and remained in the bath. This was possibly around 4:00am, but Courson wasn't sure of the time. She went back to bed and slept for a few hours - again she isn't sure for how long. Awaking, and finding that Mr Morrison wasn't in bed as she had expected, she went to the bathroom and found him still in the bath, "unconscious." Unable to revive him or move him on her own, she telephoned Morrison's friend and colleague, Alain Ronay, who was then living at Agnes Varda's apartment in the Latin Quarter of Paris, urging them to come over quickly as Jim was "unconscious". Ronay said he received this call at 8:30am. 

There is some more confusion here, as Ronay says in his own statement that the police were already at the apartment when he got there, whereas Ms Courson implies that Ronay called them when he got to the apartment. This confusion is probably due to Courson actually asking French speakers Ronay and Varda to call the police on her behalf from their own flat due to her lack of French. Hence the police - being nearer to the flat than Varda - arrived before Ronay and Varda got there. Ronay didn't mention this in his own statement, and said he and Varda left immediately when Pamela Courson called them. 

[facsimile of Pamela Courson's statement to the police with translation] (note that P Courson's signature on this statement is identical to Jim Morrison's own and his signing of her name on cheques - see http://thenietzscheanjimmorrison.blogspot.com/2023/02/) (4) 

Conclusion 

The story the documents tell us is that the initial death certificate and burial permit, which are largely authorised by Michel Gagnepain [and an unknown doctor - unless Gagnepain was a doctor] of the Hospital Dieu funeral home, are meant to expedite the burial of Jim Morrison as quickly and quietly as possible, as seems to be the desire of his friends Pamela Courson and Alain Ronay. 

Police Superintendent Berry, on the other hand, at first appears to be suspicious, and carries out an investigation on Ronay and Courson after the death certificate had been issued, while getting another Doctor [Max Vassille] to examine the body, presumably looking for a possible death by a drugs overdose. Satisfied that this is not the case, Doctor Vassille's report - like the witness statements of Ronay and Courson - suggests that Morrison had what we now call 'underlying conditions', which he had neglected, and he had also ignored the imploring of his friends to get his bad cough, poor breathing and his alcohol consumption seen to. These conditions were therefore 'natural', and Morrison did not touch drugs. 

The death certificate and burial permit are re-submitted by Supt. Berry, and Ronay and Courson are in the clear and able to make the funeral arrangements, presumably with the help of Michel Gagnepain as before. 

It is interesting to note that five days before the death, Morrison, Ronay and Courson had gone on a sight-seeing trip to a village, Saint-Leu, north of Paris. Being a photographer, Ronay took photos of Morrison and Courson, and of himself with them. In some of the photos, red-haired Courson can be seen using her Super 8 camera - she and Morrison - like Ronay, being keen cinematographers. 

Even though Ronay was acknowledged in helping Jerry Hopkins write his biography of Morrison, which he started in 1972 [it wasn't published until 1980], Ronay did not provide these last known photos of Morrison. He only chose to publish them twenty years later in 1991. I think they document a very different impression to the Morrison that comes through the pages of the medical report and witness statements of 1971, including Ronay's own. In the photos, some of which are reproduced below, Morrison looks well, slim and happy, while the behaviour of he, Ronay and Courson seems quite carefree. 

Lastly, we need to tie up the last few documented loose ends:

7th July 1971 [Wednesday] 

-- Funeral of Jim Morrison 

9th July [Friday] 

- Courson arrives in the USA after leaving Paris.

- In California, Doors manager Bill Siddons gives the official press release of Morrison's death 

-- New York Times reports Jim's death, dating announcement to 8th July, and the death to "last Saturday". 

13th July [Tuesday]

 - Doors lawyer Max Fink & Pamela Courson apply for a disclosure of Morrison's Will 

15th July

 - preliminary report of the Death of American Citizen, American Embassy Paris, awaiting doctor's report for cause of death 

11th August

 - final report of the Death of an American Citizen after Dr. Vassille's medical report received 

17th August

 - Pamela Courson and Max Fink gain probate of Jim's Will 

25th August

 - Doors management make creditor claims against the late Jim Morrison's Estate 

So What? 

Some accounts say that Morrison's passport was returned to the American Embassy in Paris, on the day of his funeral. But the first report of The Death of an American Citizen is not made until 15th of July, and it is marked as 'preliminary', as the cause of death has not been given, as they await the medical report. Nearly a month later the report of Dr Vassille has been submitted and the Final report of The Death of an American Citizen is issued on August 11th. Perhaps this delay is due to the slow wheels of bureaucracy, as Courson, the Doors manager and Ronay had all returned to the USA only two days after the funeral. 

[The Preliminary and Final versions of Morrison's Death of an American Citizen report compared] (10)

Max Fink, the Doors attorney, who had made the amendment to the Partnership Agreement as described at the start of this essay, was also named as an executor [alongside Courson] in Jim Morrison's Last Will and Testament, drawn up on February 12th 1969, which he also witnessed. 

Pamela Courson was to be Morrison's sole beneficiary, according to the Will, upon his death. 

Fink and Courson lost little time in applying for disclosure of the Will and subjecting it to probate. 

(11) 

Finally, we see that the Doors themselves sued Jim Morrison's estate on the 25th August 1971. 

 (12) 

The above claim against Morrison's Estate is for about $120, 000 - which works out to about $895, 000 in today's money. 

These documents may not have got us as close to finding out the truth of what happened on that fateful day of June 3rd, 1971 as we had hoped, but they tell us more than a whole host of unverified personal recollections, made long after the events, ever could. Moreover, it is what these documents tell us in between the lines, that might be most important. For it is from these gaps that we draw our conclusions. 

Notes 

 

1) Rocco 1997 p 146 

2) Elektra, 1978 'Lament' 

3) https://www.christies.com/zh/lot/lot-5865113 

4) Autopsyfiles.org - Jim Morrison Death Certificate and Police Report 

5) https://www.angloinfo.com/how-to/france/healthcare/death-dying> 

6) fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rue_du_Cloître-Notre-Dame 

7) http://www.rockmine.com/Doors/Death.html 

8) http://mildequator.com/documents/legaldocs.html#funeralbill 

9) Adapted from Seymore 1990 

10) https://newdoorstalk.proboards.com/thread/1659/morrison-death-american-citizen-report 

11) https://newdoorstalk.proboards.com/thread/132/jims 

12) https://newdoorstalk.proboards.com/thread/2203/gets-sued-doors-when-dead 

DISCOGRAPHY 

An American Prayer, Jim Morrison, music by The Doors, Elektra, 1978 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

No One Here Gets Out Alive, J Hopkins/D Sugarman, Plexus, 1980 

The End, B Seymore, Omnibus, 1990 

The Doors Companion, ed. J Rocco, Schirmer, 1997 

Angels Dance and Angels Die, P Butler 1998 

[Copyright Bill Boethius Osborn 2023, with acknowledgements to Lilith McGregor]

The Poet in Exile. A Novel. by Ray Manzarek 2001. A review, while thinking on Jim Morrison's 'death', by Bill Boethius Osborn

Open still remaineth the earth for great souls. 

Empty are still many sites for lone ones and twain ones, around which floateth the odour of tranquil seas. 

Open still remaineth a free life for great souls. 

Verily, he who possesseth little is so much the less possessed: blessed be moderate poverty! 

There, where the State ceaseth - there only commenceth the man who is not superfluous: there commenceth the song of the necessary ones, the single and irreplaceable melody. 

[Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra: from The New Idol] (1)

 By 1970 the Doors were just another , clumsier than average, rock group - and, when Morrison died suddenly in Paris 1971, their last vestige of individuality disappeared. Though attempts by Manzarek to continue the group persist, the appeal of the band has badly dated and is unlikely to be convincingly revived. 

[The NME Book of Rock, 1973] (2)

 It's just going to be poetry and music. Nothing more than it was when we first started playing together. 

['The Poet', from The Poet in Exile, A Novel, by Ray Manzarek, 2001. p 184] (3)

The Novel

Essentially, this novel by Ray Manzarek is the story of a spiritual journey, of a life-long hippy trail, from the West to the East, one in search of enlightenment and a final return to paradise. Embedded in this story, though, is the mystery of Jim Morrison, the singer of the Doors, Ray Manzarek's colleague in that band, and his fate after he 'died' in Paris in July 1971. 

Did the singer, who was "much obsessed by death", actually defy it? 

Using the device of changing all the names, Manzarek seeks to tell the truth of what happened to Jim Morrison through the medium of fiction. For me, those parts of the book which talk about what actually happened to Jim in Paris on the 3rd of July 1971, and immediately after, ring true. 

The book's subsequent tales of Jim's life of exile in the 'Seychelles' [because Manzarek often changes the names of places as well as persons, we cannot assume that the 'Seychelles' was the actual destination - and given the connections we are to explore, it is possible that it was rather North Africa], then India, and back to the 'Seychelles' again - facing certain death from cancer in his late 50s - are less convincing. 

But I assume that they are the trojan horse used by Ray Manzarek to unburden himself of the truth about the so-called "death" of Jim Morrison, which was no such thing. 

And do not the publicly known facts [or lack of them] regarding those last days in Paris suggest very much that Jim faked his own death, changed his identity and went on to live anonymously in another part of the world - to escape the suffocating stardom, his personal entanglements and the six month jail sentence that awaited him in the USA? 

Manzarek has Jim tell us how this was done, and the tale fits the facts perfectly, and yes, rings true.

                              [Jim Morrison (left) with Ray Manzarek (right) in California, 1970] 

Morrison's death was faked with the help of two others - the brilliant French director Agnes Varda, and her close-friend , the French-American film technician and photographer Alain Claude Ronay. While those others around Jim, such as the Doors [including keyboardist Ray Manzarek and their manager Bill Siddons], and Jim's girlfriend Pamela Courson, suspected that he might attempt to do such a thing one day, because of things he had said, and hints he had dropped, only Varda and Ronay were in on all the details and execution of the specific plan. 

 As Ray writes in The Poet in Exile: "Only the two French friends knew the truth and they weren't talking. Not to the press, not to me, not to anyone." [p. 2] (page references are to 'The Poet in Exile', unless otherwise stated) 

 Agnes Varda was a world renowned modernist film maker, and was married to the equally renowned director Jacques Demy. The pair were well connected in Parisian society [even 'official' version of Jim's 'death by natural causes' state that Varda was able to delay the news of the 'death' reaching the press until after the funeral and the Doors own press release]. She was the perfect person then, to organise and orchestrate Jim's escape. 

 Varda first met Morrison in 1968 when she was working on a film in California. The Doors singer had graduated from UCLA film school only a few years before, forming the Doors with fellow film student Ray Manzarek [they were both at the UCLA at the same time, as was Alain Ronay]. Jim became very friendly with Varda who was pleased and fascinated that Morrison knew all her films. She wanted Morrison to feature in the film she was then making, but he declined, only having a small cameo. The film, called 'Loves Lion', was released in 1969. 

Through Alain Ronay, they remained in touch, meeting again in the summer of 1970 in Paris, just a year before Morrison's "death". 

   [images of Ronay (holding camera) and Jim (left) and Jim and Varda (right) in Paris 1970] (4)

Alain Claude Ronay was a dear friend of Morrison's too. Ten years older than Jim, he was a mature student who took photos of the then unknown Morrison in 1963 and 1964 of a distinctly homoerotic nature. While Ronay seems to be around Morrison's activities from the early 60s, all through the Doors, and up to the very last days in Paris of 1971, very little is known about him. It is almost as if Morrison and the Doors publicity machine sought to keep their relationship hidden. 

Was there a hint of a gay relationship between them? 

In this book Ray has Jim mention his confused sexuality a few times, calling it one of his "biggest fears". Ray quotes Morrison telling him: "'Am I gay? Am I queer? I look so damn pretty. Why do I look so pretty? Am I gay?'" [p 57] 

Here we see a mirroring of Jim's poetic hero, the French poet, Arthur Rimbaud. Born in 1854, Rimbaud was a poetic prodigy. Aged 16, he wrote to the established poet Paul Verlaine, who was 10 years his senior. Verlaine was so impressed by Rimbaud's talent, they became close companions, and even gay lovers. Despite the revolutionary impact of his writings, Rimbaud gave up poetry at the age of twenty, and spent the rest of his life travelling throughout Europe and Africa. He settled in Africa, dealing in skins, coffee and guns! He only returned to France in 1891, and died that year from cancer - aged 37.

                  [A parallel between Verlaine and Ronay - and between Rimbaud and Morrison?]

Alain Ronay, French born, was - like Agnes Varda - a perfect co-conspirator in the staging of Jim's last tango in Paris. 

             [two early Ronay images - 1963, and 1964, of Jim Morrison before the Doors] 

 All such conspiracies only work if there are as few as possible conspirators involved. They alone know what events are intended to unfold, and others close to the action will often take on the unwitting role of 'fall guy'. This is what happened with Pamela Susan Courson, Jim's long term girlfriend who lived with him in Paris [In early 1969, Morrison had made a Will leaving everything to her]. 

Playing away with her lover, the drug dealing Count Jean de Breteuil [something Jim didn't try to deter as it aided the staging of his disappearance while she was distracted], Pam Courson returned unexpectedly to the Paris flat on the 3rd of July 1971 to find the sealed coffin [Jim Morrison had left Paris the previous night on a fake passport], when she was told by Ronay and Varda that Jim had died. Fearing that he would be implicated in what must be a drug death, the Count fled, while the stoned-on-heroin Pamela went into hysterics. 

Varda and Ronay fed her the alibi she needed: - 

'Pam was home with Jim that night, and he fell ill. He took a bath, didn't return to bed, and - Pamela having dropped off to sleep - when she checked after waking on the morning of 3rd July 1971, she found him dying after suffering a massive heart attack still in the bath tub. After trying to [unsuccessfully] help him, she then called Varda and Ronay over'. 

If she stuck to that story, the suspicion of a drug related death could be avoided, and she and the drug dealing Count would be in the clear. 

                         [Jim Morrison's Will of 1969 after being admitted to probate 1971] (5)

The role of the 'Count' needs to be examined more closely. Born in 1949, he was the youngest son of the late Count de Charles Breteuil, by his second wife, whose own family owned a villa in Marrakech. The de Breteuils were from old nobility, and Jean's father was politically powerful in France, and also had a media monopoly in Africa, owning many newspapers there. Jean's elder brother was born to his father's first wife, who also had many aristocratic connections in Africa. When their father died in 1960, the elder brother - Michel de Breteuil - took over the businesses, particularly the African newspapers. Jean inherited the title of Count and became the playboy. Fascinated by the counter culture, he loved to bestow drugs and hospitality on the movers and shakers of the '60s rock scene. 

In 1968, so when he was about 19, he enrolled at the UCLA! 

No doubt he knew he was following in the footsteps of Jim Morrison of the Doors. And while Jean couldn't be, Jim, he was rich and handsome enough to get Jim's girlfriend, Pamela. 

As Jim and Pam had an 'open' relationship, Morrison didn't seem to care too much about the young Count seeing Pamela, and her staying with him for long stretches of time. In the process she became addicted to heroin, although at the same time - from around 1969 onwards, Jim Morrison started to ignore drugs and became an advocate of alcohol - something that went against the grain in the late 60s, but it meant that he didn't mix with the Count so much. 

However, the de Breteuil family were powerful, and it was the Count's elder brother - Michel, who was at the business end of the family [Michel lived on to his 90s, while his younger brother Jean, died in 1972 aged 22]. 

It seems likely that Morrison could have had contact with Michel who was a ceaseless promotor of Black rights in Africa, and especially of Black women. His magazine Amina, aimed at Black women, and started in 1972, is an example of his outlook. Jim shared these views with Michel, and was also drawn to North Africa because his poetic hero - the aforementioned Rimbaud - who had given up his life in France and gone to live there anonymously. 

At any rate, Morrison's connections with Varda, Demy and the de Breteuil's would've given him vast scope both in France and Africa to do his own 'Rimbaud', and escape from America, and disappear into Africa. 

[Michel de Breteuil in his latter years - he died in 2018 aged 91 - & image of de Breteuil's AMINA magazine] 

Soft Asylum

 Ray tells us in The Poet in Exile, that he had received some mysterious letters around the late 1990s postmarked from the 'Seychelles'. The letters were cryptic, but they were definitely in Jim Morrison's distinctive handwriting. Ray had always suspected that Morrison had faked his own death, but didn't know how. If Jim was trying to contact him some thirty years later, then he was right. He needed to find out from Jim what had really happened - and he needed to meet his soul-brother Morrison again: 

 "I wanted to hear the story of his life. And to finally know the truth." [p. 24] 

 When Manzarek and Morrison do finally meet again at the latter's 'Seychelles' hideaway, where Jim languishes happily under a new identity with a new family, Ray is eager to know: 

 "How the hell did you pull off the death thing?" [p 46] 

In response, Jim called it his "death-disappearance-resurrection." [p 66] It was something he "had to do", he had to "Stage my own death." [p 72] 

 Yes: Jim Morrison had staged his own death. 

Morrison, Varda and Ronay swore "an oath of secrecy" about the plot. The latter two said nothing for about twenty years, when they both made public statements which were little more than confirmations of the official story that Morrison had died in Paris on 3rd July 1971. Ronay maintained that he didn't see Jim's dead body, because he didn't want to look at it! 

Ray says that the well-connected Varda kept Morrison informed of any goings on with the Doors, Morrison and Courson estates during this period between 1971 and 2001. 

 Of course, there was really no "body" to see - only a sealed coffin full of a "hundred and fifty pounds of bricks and sand" [p 85]. 

The death certificate was faked by a bought-off Moroccan doctor to the tune of "ten thousand American dollars." [ib.] Morrison needed Pamela Courson to be "out of town" for his 'death', so he encouraged her to go on a drug buying trip to Corsica with the Count to get her out of the way. [p 87] 

The idea to have a sealed coffin was Agnes Varda's - it was very firmly sealed with a combination of "nails and screws." [ib.] She knew that Pamela and Jim's secretary [Robyn] would go into hysterics when presented with the coffin. 

[image of Robyn Wertle, (top) with Pam (bottom right corner). They are washing Pam's dog ] (6)

 It is worth mentioning here that in early June 1971, so less than a month before his 'disappearance', Morrison had hired a young French Canadian girl, Robyn Wertle, to be his secretary. That she looked very similar to Pamela was no doubt part of the plot. If need be, she could pass for Pamela, should things go not according to plan. Jim had Robyn cataloguing his poetry, organising his daily life and typing his letters, like that to the Doors accountant Bob Greene the week before his 'death', telling Greene that he and Pam intended to stay in Paris "indefinitely", and had Bob end all of Jim's remaining commitments in LA, and to send money and credit cards on to France. No doubt, Robyn may also have learned to sign documents in Jim and Pam's name, too, but that is just a supposition of mine, although a common task of any secretary. Her employment can only have been to facilitate the plot, although like Pam, Robyn was unaware - another fall girl: expected to react in a certain way, and then have her emotions guided and gaslighted by Alain Ronay and Agnes Varda. 

Morrison says that Ronay got the faked death certificate in the seedier part of town in negotiations that lasted about two weeks. This all fits with what we know of the events of that period of Pam and Jim's life in Paris from other sources: 

Timeline 

• Early June 1971 - while walking in Paris, Jim and Ronay went to Pere Lachaise cemetery. 
• 11th June - Jim and Ronay went to see the long, silent, morbid and minimalist play, 'Deafman Glance' by Robert Wilson at the Theatre de la Musique [Ronay used Pam's ticket]. It is said that the play showed a tableau based on JL David's painting of Marat dead in his bath. This is thought to have suggested the idea of the "death in the bath" story to Ronay and Morrison. 
• 14th June - transatlantic phone call between Jim Morrison and Doors drummer John Densmore - Jim asked regarding sales of L.A. Woman, the last album of the Doors record contract. Jim non-committal about returning to USA. 
• 28th June - Ronay takes last pictures of Jim and Pam [and they of him and them] at the village of Saint-Leu, Paris. 
• 30th June - Ronay [who had been living with Jim while Pam was with the Count] moved out of Jim's apartment as he intended to return to California in the next few days. In the meantime he stayed with Agnes Varda [whose partner, Jacques Demy, was in London]. 
• 1st July - Jim sends telex to editor at Simon & Schuster and instructed that the bearded picture by "Alan C. Ronay" of him replace the Lizard King image on the cover of his poetry book. 
• 2nd July - Ronay and Jim go for a walk, go shopping and eat out. Jim asks Ronay to stay with him as Pam isn't around, but Ronay has to meet Varda that afternoon. 

 Ray recounts that Morrison told him he couldn't have staged his own death without the help of Ronay and Varda. The idea of burying the coffin in Pere Lachaise was arranged by them, and was actually another idea of Varda's. Jim said: "I just wanted them to dump the coffin in some plain cemetery, virtually an unmarked grave. But they both said no ...They knew that there would be pilgrimages ..." [p 88]. Fans would find the grave and wonder why he wasn't buried somewhere more grand, and "perhaps demand an exhumation". "So they arranged for the *charming* resting place" in Pere Lachaise. 

"But they couldn't do it before Claude [Ronay] had the death certificate. No funeral arrangements could be made until I was legally dead." [p 89] 

Ronay secured the fake death certificate: "then we had to move fast." [ib.] 

[Jim Morrison's grave, largely neglected in 1971, only starts to get noticed in 1975.] (7)

Agnes had the coffin delivered to the apartment on the 1st of July: "She said it was for an 'art piece'. We weighed it down and sealed it. I had my new passport, my new suitcase, my new clothes, my new name, and my plane ticket." [p 95] 

"I picked up a bag with new clothes at Claude's [Ronay's] - I had to leave all my old clothes at the apartment." [p 92] 

 Jim had already wired the Doors accountant to send him $100, 000 - what he called his 'travelling money' [his trip to Paris was ostensibly to be a springboard to further travels around Europe and North Africa, as it indeed was], with which he opened a Swiss bank account. 

With that plane ticket, under his new name, he left alone for the 'Seychelles' on the night of the 2nd of July 1971, while Pamela Courson was with her French Count. As for the fake passport: again Ronay and Varda "took care of it. I just took a couple of photos." [p 91] This passport cost $5, 000, and had taken about a week to obtain. 

Jim Morrison flew out of Paris, "as simple as that". [p 98] 

Aftermath

Things were not so simple in the apartment for Ronay and Varda after Jim left. With a sealed coffin and a death certificate [which was vague enough, saying that Jim's "heart had stopped"], the (bribed) doctor still had to notify the police. He did so and then left before the police arrived, the death certificate being handed to them by Ronay amidst a weeping Varda and Robyn. 

Of course, the police demanded to see the body and so have the coffin opened. 

Jim tells Ray that Ronay "'wrote me later and told me the whole story. Make hell of a movie too. You know, you could do it, Roy, But you couldn't use real names ... You'd have to fictionalise the characters, of course.' He smiled to himself, liking the idea. 'Or maybe a novel. Yeah ... Why not? You're always looking for a good story to tell, this could be it'. " [ib.] 

 The French police struggled to open the coffin because it was so well sealed. Ronay and Varda do their best not to help, dreading the moment when the coffin is opened to reveal, not a body, but bricks and sand. Luckily for them, Pamela Courson unexpectedly turned up just as the police were trying to open the casket, with her drug dealer Count in tow. Being told that the coffin contains Jim, she flies into a weeping fit, while the Count, seeing the police and a possible drug bust, flees the scene. 

Pandemonium ensues, and the police give up trying to open the coffin as Pamela embraces it, sobbing for her dead lover, while her luggage falls open, female underwear tumbling onto the floor. 

"So the cops had had enough. This was just too much hysteria. It wasn't worth the humiliation. Besides, their asses were covered. They had a death certificate. There was no foul play, nothing to investigate." [p 100] 

The police gave their condolences to Pamela after Agnes Varda explained to them that she was "the deceased betrothed", and they left. Pamela Courson continued to weep "hysterically, or she would have had the presence of mind to open the coffin herself. Instead, she went into the bathroom, no doubt shot up some of the good new Corsican smack, came out ten minutes later - according to Claude - dropped down in a chair and just sobbed softly to herself, repeating 'He's gone, he's gone, he's gone!' over and over." [p 107] 

 "So that was it. The coffin was buried and I was dead. Phil Simmons [Bill Siddons, Doors manager] took care of the press releases, no doubt called you [Ray] and the other guys [the Doors] ..." [p 110] 

Asked what he did when the money ran out, Morrison tells Ray that Agnes Varda funnelled profits from her 1985 film, Vagabond to him, as he had an [unacknowledged] hand in writing it. Something Manzarek was aware of because that film used a Doors song ['The Changeling'!] in its soundtrack. The same song was used again in her 1988 film 'Jane B'. 

Of course, this song could be seen as Morrison's own manifesto for staging his death in order to change into another identity. 

Morrison went to live in the 'Seychelles' for five years, before going on to 'India', in order to study yoga. Manzarek goes into some detail about this latter period, where Morrison addressed the demons in his soul and stopped drinking alcohol. He perfected himself, became content with himself, and after a few years [between 2 to 4] returned to the 'Seychelles', determined to settle down. 

Morrison scratched a living there by writing articles for a local paper and buying and selling art and artefacts. [p 97] 

 Ray says that Jim married a Black woman, and they had two mixed race kids who were teenagers when he visited Jim in the late 1990s. This takes me back to Michel de Breteuil, the Count's elder African press baron brother. Isn't it likely that Jim found somewhere to live in Africa [rather than the 'Seychelles'], and there, marrying a Black woman, he wrote articles for any one of the de Breteuil's many newspapers and magazines? Morrison was fascinated by journalism and his writing often treads a pleasing line between poetry and journalism. 

Wouldn't this be a perfect end for the writer of the line: "would you like to pluck this dusky jewel"? 

 CONCLUSION 

 In 1971, the rock and pop music business was still seen as something transient and short term. The Doors were largely regarded as passe in the early 1970s, and Jim had been reduced to a figure of fun by some sections of the music press. 

 The Doors themselves broke up in 1973 after two unsuccessful albums without Jim, the last one released in 1972. As the early photos of Morrison's grave show, few fans were beating a trail to worship him. New gods had come along, like Led Zeppelin: they were playing huge festivals and even stadia. Everything was getting bigger and louder, and one of Jim's old friends - Alice Cooper - was touring a full-on theatrical show, full of macabre elements. On the one hand, things had become more showbiz and more mass appeal - such as Shock Rock, and Glam Rock, while on the other, Progressive Rock bands dazzled large audiences with musical techno-flash: there wasn't much poetry. 

The Doors had no place in this brave new world of the early to mid 70s. To top the negativity, on a personal note, Pamela Courson, without her Jim and without her Count [who had died in 1972] died in April 1974, aged 27, after finally winning her share of Jim's estate following a long and protracted legal challenge to Jim's Will from the Doors and the Morrison family. The cause of death was said to be a drugs overdose - though the Courson family believed she was murdered. At least an autopsy was carried out on her - unlike with Jim. 

         [Patti Smith  - a copy of the privately printed The New Creatures, by Jim Morrison is at her feet]

 But there were stirrings, and when Ray Manzarek made his second solo album after the Doors of, 1974, the New York poetess Patti Smith, guested on a track where she recited one of Jim Morrison's poems. The album didn't sell well. But Patti, a prime mover of 'new wave' and 'punk', made her own first album with her band in 1975. In it, she paid homage to her favourite poets, among them Rimbaud and Jim Morrison. The album was a hit, and the new movement in rock music had begun. 

Patti herself visited Morrison's grave in 1975.

Suddenly, Jim and the Doors are seen as relevant again. Many of the mainstays of the New Wave and Punk scenes, in the USA and the UK, acknowledged them as important precursors and influences. Now fans begin to flock to Morrison's grave, and start to buy Doors music once more. And as Punk moved into post-punk and gothic in the late 1970s, new groups and singers were emulating the Doors and Morrison in sound and vision. 

Emboldened, the three remaining Doors reformed for a studio project released in 1978. Using the poetry/spoken word tapes that Morrison had recorded in the Elektra studios in 1969, and at the Village recorder studios in 1970, they made the 'poetry album' that Jim had intended. It was a big success, commercially and artistically. Unreleased Doors material was now unearthed and released to a growing fanbase. 

As the 1970s ended, in 1980, the first full biography of Morrison was published, written by Danny Sugarman and Jerry Hopkins. It was a big seller: the Morrison myth was well on its way, and Hollywood was looking to make it all into a major film. There were many false starts, and the film - by Oliver Stone, was not released until 1990. 

 It's unlikely that anyone could have predicted this growth of the Morrison and Doors phenomena back in 1971.I suspect that Jim, Ronay and Varda thought his staged death would be soon forgotten and therefore not subjected to scrutiny. No one would want to write his biography, and there would not be any public interest that would result in something like a major Hollywood movie. And this is where we move into the second phase of the conspiracy. Just as when the police tried to break open the empty coffin back in 1971, so too were Ronay and Varda now having to sweat in 1991. They had both said nothing for twenty years, as per their oath, but now the pressure was mounting. Journalists were probing - the public wanted to know more. And film makers were raking over the minutiae. Not only that, but Albert Goldman - who had done iconoclastic biographies of Presley and Lennon, amongst others, had started to embark on his biography of Jim Morrison. 

Ronay and Varda broke cover and gave an interview. They reiterated the 'official' story, but added one red herring: Pamela didn't mention to them that Jim had snorted pure heroin the night of his death. It was this that killed him, not a heart attack. This rumour, and others related to it had been around for some time. But it was the last statement on the issue that they would make. Meanwhile, Goldman kept digging, when - on a trip between Miami and London when researching his book - he died before he could complete it in 1994 - of a heart attack. 

The documents relating to Morrison's death were released in various forms to writers and programme makers from 1990 on. Many researchers were surprised how easy it was to get hold of them after such a long embargo. But the documents are flawed, to say the least. For example, Pamela Courson's witness statement to the French police, re. Jim's death, is signed in her name, but in Jim's hand-writing! [see my article on this blog from last month - 28th February, 2023] The funeral arrangement document is again signed in her name but by an unknown hand. The notorised burial certficate describes Pamela as Morrison's 'cousin'. 

Given the need of the Courson and Morrison families to maintain that Morrison died on the 3rd of July 1971, and given the need for Varda to maintain the same - as well as the French police wanting to be seen to have done everything properly - is it beyond reason to suggest that these documents, many released into the public domain twenty years after Morrison's "death", are not what they seem? 

 Doesn't it seem more likely that the account given in Ray Manzarek's book is closer to the truth? 

Copyright, Bill Boethius Osborn March 2023, with acknowledgements to Lilith McGregor

 NOTES 

(1) The Collected Works of F W Nietzsche, edited by Oscar Levy, Vol 11 p. 57 

(2) The New Musical Express Book of Rock, edited by Nick Logan, I.P.C. 1973 p 105 

(3) The Poet in Exile, by Ray Manzarek, Thunder's Mouth Press, NY 2001 

(4) from mildequator.com 

(5) thanks to Lilith McGregor for photo 

(6) Last known photos of Morrison in Paris on the 28th June, 1971. These photos belie the claim that Jim was very ill in his last days. 

(7) Top left photo is by Pam at time of funeral, July 1971. next two photos are between 1971 -73. The grave is unmarked at first - only a mound in the ground. Makeshift marker and stones are added. Bottom left - in 1973 a stone border has been added. Grave is still fairly neglected. Patti Smith visits in 1975, and graffiti can be seen, a trend that becomes excessive in the 1980s. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The Poet in Exile, A Novel, by Ray Manzarek, published by Thunder Mouth Press, 2001

The Lords. New Creatures. Jim Morrison, 1969, 1970. Omnibus 1985

The Doors Companion: Four Decades of Commentary, John Rocco editor, Schirmer Books, 1997

No One Here Gets Out Alive. Jerry Hopkins and Danny Sugarman. Plexus, 1980

Rimbaud and Jim Morrison. The Rebel as Poet. Wallace Fowlie. Souvenir Press 1995,

A Season in Hell The Illuminations. Arthur Rimbaud. Transalted by E Rhodes Peschel, Oxford, 1979

Early Work. 1970-1979. Patti Smith. Norton, 1994