In 1981, Rolling Stone magazine printed a photograph of Jim Morrison on its cover with the title: "Jim Morrison - he's hot, he's sexy and he's dead". Jim Morrison became famous at the age of 23 with the group The Doors. He was a poet, a rebel, a rock singer, and a leader. He was also one of rock's sexiest stars. Three years later he was fat, an alcoholic, and lying dead in a hotel bath in Paris. But his death, in 1971, wasn't the end of the story. Like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, public interest in the star increased over the following years.
James Douglas Morrison was born in Melbourne (Florida) on December 8, 1943. His father was an officer in the US navy and was often away from home for long periods of time. Jim's relationship with his parents was strange and he often claimed they were dead. When he was four years old, he experienced what he later described as the most important moment of his life. The Morrison family were driving along a desert road and came upon a fatal road accident involving a truck carrying Native Americans. As they drove away, Jim claimed that one of them died and that his soul passed into his body. Many years later, Morrison sang about the experience in Peace Frog: "Indians scattered on dawn's highway bleeding/Ghosts crowd the child's fragile eggshell mind".
At school Jim had a constant need to show off and be the centre of attention. He took a course on crowd psychology and revolt at college where he wrote papers on obscure books, many of which his tutors had never heard of. Jim loved reading and found the name of the group The Doors in a William Blake quote that he found in an Aldous Huxley book - "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it truly is, infinite".
After a brief period at the University of Los Angeles where he studied film, Morrison decided to become a singer. It was the combination of poet and rock singer that made Jim Morrison different from other rock singers of the time. The Doors reached the top of the US charts in the summer of 1967 with their second single Light My Fire. Six albums followed that included classic songs such as Riders On The Storm and L.A. Woman. The two themes that constantly appeared in Morrison's lyrics were sex and death.
The group's live performances were famous for the singer's outrageous behaviour on stage and his control over the audience (many concerts ended in riots). But in Miami in 1969, Jim Morrison suddenly turned against his audience. He abused them and then, according to some witnesses, exposed himself on stage; others testimoned there was no exposure . The Doors couldn't find another concert for six months and Morrison was given an eight-month jail sentence although he died before serving it.
His friends at the time say that he tried to maintain the ecstatic state that he experienced on stage in his private life as well. Under the influence of drugs and alcohol he lived dangerously, playing matador with moving traffic, crashing cars, and provoking the police. His addiction to drugs and alcohol also changed his looks and caused his death while in Paris with his companion, Pamela Courson. A cocktail of alcohol and heroin was too much for his body and he died while having a bath.
There was no autopsy and Morrison was buried in Père Lachaise cemetery near the graves of Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde. Over the following years, the grave was often visited by Doors fans who spread the rumour that Jim Morrison wasn't dead and had in fact disappeared to India or Africa.
