Questions surrounding Jim Morrison’s death

By | July 3, 2021

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Source: (Live For Music).

Jim Morrison was a voracious reader and was inspired by philosophers and poets from a young age. He started college at Florida State University in 1962, but in 1964, he moved to Los Angeles and began studying at UCLA. In 1965, he graduated from UCLA, after completing his degree at UCLA’s film school in the Theater Arts department of the College of Fine Arts. While at UCLA, he made several short films.

After he graduated, he lived on the rooftop of the building where a friend from UCLA, Dennis Jacobs, lived. While there, Morrison wrote the lyrics to many of the early Doors songs, and according to Ray Manzarek, he lived on canned beans and LSD. He and Manzarek formed The Doors during that summer, formed the group, and joined Robby Krieger and John Densmore. They chose their name from Aldous Huxley’s book, The Doors of Perception, which was a reference to using psychedelics to unlock the doors of perception.

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Jim Morrison in 1969. Source: (Elektra/Wikipedia).

A Quick Rise To Celebrity

Two years after the group formed, they had signed with Elektra, and their first album was recorded within a matter of days. Their single, “Light my Fire,” was a hit and they had success with their next two albums, with Waiting for the Sun hitting #1. They recorded their final album with Morrison, L.A. Woman, and Morrison who had been a drinker for years struggled to deal with the pressures of celebrity. His behavior got worse, including charges that came after he exposed himself during a concert, and worsening problems with alcohol. After finishing L.A. Woman, he moved to Paris in March to be with Pamela Courson, his girlfriend, and to take time off after the charges stemming from his exposure. Courson, a heroin addict who would die three years after Morrison from an overdose, had been living there with Count Jean de Breteuil, a wealthy socialite who was also a heroin addict. Then, on July 3, 1971, he was found dead in a bathtub. No autopsy was performed, officials claimed his cause of death was heart failure, and he was quietly buried in Paris’s Père Lachaise Cemetery.