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Pitts' 2007 book helped spur renewed interest in the friendship between President Kennedy and Billings. She had to submit questions in advance. I don't think it's true that he did not have views of his own, as some have said. EXCLUSIVE: Head teacher of leading grammar school is sacked for sending parents a list of striking teachers. [8] In 1942, supported by a recommendation from Joseph Kennedy Sr., his friend's father, who called him "my second son," he won admission to the American Ambulance Field Service, where his poor eyesight was not a disqualification. For Jack and Lem, the carefree period of their lives -- their school and college years -- were now behind them. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. ", Matriarch Rose Kennedy wrote in her biography that Billings was "one of 'Jack's surprises,' " and soon found a place for himself: "He has really been part of 'our family' since that first time he showed up at our house. Later accounts detailed how Billings had found himself adrift as a student at Choate in the wake of his father's death: "The Kennedys provided family and support and so forth," his nephew told Princeton University's alumni magazine in 2017. Pictures of the first family are typical of Cold War domestic norms: widely distributed before and after his death, these photographs show him as a conventional, heterosexual husband and a devoted father. [64] Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis included Billings as a guest at a party marking the birthdays of her children Caroline (21st) and John Jr. (18th) in 1978. Sitelinks. Once, Alford remembered, Kennedy suggested that she would be doing him a favor if she agreed to help his younger brother, Ted, a newly elected Senator, with his own tensions, while the President watched from across the pool. When their brother Bobby married Ethel Skakel in a royal-like wedding in Greenwich, Connecticut, the staunchly conservative republican and seemingly homophobic Skakels let their feelings about Billings' gayness be known. 'What the hell have you been doing? The story of Jack and Lem opens a window into the presidency, but it also suggests that historians of heterosexuality might want to look more closely to see which gay lives are lived near, but outside the conventional frame, of heterosexual families, a project that novelist Amy Bloom has recently undertaken in her fictional account of the love affair between Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickock. His father was a prominent physician and a graduate of the U.S. ', Their arrangement, Quirk asserted, 'enabled Jack to sustain his self-delusion that straight men who received oral sex from other males were really only straights looking for sexual release,' and he further observed, 'Jack was in love with Lem being in love with him and considered him the ideal follower adorer. Lem profited from the friendship--he was an official member of the Kennedy clan, he went to fancy White House parties and even had his own friendship at the presidential mansion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The evidence presented indicates that Jack found out . Billings then prepared responses and read them aloud to her. 0 references. Lemmon died about 9 p.m. Wednesday at USC/Norris Cancer Center with his wife, actress Felicia Farr, two children and a stepdaughter at his bedside. Lem Billings died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack on May 28, 1981, at the age of 65. Elisa Lam was a 21-year-old woman on an adventure when she died at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles' skid row. On March 4, 1961, The New York Times reported, Billings even escorted two baby hamsters, Debbie and Billie, from New York to Washington, for young Caroline. When a butler commented on the fact that Billings was leaving his belongings in one of the third-floor guest rooms, the First Lady replied: "He's been my house guest since I was married. I am sure the good Lord knows that heaven is Jesus and Lem and Jack and Bobby loving one another.'. In 2009, Robert Dallek published part of an interview with Barbara Gamerekian, a former White House aide, who named three prominent women, two secretaries nicknamed Fiddle and Faddle and a college sophomore who couldnt type (Alford) as a few of the sexual partners who helped the President release his daily tensions, often in the White House swimming pool or on official trips around the nation, where women were sometimes flown in on separate planes so that they could be available. Vidal thought Jacqueline Kennedy thought Billings "was kind of a nothing but Jack needed him and she was practical. "He needed Lem Billings to get around better than a trained nurse" that would have made his political career impossible. I'd read a bit about Lem Billings in various Kennedy bios . Billings, Lem (Kirk LeMoyne), 1916-1981. Published: 16:57 GMT, 9 June 2017 | Updated: 19:00 GMT, 9 June 2017. Billings was a prep school roommate of Kennedy, an usher at his wedding and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. Lem's raison d'tre was Jack Kennedy. [16], On September 12, 1953, Billings was an usher at the wedding of Kennedy and Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. "Early on in their friendship, Lem sent Jack such a note and Jack replied in their usual jocular way, adding in parentheses, 'Please don't write to me on toilet paper any more. Historian Lois Banner has also provided details about Marilyn Monroes affair with JFK, one of numerous women procured for the President by Peter Lawford, who himself staged sexual orgies in Los Angeles that the President attended. "Because of him," Lem Billings once said of President Kennedy, "I was never lonely" A crew jock, he met Jack at Choate, a boys' boarding school, in Wallingford, Connecticut (it is now co-ed). 'Yesterday was Jack's birthday. He escorted Mrs. Stephen Smith, sister of the late President, to . They were especially fanatical about football. "[27] Billings never had a White House pass and said: "Jack and Jackie were so nice about this that I didn't even have to tell them whether I was coming or going. Though his name isn't as well-known as that of his boyhood best friend, Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings was an important confidante for one of America's presidents and lived a life no less full of its own twists and turns. As Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee recalled much later, "I suppose it's known that Lem was gay.. (Page 4), "When Jack wasn't trying to get Lem to sing on family occasions, he was cajoling him into playing sports -- usually touch football, a game Lem came to loathe. Article. '"[39], Most recognized that Billings and Kennedy had been friends from youth and did not question their relationship or Billings' presence. He was also plagued by ill health. When Billings learned that the love of his life was dead on November 22, 1963, Pitts writes: It was as if he had been struck by lightning; he was consumed by grief. Lem was the second person Jacks sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, called after reaching her sister, Pat Lawford. Lem Billings and John F Kennedy were practically inseparable in prep school. Bobby Kennedy Jr. gave the eulogy. "Lem was sixteen, and Jack was fifteen, when they met while working on the school yearbook at Choate School for Boys, the prestigious New England preparatory school located in Wallingford, Conn. From all accounts it was instant friendship. I dont buy it. [68] He is buried in Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[69]. JAMIE RICHARDSON: John F. Kennedy had no shortage of people who considered themselves friends of the 35th president. Poor guy. Jack Kennedy and Lem Billings met at Choate and remained friends until the Dallas gunfire that ended Kennedy's life thirty years later. As they became close, Billings confided that his relationship with Kennedy was, in fact, sexual, to a point. Authorities have identified the woman found dead Tuesday in a residence on Avenue B in Billings as Shanna Lynn Booth. [63], Billings served for many years along with Sargent Shriver as a trustee for the Kennedy family trusts,[65] working from an office in the Pan Am Building. [4] The Muckers would pull pranks around the school and even planned to dump horse manure in the school gym, but that fell through after the headmaster found out. (Page 276). Billings was a prep school roommate of Kennedy, an usher at his wedding and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. With his political influence, Jack Daniels became a monopoly as the only legal whiskey distillery in 1947 in Tennessee. Lem Billings was a lifelong friend of Kennedy's, beginning from when they were roommates at Choate, continuing til Kennedy's assassination in 1963. Billings had once told Bobby that. But the man married to Jackie Kennedy was quietly chided for his compulsive philandering. It contained scores of photographs of himself and Jack in Europe, as well as a handwritten narrative. "He may have been the reason I never married." This essay was originally published at OutHistory.org on November 22, 2013; it has been updated and re-edited. After cocktails, Jackie and JFK proposed some skeet shooting and, legend has it, Williams was a better shot than Jack. An autopsy report says Billings' cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. ", So frequent a presence was he that Ted Kennedy, more than a decade younger than his brother Jack, said he "was 3 years old before it dawned on me that Lem wasn't one more older brother.". The importance of other causes of death such as communicable diseases, maternal, neonatal and nutritional causes, and noncommunicable diseases like cancer and heart disease varied most between different countries. "He was in a very deep depression; sometimes didn't want to live," Pitts told the New Haven Register in 2007. ', One of Jack's five sisters, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, found it hard to describe her brother's relationship with Billings, once stating, 'It was a complete liberation of the spirit' for Jack, and that her brother was a 'complete liberated man when he was with Lem. Lem Billings relaxed on the Kennedys' Palm Beach estate the summer of 1936. But as I began to research him, I realized he was also very good friends with Jackie. Kennedy was allegedly on the receiving end of oral sex. Allegheny Cemetery. Date (s) of Materials: 25 March 1964. During the night of May 28, 1981almost two decades after JFK's untimely death - 65-year-old Lem Billings died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack. Lem Chesmore is a 34-year-old Billings native who grew up on the sport. (Page 100). A crew jock, he met Jack at Choate, a boys boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut (it is now co-ed). As Billings told researchers for an oral history interview for the John F. Kennedy Library, the two met as teenagers at Choate Preparatory School for boys in Wallingford, Connecticut, in 1933, while working on the student yearbook. educated at. In addition, gay and lesbian people often have reasons for not coming out, or not seeking the liberation of living in queer communities, lives that are worth exploring for what we might learn about queer milieus that do not fit a conventional liberationist narrative. As we both know, homosexual relationships in English boarding schools were put down to adolescent hijinks and men *grew out of them*. Of course, he had always loved the Cape and was completely happy there.'" Billings would later spend nights in the White House where he had his own room, Schoolboy crush? Having been given special access to the Billings papers by Robert Kennedy, Jr., Pitts was either unable to verify a sexual relationship, or he was unwilling to cite his source. But I'm stuck with the Kennedys emotionally, and I will be to the end of my life. And all the while, Lem Billings was there: waiting, serving, comforting and helping the Kennedy family adjust to the public glare. "I'm sure he's already organizing everything in heaven so it will be completely ready for us with just the right Early American furniture, the right curtains, the right rugs, the right paintings," Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the president's sister, said in a eulogy. Billings, who was a year older than Jack Kennedy, made his desire known while the two were still at Choate in a bizarre love note, penned on a piece of toilet paper that could be disposed of easily to avoid incrimination at a time when homosexuality was illicit. [9] He saw action in North Africa in 194243. Lem Billings Is JFK's 'Go-Between' During Courtship with Jackie as Imagined in New Novel PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at Louis Bayard's upcoming Jackie & Me By Sam Gillette Published on. "[21] In September 1961, he accepted an appointment to the board of trustees of the planned National Cultural Center, which later became the Kennedy Center. In Jackies absence, Lem managed the Presidents dinner parties, social life and children. "He never really came out of it. Describing his friend as a "very normal, regular boy," Billings said his favorite of Jack's characteristics was his light spirit: "I've never known anyone in my life with such a wonderful humor and the wonderful ability to make one laugh and to have a good time. Although Alford refused, she did not always have the self-confidence to say no: earlier, she had fellated a staff member in Jacks presence. They were bound together by a love of fun and practical jokes, resentment of Choate, and envy of their higher-achieving elder siblings -- Joe, Jack's brother, and Josh, Lem's brother." He certainly didn't have the same interest in politics and women that Jack had. He claimed he had no idea who the Kennedys were, but they wanted to meet Williams, and Vidal produced him. He claimed he was rebuffed: according to Pitts, it was Jacks decency at that moment that caused the pair to become close, and the moment they decided to become roommates. "Jack and Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship" Kennedy knew Billings was in love with him (Billings declared his love and was rejected by Kennedy) and Kennedy liked that, the attention and knowing the power he has over billings also his wife Jackie Kennedy hated Billings and hated that he and . "Raffish and yet prissy," they write of Billings "a sort of court chronicler reporting on the old days which even Bobby and Ethel didn't recall and functioning as the all-purpose cheerleader, godfather, and pallbearer who could always be counted on. And the White House itself seems to have been welcoming to other non-heteronormative men in the Kennedy years. Lem Billings is a well known Celebrity. A new book is claiming that John F. Kennedy had more than just a platonic friendship with his life-long gay best friend, Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings. it would not surprise me knowing how most of the Kennedys (including ole Joe!) [28] One presidential aide later said that "some people saw him so much they thought he was the Secret Service. However, he avoided the notoriety of coming out even after Kennedys death, perhaps because he feared that it would draw more negative attention to the extended Kennedy family, which soon struggled with a range of scandals: Chappaquidick, alcoholism, divorce and drugs were but a few. He once described the Kennedy family's lack of business awareness: "Listening to the Kennedy brothers talk about business was like hearing nuns talk about sex. [37], Billings' role as "first friend" was assessed by many observers at the time and since. Lem felt that the physical regimen at the Kennedy vacation homes was even more exacting than that at Choate. Indeed, it often seems that Kennedy did treat people who loved him for granted. The two grew so close over the following months that Billings was invited to the Kennedy family home in Palm Beach, Florida, for the holiday season and, months later, to their Hyannis Port compound, where he was badly burned in a defective shower and hospitalized for three weeks. When the boy died at 4:19 a.m. Kennedy was clutching his little fingers. While at Choate, they formed a club and called themselves "The Muckers". And, say those close to him, Billings never, ever got over how his friend was assassinated one sunny day in Dallas exactly 58 years ago. He was by all accounts JFK's best friend . For many other Americans as well, Bobby became the last best hope for resurrecting Camelot, for a return to the kind of liberal idealism that Jack had epitomized. [17] In 1956 he was an usher at the wedding of Kennedy's sister Jean to Stephen Edward Smith. This was at the end of their final presidential debate at Hofstra University in New York in October, 2008. Smith, 433-4; see also: Smith, 113: "The only counterbalance to the [Kennedy] family's philistinism had been Lem Billings, whose passion for art and antiques had begun with his Princeton theses on Tintoretto, a precociously sophisticated study. With that out of the way, their relationship continued essentially unchanged until JFK's assassination thirty years later.". While trying to locate the body of a dead CI named Angie Stubbs, Lem stole a brick of heroin from Salvadoran drug dealer Pittario and warned him that he would only give it back once he located the body. Didnt Lem confess to a friend that he loved JFK? A funny photo of Senator John McCain catching himself after he nearly left the stage in the wrong direction after shaking hands with Senator Barack Obama. Jack's best friend was Lem, and he would want to remind everyone of that today. At one point, he is said to have remarked: "After I go, there'll be no more Kennedys.". Still, Billings was viewed by many I interviewed for my biography of RFK Jr. as his gay Svengali who guided and literally tried to control every aspect of Bobby Jr.'s life from the time he was in his mid-teens. However, an earlier book by Hollywood writer Lawrence Quirk alleges that Billings was not rebuffed. He believed Billings loved Kennedy. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use. Billings could best be described as Kennedy's "wingman", closest male friend, and boon companion as they moved into adulthood. David Pitts quotes Vidal cruelly calling Billings "a lifelong slave," "the principal fag at court," and a "nurse" who helped Jack deal with the pain caused by Addison's disease. Between 1933 and 1935, The bond between Jack and Lem grew so tight, journalist David Pitts wrote in Jack and Lem (2008), that they really had no need for friendships with other boys.. Now thats very exciting! said Kennedy with a grin.. It is a historic rural cemetery. He wanted to be with him, to be a part of whatever he wanted to do to continue Jack's legacy." I have no doubt the same was true in American upper-crust boarding schools in the single-sex days. "He did not want to hear one negative syllable, and there were a lot of negatives going along.". JFK, or 'Jack' as he was known by his close friends and family, had a gay best friend named Lem Billings, who he met in prep school when Kennedy was 15 and Lem . Billings took leave from his business career to work on Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to receive selections from new issues of Public Seminar. enwiki Lem Billings; ", Last edited on 24 December 2022, at 15:36, "JFK's Best Friend Lem: Transcript | JFK Library", Princeton University Undergraduate Senior Theses, 1924-2018 Art and Archaeology, 1926-2018, Alfred E. Clark, "Adolph Toigo, Ex-Chairman of Advertising Agency Dies," January 1, 1982, "End Comes at Lennen & Newell," April 12, 1972, "Miss Jean Ann Kennedy Married," May 20, 1956, "Kennedy Names Friend," September 20, 1961, "U.S. Board Formed to Advise on Fair," January 12, 1962, "Choate Unveils Kennedy's Portrait," May 5, 1963, "Prayer for Nation Joined by Kennedy," January 2, 1961, "Caroline Learns Father Isn't Much of a Kite Pilot," July 7, 1963, "Caroline's 2 Hamsters Hunted in White House," March 5, 1961, "2 Kennedy Sisters in Poland for Visit," September 2, 1961, "Huntington Hartford Weds Diane Brown in New Jersey," October 8, 1962, Luther Turmelle, "Book details JFK's friendship with gay man," May 16, 2007, "Friend of Kennedy Named To Head Memorial Group," July 8, 1964, "Humphreys Attend a Gala Ballet Premiere," January 19, 1966, Nan Robertson, "Glittering Audience Attends Kennedy Center's Opening," September 9, 1971, Michael C. Jensen, "Managing the Kennedy Millions," June 12, 1977, Doris Kearns Goodwin, "Fitzgeralds and Kennedys," March 8, 1987, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lem_Billings&oldid=1129296144, This page was last edited on 24 December 2022, at 15:36. Were Lem and Jack sexually intimate as well? [66], In 1987, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin described how Billings structured her interviews with him. And for Lem and Mark Chesmore, there's nothing more they enjoy doing than participating in their chosen sport of boxing. In recent years, there has also been talk of a movie adaptation. The Cold War was still raging, and there was fear Russian agents might use the friendship against Kennedy. ', Roommates: JFK and Billings (right) roomed atChoate and again atPrinceton (pictured mid-1930s outside a drugstore with roommate Ralph Horton Jr), JFK's sisterEunice Kennedy Shriver said his relationship with Billingswas a 'complete liberation of the spirit' for Jack (Pictured on their Christmas card with fellow Princeton roommateRalph Horton Jr), While her husband had his qualms about Billings and couldn't stand to have him around, the matriarch Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, had a different take. For example, in Once Upon a Secret (2012), former White House intern Mimi Alford describes a prolonged affair she had with Kennedy, beginning in the summer of 1962 when she was 19 and ending shortly before his assassination on November 22, 1963. A different side of JFK: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings met atChoate Rosemary Hall and became lifelong friends. "Jack made a big difference in my life," Billings said in his oral history for the Kennedy library, adding, "He may have been the reason I never got married.". [25]:364 According to Kennedy family members, such as Peter Lawford, and others, Billings began using drugs[25]:365 due to the influence of the Kennedy and Lawford boys. If you want to discuss this further my e-mail:pscheck2@gmail.com). 384 pages, $26.95 THE OLD black-and-white photograph shows two good-looking young men sitting close together on the back bumper of a car, their fingers touching gently as they fondle a dachshund pup. Lem Billings passed away from a heart attack at 65 in 1981. "[48] Billings spent the last weekend of October 1963 with the couple, the last time he saw them together. In 1964, Billings was named to head a ten-person committee to select a memorial to Kennedy to be placed in the Kennedy Center. I'm enclosing a letter to Lem, which I wish you would forward, as I haven't any idea where he is. 'I would take the shuttle down to Washington, go to the White House and we would be picked up by helicopter there -- flown to Andrews (Air Force Base) and taken by Air Force One to Otis on the Cape. In 1965, Mrs. Kennedy invited Billings to accompany her and her children to England for the unveiling of a memorial to Kennedy at Runnymede. It would go on to become one of his most prized possessions." The comments below have been moderated in advance. From 1933 to 1946, Billings and JFK exchanged letters, with Jack often antagonizing Lem in the correspondence. According to Quirk, Billings revealed that his friendship with the future president of the United States 'included oral sex, with Jack always on the receiving end. They werent even related. Lem, although said by Arthur Schlesinger to have been jealous of others who drew Jacks attention, was undoubtedly one of the personal assistants and friends who facilitated the Presidents daily need for sex by making sure that women were available when needed. Billings had once told Bobby that when he died he wanted the pall-bearers to be members of Bobby's circle of young friends, whom he knew well and with whom he had done drugs. [64], Billings' behavior changed drastically in the late 1960s. Harvard University. "'Of course, there was always Cape Cod in Massachusetts when the president wanted to be near the water,' Lem remarked. Billings had once told Bobby that. The president was famously believed to have affairs during their marriage. Joseph Kennedy Sr. called him "my second son," and he sometimes acted as escort for several of the Kennedy women. Lem had caught a cold in July by swimming in the Loire River at Chenonceau and Jack developed his own problems in Southampton on August 27 while saying goodbye to his mother and siblings Joe and Kick as they departed for America. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3269576/How-Ethel-Kennedy-.. view all Lem Billings's Timeline President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas 50 years ago, leaving behind a mourning nation and his gay best friend, Lem Billings. Billings repeated his senior year so that he and Kennedy could graduate from Choate together in 1935. [10] In 1944 he received a commission in the U.S. With so many people looking for a relationship with him as he rose through the political ranks, there was one man who stood out as one of JFK's near-constant companions. Born in 1916, Billings was the son of a Pittsburgh doctor. To order a copy, click here. In which 20 year old John F Kennedy's best friend shows up on his doorstep one evening. as not being gay since they only gave each other BJs (as in Lewinsky/Clinton sex?)! Yesterday was Jack's birthday. . Variability in proportionate mortality in 363 Latin American cities by country. Felicia Farr m. 19622001 Cynthia Stone m. 19501956 Jack Lemmon / Wife He was 76. The two became friends, then roommates. As a younger man, he also served as something of a "go-between" for a young Jack Kennedy and the woman who would become Kennedy's wife, Jackie Bouvier, in 1950s Washington, D.C. After finding the body and returning the heroin . But even before then, Billings was a Kennedy fixture. Jack & Lem: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship, John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings by David Pitts Carroll & Graf. Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings (April 15, 1916 May 28, 1981) was an American businessman known for his close and long-time friendship with John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family. It remains the worst such failure in the history of advertising agencies. Oscar Cainer tells all. After saying in a quiet voice, "He put up quite a fight. (Page 213), "Jack made a big difference in my life. On some weekends, Jack and Lem would go up there. [11], After working on Kennedy's successful campaign for Congress in 1946, Billings toured seven Latin American countries with Robert F. Sprawling home where JonBenet Ramsey was found murdered in 1996 is listed for sale for $7 MILLION by current Royal Mail increase price of first class stamp by 15p to 1.10 in record-breaking hike. One of the most credible accounts of the Kennedy-Billings relationship was told by David Pitts, who I interviewed extensively for my book, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.And The Dark Side Of The Dream, because the strapping, bespectacled Billings, with a high-pitched, effeminate voice, would later become the fawning surrogate father and fellow drug user of JFK's nephew, Bobby Kennedy Jr., with whom Billings also had intense romantic feelings. Billings kept the letters JFK wrote to him between 1934 and 1939, and he donated the entire collection to the Library in the 1970s. Vidal, the author of a best-selling gay World War II novel, published in 1947 at a time when most queer books were ruled obscene and evidence of homosexual acts could bring a prison term, was unabashedly public about his affairs with men. A queer perspective on JFK is not readily visible in official histories that feature iconic images and stories about one of the first administrations to offer the public ongoing access to the White Houses backstage. [62], After the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, Billings became depressed and started to drink in excess, an addiction that plagued him for most of his life. Billings had once told Bobby that when he died he wanted the pall-bearers to be members of Bobby's circle of young friends, whom he knew well and with whom he had done drugs. "Jack was anxious to reach Lem and to find out how he was doing. The affair was socially isolating for a very young and sexually un-liberated woman, causing her to deceive friends, boyfriends and ultimately her husband and children for most of her adult life.

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