"[38] Another said: "Members of the president's staff thought of him as a 'handy old piece of furniture. Billings took leave from his business career to work on Kennedy's 1960 presidential campaign. His father was a prominent physician and a graduate of the U.S. 'Yesterday was Jack's birthday. 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. When Billings died of a heart attack in 1981, Bobby Jr gave the eulogy (From left to right: Lem Billings, Bobby Kennedy Jr andEthel Kennedy), Part of the family: From childhood to adulthood, Billings stayed close to Jack Kennedy and his family. "Because of him, I was never lonely. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. ", Still, he was well aware of his proximity to history. His book Jack and Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship, from which the text of this slideshow is excerpted, was one of The Advocate's five best books of 2007. [13] He later had several jobs, including selling Coca-Cola dispensers to drugstores and working at a General Shoe store. But as I began to research him, I realized he was also very good friends with Jackie. Claire Potteris professor of history at The New School, and Executive Editor of Public Seminar. "[44], Many testify to Billings' wit and ability to help the President relax. 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. During that time, he told researchers, "All the kids came over to see me. Sometimes Jack bitched Lem out one letter saying, "Of all the cheap shit I have. Jack and lem billings jfk Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings (April 15, 1916 - May 28, 1981) was a close friend of President John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family. Lem Billings (right) was Kennedy's roommate at Choate and Princeton and an usher at his wedding, Spending most weekends at the White House during JFK's presidency, he became known as the "first friend." Although Billings kept his homosexuality private, it wasn't entirely a secret. cause of death. Billings had been a prep school roommate of John F. Kennedy, an usher at his wedding, and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. For Billings' funeral, some of the younger Kennedys served as pallbearers (as Billings himself had done for some of their own, like the slain Sen. Robert F. Kennedy). 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. In photos and excerpts from David Pitts's book Jack & Lem, we remember President John F. Kennedy through the lens of his lifelong friendship with Lem Billings. However he does quote Billings admission that he may have been in love with Kennedy his whole life. JFK's oldest and best friend was Kirk LeMoyne Billings, known as "Lem." The two became fast friends in prep school and, after graduation, they traveled to Europe together. As one source told me, 'Young Bobby replaced Jack in Lem's heart of hearts.'. 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. Ethel's alcoholic, philandering brother, George Skakel Jr., actually booted Billings in the a** at the church, knocking him into the aisle. 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. He escorted Mrs. Stephen Smith, sister of the late President, to . Witch, Harridan, Harpy, and new insults like Karen and Terf. He managed the campaign in the Third Congressional District in the Wisconsin primary and then served as general troubleshooter and coordinator of television in the West Virginia primary. Why should a historian care about Kennedys sex life at all? The two became friends, then roommates. Allegheny Cemetery. [63][25]:505 He maintained close ties to the Kennedys and their children for the rest of his life, frequently socializing with Bobby Kennedy Jr., to whom he became almost a surrogate father, and Christopher Lawford. 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. 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. The one iconic photo of President John F. Kennedy up close and personal with a woman other than Jackie shows him and his attorney general brother, Robert, coming on to curvaceous Marilyn Monroe at a party. [23] He represented the President when the alumni association unveiled Kennedy's portrait at Choate in May 1963. Billings, for his part, never married and eventually became a marketing executive and worked on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Pamela Long Wiggins, who was convicted of accessory to murder after the fact in connection with the Billings murders, died Thursday in state prison. "[59], In 1964, Billings was named to select a memorial to Kennedy to be placed in the Kennedy Center. Eunice Kennedy Shriver said, '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, and everything ready for a big, big party. 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. (Page 35), Jack and Lem in a Palm Beach photo booth just before their European tour, 1937, "Jack and Lem's summer in Europe began on July 1, 1937. [30], The press frequently reported on his presence at Kennedy family events, such as the arrival of the Kennedy children in Washington in February 1961. Joe generously paid for half the cost of Lem's ticket on the way over, saying Lem could pay at least part of it back when he graduated from Princeton. [4] The non-sectarian, wooded hillside park is located at 4734 Butler Street in the Lawrenceville neighborhood, and bounded by the Bloomfield, Garfield, and Stanton Heights areas. According to the book, a gift from Billings a whale's-tooth scrimshaw was buried with him. After the assassination of RFK in 1968, the flamboyant Billings transferred his obsessive affection for Jack, to handsome teenager Bobby Jr. David Pitts, the author of 'Jack and Lem: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship,' told me, 'Lem was a gay man and he had a 14-year-old, good-looking kid living in his house with him and there had been rumors because of that. (Page 213), "Jack made a big difference in my life. '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, and everything ready for a big, big party. As the previous article mentions more has to be explored regarding the relationship between Lem and JFK! As Vice President at the Emerson Drug Company in Baltimore, he was responsible for inventing the 1950s fad drink Fizzies by adding a fruit flavor to disguise the sodium citrate taste. Ted Sorensen called him "an admirer almost a fawning admirer of his friend. Quirk had met Billings in the mid-Forties when both were volunteers in Jack Kennedy's first congressional campaign. While web sleuths and conspiracy theorists were looking for the person who killed her . [68] He is buried in Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.[69]. And George Terrian, the alcoholic husband of Ethel Kennedy's alcoholic, pill-popping sister, Georgeann, told me in interviews for my book 'The Other Mrs. Kennedy' that, 'Everyone in the family knew Lem was q***r the Kennedys, the Skakels, everyone.'. Born in 1916, Billings was the son of a Pittsburgh doctor. 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. I have been studying human sexuality for 25 years and am a Stanford grad and track athlete. '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. It would be the last Christmas in which the United States would be at peace for more than four years. One reason is that, in retrospect, the Kennedy presidency provides a transition from the years of what historian David K. Johnson calls the lavender scare and the unbuttoned, experimental 1960s that launched the gay rights movement. He was also plagued by ill health. As we both know, homosexual relationships in English boarding schools were put down to adolescent hijinks and men *grew out of them*. ', 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. Kennedy was allegedly on the receiving end of oral sex. Our most accurate accounts of JFKs emotional carelessness are not from Lem, who was loyal to his friend until his death, but from women who later came forward about affairs that now, in the era of #MeToo, sometimes raise harsh questions about whether some of these relationships were abusive. May I come inside?" Language: English Words: 1,469 . Both boys kept diaries on the trip, although Lem's was more of a scrapbook. 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. ', 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. The comments below have been moderated in advance. By the time he became president, however, that revolution had been launched: the birth control pill, developed in the 1950s, became widely available in the 1960s and, more importantly, in 1964, Life magazine would publish a major photo essay about gay mens bars in San Francisco. She reportedly had a love-hate relationship with her husband's best friend. Part of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday & Metro Media Group. 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. You can follow her on Twitter. Naval Academy. The first lady, Jackie, had something of a love-hate relationship with Billings. ', The Kennedy patriarch, Joe, a noted philanderer himself, was suspicious of Billings' sexual preference from the start of his son's close friendship with him. Either way, it was a courageous move in view of the casualties the navy was suffering in the Pacific at the time. Featuring interviews with Ben Bradlee, Gore Vidal, Ted Sorenson, friends, family, and many others, award -- winning journalist David Pitts begins the story with the early friendship between the men. Billings then prepared responses and read them aloud to her. Jack and Lem, as a reviewer for The New York Daily News put it in 1996, engaged in the kind of sexual experimentation not unknown at all-boys boarding schools.. 'I borrowed the other half from an inheritance I was about to receive from my grandmother after I graduated from college,' remembered Lem. (Note my reply) I think the interview I have reference to is less than a year ago! JFK appeared to be in love with the idea of Billings being in love with him. Billings would later spend nights in the White House where he had his own room, Schoolboy crush? Authorities have identified the woman found dead Tuesday in a residence on Avenue B in Billings as Shanna Lynn Booth. This was at the end of their final presidential debate at Hofstra University in New York in October, 2008. enwiki Lem Billings; Their mothers just married the same man. 1934: Young JFK in hospital The young JFK, messing around with Lem Billings during their Choate years In the summer of 1934, future United States president John F Kennedy was in his junior year at the prestigious Choate School in Connecticut. 12 pdf icon; leading cause of death data, including firearm, homicide, and drug poisoning mortality data, and infant mortality . Lem Billings is a well known Celebrity. Billings had once told Bobby that. Billings repeated his senior year so that he and Kennedy could graduate from Choate together in 1935. Access Restriction Status: Open. 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. 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. In reference to this relationship, I came across another interview in which JFKs sexuality was discussed and that interviewer defended JFKs relationship with Lem? The Kennedys were a liberal family and one that tolerated a lot of heterosexual promiscuity as well. Lem's raison d'tre was Jack Kennedy. As they became close, Billings confided that his relationship with Kennedy was, in fact, sexual, to a point. If you want to discuss this further my e-mail:[email protected]). Felicia Farr m. 19622001 Cynthia Stone m. 19501956 Jack Lemmon / Wife He was 76. On school breaks, Jack often brought Billings home with him, sparking Joe Kennedy to complain to his wife, Rose, 'Do we have to have that q***r around all summer?'. John F. Kennedy's best friend for three decades was a gay man, according to a new book titled, "Jack and Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings.The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship;" the book documents the relationship between the two men from its beginnings at a New England prep school in 1933 until the gunfire in Dallas in 1963. While JFK is legendarily known as a master womanizer who frequently cheated on his first lady, his curious three-decades long intimate friendship with Billings suggests more than a simple bromance. The parents who fear their 11-year-olds will be scarred for life by the graphic sex education lessons that Two Insulate Britain protesters are jailed for contempt of court after they defied a judge's orders not to 'Derek fights on, it makes me fall in love with him all over again:' Kate Garraway reveals there are days French authorities fear 'narco-tourists' could flock to Normandy beaches after 'more than two tonnes of Hopes for cervical cancer vaccine after trials in mice showed it reduced tumours 80 per cent of the time. Lem Billings had a remarkable friendship with JFK that lasted from 1932, when the two met as classmates in prep school, until JFK's assassination in 1963. Lem was no civilian; he was a member of the Viet Cong. 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.
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