A Catholic couple, the Kennedys hoped for more children: Jack had been one of nine, while Bobby and Ethel Kennedy had eleven. Jack & Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings: The Untol Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings (April 15, 1916 - May 28, 1981) was a close friend of the Kennedy family, who had his own room at the White House during the Kennedy presidency. I have one additional comment, probably to be regarded as politically incorrect. May I come inside?" Language: English Words: 1,469 . In the epidemiological framework of the Global Burden of Disease study each death has one specific cause. 'I borrowed the other half from an inheritance I was about to receive from my grandmother after I graduated from college,' remembered Lem. [10] In 1944 he received a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve and served in the South Pacific until being discharged in 1946. "Depending upon where the lung cancer was, her heart could have taken a direct hit," said Dr. Sharonne N. Hayes, a cardiologist and founder of the Women's Heart Clinic at the Mayo Clinic. He remained close with various family members, most notably Robert F. Kennedy Jr., though there was a dark side: Peter Collier and David Horowitz's The Kennedys: An American Drama for which Billings gave a number of interviews describes him descending into drug use in connection with his relationship with a young Bobby Kennedy (who had well documented drug issues himself). Billings had once told Bobby that. A different side of JFK: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings met atChoate Rosemary Hall and became lifelong friends. With that out of the way, their relationship continued essentially unchanged until JFK's assassination thirty years later.". 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." "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.". 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. "[41] Gore Vidal, who was banned from the White House after a run-in with Billings,[42] was critical of Billings,[43] but also thought Billings played an important role as an aide to Kennedy, who was often ill or in pain. To begin with, why would JFK give him a private room at the white house, to come and go at his leisure? [18], In 1960, on leave from his job, he worked on Kennedy's presidential campaign. He once called Billings the 'chief f****t at Camelot.' As for Kennedy himself, Vidal asserted that the president 'felt quite comfortable in the company of homosexuals as long as they were smart enough to hold his interest. Now thats very exciting! said Kennedy with a grin.. JFK appeared to be in love with the idea of Billings being in love with him. JFKs sex life, and his attachments to men, also needs to be better understood for what it reveals about his inner life, and for a moment in United States political history when sex itself was undergoing seismic changes. They always remembered him as the nicest German they ever met." The fighting Chesmores: Ring veteran Lem Chesmore passing the craft on 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. educated at. I'd read a bit about Lem Billings in various Kennedy bios . Pamela Long Wiggins, who was convicted of accessory to murder after the fact in connection with the Billings murders, died Thursday in state prison. ', 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. After Jack Kennedy's election to the presidency, Billings was a constant presence and overnight guest at the White House. President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas 50 years ago, leaving behind a mourning nation and his gay best friend, Lem Billings. The elder Kennedys began to discourage the boys from associating with Billings because of his excessive recreational drug use (including alcohol). "[29] Historian Sally Bedell Smith compared him to Leonard Zelig, a nondescript character in Woody Allen's 1983 film who is always present in the back row at major events. Princeton University. "'I'm sure he's already organizing everything in heaven so it will be completely ready for us . It contained scores of photographs of himself and Jack in Europe, as well as a handwritten narrative. 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. Mom who lost both sons to fentanyl blasts laughing Biden, Two Russian tanks annihilated with bombs by Ukrainian armed forces, Isabel Oakeshott receives 'menacing' message from Matt Hancock, Pavement where disabled woman gestured at cyclist before fatal crash, Pro-Ukrainian drone lands on Russian spy planes exposing location, 'Buster is next!' Lem Billings - Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core [17] In 1956 he was an usher at the wedding of Kennedy's sister Jean to Stephen Edward Smith. 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. Jack, Lem, and Caroline enjoying the water, Hyannis Port, 1963. Billings could best be described as Kennedy's "wingman", closest male friend, and boon companion as they moved into adulthood. His father was a prominent physician and a graduate of the U.S. And he also played a very important role in the courtship between Jackie Bouvier and Jack Kennedy," Bayard told PEOPLE in an earlier interview about his book, which will be published by Algonquin Books in June. ", 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.". We are no longer accepting comments on this article. 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. Eventually, the two friends made contact, however, and began exchanging letters just as they had when both were at home." You can follow her on Twitter . 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. "Because of him," Lem Billings once said of President Kennedy, "I was never lonely" It is a historic rural cemetery. As Billings' biographer David Pitts told me, 'Once JFK decided that Billings was his best friend like it or leave, everybody in the family sort of fell in line with that. Jack Kennedy and Lem Billings met at Choate and remained friends until the Dallas gunfire that ended Kennedy's life thirty years later. Either way, it was a courageous move in view of the casualties the navy was suffering in the Pacific at the time. Pitts' 2007 book helped spur renewed interest in the friendship between President Kennedy and Billings. Jack, meanwhile, drew on Billings' unerring presence in his life by his side in sickness and on the campaign trail and even at the White House, where Billings had a room (and where there were at least whispers among the staff about the truth of his personal relationships). Public Seminar is a journal of ideas, politics, and culture published by the Public Seminar Publishing Initiative at The New School. As the previous article mentions more has to be explored regarding the relationship between Lem and JFK! JFK also shared women with male friends and relatives, a homoerotic impulse often seen in fraternities or other male organizations where men reinforce intimacy by having sex with the same woman. Elisa Lam's Cause of Death & Autopsy: Cecil Hotel Mystery - Heavy.com Jack Kennedy and Lem Billings met at Choate and remained friends until the Dallas gunfire that ended Kennedy's life thirty years later. Yesterday was Jack's birthday. During that time, he told researchers, "All the kids came over to see me. At one point, he is said to have remarked: "After I go, there'll be no more Kennedys.". Because of him, I was never lonely, Billings said once. 12 pdf icon; leading cause of death data, including firearm, homicide, and drug poisoning mortality data, and infant mortality . His mother was a Mayflower descendant and his great-grandfather Francis Julius LeMoyne was a prominent abolitionist linked to the underground railroad who helped establish what is today known as LeMoyne-Owen College. I mean, I could have had a wife, and family, but what the hell -- do you think I would have had a better life having been Jack Kennedy's best friend, having been with him during so many moments of his presidency, having had my own room at the White House, having had the best friend anybody ever had, or having been married and settled down and living somewhere." Billings, Kirk LeMoyne: Oral History Interview - JFK #1, 3/25/1964 LeMoyne Billings and Ethel Kennedy attend Liza Minnelli Concert on May 23, 1970 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. (Page 53), Jack, Lem, and Dunker, the dog they bought on their European tour in 1937"Jack and Lem failed to make any friends in Germany, unlike in the other countries they visited, except one -- Dunker, a lovable Dachshund that they ran into on their way to Nuremberg. Elisa Lam was a 21-year-old woman on an adventure when she died at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles' skid row. Jack and Lem : John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings: The Untold Story of an ', But Billings was embarrassed about his effeminate mannerisms he'd remain publicly closeted for his lifetime. [44] "Jack made a big difference in my life," Billings said. Because of him, I was never lonely. The comments below have been moderated in advance. Remembering JFK's Bond with His Boyhood Best Friend, Who Never Got Over John F. Kennedy bi-sexual or gay? 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. "He was in a very deep depression; sometimes didn't want to live," Pitts told the New Haven Register in 2007. Needless to say, JFK may have had, in a sense, two widows. 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. 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. [12], From 1946 to 1948, Billings attended Harvard Business School and earned an MBA. Claire Potter is professor of history at The New School, and Executive Editor of Public Seminar. ", As Pitts writes, Jack "wasn't going to let anyone control his life, and he certainly wasn't going to let anyone choose his friends.". Advocate Contributors November 22 2013 4:00 AM EST In photos. [23] He represented the President when the alumni association unveiled Kennedy's portrait at Choate in May 1963. Those who knew Charles described him as a sour, angry man. Inside the intimate relationship between JFK and Lem Billings (2023) He may have been the reason I never married.. The Shield - Lem's death [5x11] - YouTube Quirk immediately pegged Billings as gay, noting his 'high, screechy laugh,' and 'high nasal whine of a voice.' What is most interesting to me is the relationship between sexual abuse and power and how idolized men in particular seem to some along with this inability/unwillingness to be kind.Lems story seems tragic, good material for a play or musical. JFK Tapes - Boston & New York (Lem Billings) - YouTube Billings remarked (at the end of the story) that had he married and settled down, he would not have been happier than he was as . Billings, a 16-year-old third-year student, and Kennedy, a 15-year-old second-year student, met at Choate, an elite preparatory school, in the fall of 1933. Like millions of other young Americans, they faced an uncertain future. 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. At least one of these intimates, Kirk LeMoyne Lem Billings, was one of Jacks cherished body men, and he lived part-time in the White House throughout the three years of Kennedys presidency. (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. But Kennedy's reaction to Billings gay come-on soon changed and he became more amenable to his friend's advances, according to the writer Lawrence J. Quirk, author of 'The Kennedys in Hollywood.' 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. Lem Billings relaxed on the Kennedys' Palm Beach estate the summer of 1936. [14] In 1958, he moved to the Manhattan advertising firm Lennen & Newell[15] as an advertising executive. 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.. [11], After working on Kennedy's successful campaign for Congress in 1946, Billings toured seven Latin American countries with Robert F. In a third, the President is walking on the beach with the late Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, as they grieved the death of their premature son Patrick. Have you heard from him?' I am sure the good Lord knows that heaven is Jesus and Lem and Jack and Bobby loving one another.'. it would not surprise me knowing how most of the Kennedys (including ole Joe!) Billings would later spend nights in the White House where he had his own room, Schoolboy crush? Bobby Kennedy Jr. gave the eulogy. Description: In this interview, Billings discusses John F. Kennedy's time at Choate, his family life, and their first trip to Europe together, among other issues. He sent one letter to Lem's mother addressed to the American Field Service PO Box in New York. 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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. "Jack was anxious to reach Lem and to find out how he was doing. A crew jock, he met Jack at Choate, a boys boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut (it is now co-ed). 228. The story about Lem Billings '39 and JFK was very interesting and even moving (cover story, April 12). While at Choate, they formed a club and called themselves "The Muckers". The Man Who Loved JFK - The Gay & Lesbian Review "I was never lonely.". [48] Billings saw the President for the last time when they dined at the White House with Greta Garbo on November 13, 1963, nine days before the President's assassination in Dallas. Ben Bradlee, a Kennedy friend who worked at Newsweek during the Kennedy Administration, and no friend of Billings,[40] said "they were childhood friends and stayed loyal to each other forever." Bobby Kennedy Jr. read the eulogy. In many ways, Lem was like a father to me and he was the best friend I will ever have.' And did he personally lend a hand from time to 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. [13] He later had several jobs, including selling Coca-Cola dispensers to drugstores and working at a General Shoe store. This may have been true of his wife, although perhaps she understood from the beginning that their marriage would be non-monogamous. "[53] Though newspapers often mentioned Billings' attendance at major social events, they identified him either as the escort of a member of the Kennedy family or included him in a list of Kennedy friends. The Kennedy Curse" Episode 205 -- Pictured: Grant Logan as JFK, Adam Cropper as Lem Billings -- John F. Kennedy, "Dunker" the dog, and Lem Billings at the Hague, during their Europe trip. 50 Lemoyne Billings Premium High Res Photos - Getty Images Billings served with Sargent Shriver as a trustee for the Kennedy family trusts. Billings then prepared responses and read them aloud to her. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use. [3] They became fast friends, drawn to each other by their mutual distaste for their strict school. The 51-year-old daughter of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy died Sept. 16 while working out at her Washington, D.C., gym. "Because of him," Billings once said. He had clearly been adopted into the larger Kennedy clan, and Jackie drew him into her family circle as well. And all the while, Lem Billings was there: waiting, serving, comforting and helping the Kennedy family adjust to the public glare. ', 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. 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. 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. ', Jacqueline Kennedy was reportedly unhappuabout her husband and Billings' three decade long relationship. Len Hauss, a rugged mainstay in Washington's offensive line who started 192 consecutive games at center in a 14-year pro football career that led him to the Super Bowl and five Pro Bowl . Perhaps, however, Billings simply chose not to come out for his own reasons, devoting much of the rest of his life to preserving the memory of the man he loved. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to receive selections from new issues of, what historian David K. Johnson calls the lavender scare, According to author Christopher Bram (2012), her fictional account of the love affair between Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1929, Billy's brother, the reclusive, never married Charles Lemp had moved back into the Lemp Mansion with his dog. She had to submit questions in advance. 'Our story is one of hope': Conjoined twins who made history as first EVER pair survive to separation As Charles Bronson faces a parole hearing on Monday Will Britain's most violent prisoner soon be painting Is this Britain's most despicable man? Lem (Kenny Johnson) refuses to live the rest of his life as a fugitive in Mexico.S5E11 - Postpartum (FX The Shield)I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO THE VIDEO CLIPS. 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. Billings kept the letters JFK wrote to him between 1934 and 1939, and he donated the entire collection to the Library in the 1970s. But the point of the picture is the grief any couple would feel at the loss of a much-wanted child. 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. Vessey paid Masters with meth and a vehicle in exchange for the death of Billings. [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. Ethel's alcoholic, philandering brother, George Skakel Jr., actually booted Billings in the a** at the church, knocking him into the aisle. 'People think I'm a joke,' he once acknowledged. In Jackies absence, Lem managed the Presidents dinner parties, social life and children. Jack and Lem on Apple Books Although Alford refused, she did not always have the self-confidence to say no: earlier, she had fellated a staff member in Jacks presence. In reference to this relationship, I came across another interview in which JFKs sexuality was discussed and that interviewer defended JFKs relationship with Lem? Billings Murder Accessory Pamela Long Wiggins Dies In Prison 7 Gay Presidential Rumors You Won't Believe (But Maybe Should) "[52] One historian wrote that after the 1963 assassination Billings was: "probably the saddest of the Kennedy 'widows'.