Jim Morrison: 50 after his death, his grave still attracts crowds at Père-Lachaise

During his lifetime, he liked to walk in the shaded alleys with irregular cobblestones of Père-Lachaise, to visit Oscar Wilde while reading Rimbaud and Verlaine. American singer Jim Morrison has been buried here for fifty years now, Division 6, Row 2, Aisle 5.

And if on July 7, 1971, there were only five people, including the filmmaker Agnès Varda, close to the singer, to attend his burial, Morrison's grave has become over the years one of the most visited in the world. Father Lachaise.

Chewing gum and kisses

As every year on this anniversary date, there will therefore be fans, but also "teams who will be watching", tells us Sylvain École, Head of the Parisian cemetery service . Because Jim Morrison's grave attracts "people with bizarre ideas".

Over the decades, it was therefore necessary to erase the graffiti on Morrison's grave and the neighboring graves, to protect a tree covered with chewing gum with reeds, and to set up barriers to prevent visitors from getting sit on the grave or place bottles and other offerings there.

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Fans now console themselves by putting padlocks on the metal barriers. "There is a ritual side, the graves of famous people arouse sheepish behavior", comments Sylvain École, evoking the tomb of Oscar Wilde, covered with traces of lipstick, and which had to be surrounded by glass. . Today, visitors kiss the glass.

Jim Morrison evokes this kind of reaction, for several reasons. His young age - he is part of the famous "club" of rockstars who died at 27 - his sulphurous reputation, his beauty too, contributed to creating the myth. Especially since the true circumstances of his death, on July 3, 1971, remain unclear. There are even several versions.

Mysterious death

According to the official version, Jim Morrison died in his bathtub from cardiac arrest. On the facade, a sheet of paper pasted in height indicates however in English that "Jim Morrison is not dead here". Because in recent years, another music has been heard.

The journalist and writer Sam Bernett, quoted by AFP, claims in his books that the rock icon overdosed in the toilets of a Parisian nightclub, the "Rock'n'Roll Circus", of which he was the manager.

Marianne Faithfull even assures in an interview with Mojo that it was Jean de Breteuil, drug dealer of the stars and her boyfriend at the time, who had given her the fatal dose.

If Morrison was in Paris, it was because he had joined, on March 17, 1971, his partner Pamela Courson, a notorious heroin addict. Fleeing the United States and a trial for "indecent behavior" and "drunkenness on the public highway", he lived first at the George V hotel, then in an apartment at 17 rue Beautreillis, in Le Marais. Breaking with the Doors, he wants to get back to writing.

If he is buried in Père-Lachaise, assures the guide-lecturer Thierry Le Roi, it is not only because he appreciated the place, but also because repatriating his remains to his native country would have been "contrary the state of mind he was in". It was his companion Pamela Courson who decided to have him buried there, since the artist was on bad terms with his family and his group. The location is chosen away, not along the path, but in the middle of other tombs, not very accessible. This makes it very difficult to access for visitors.

On the tomb, a simple block of granite, an inscription in ancient Greek intrigues. It means "You are faithful to your demons", or "You are there because of your demons", underlines Thierry Le Roi. It was the father of Jim Morrison, a Navy officer, with whom the singer did not get along, who made him pose, ten years after his death. For the guide-lecturer, this is a "sinuous recognition of his son's poetic talent".

Post-mortem rumors

While Morrison's death is shrouded in mystery, his post-mortem existence is also accompanied by rumors. The principal wants her grave to be empty. "He's there !" assures Sylvain École, quite amused by this urban legend. It is even still there for a while, since it occupies a "perpetual concession".

Thierry Le Roi stresses that visits have "calmed down a bit over the past thirty years", but that the tomb still attracts many foreign tourists. “We hear all the languages ​​of the planet there!”, he testifies.

For the former guide Alain Bauer, "young people no longer know Jim Morrison. He has become a legend. We know the legend, but not the character or his work".