Lem Billings was called and, according to Donn Wright, who became the new headmaster, 'he didn't try to change anybody's minds. As they became close, Billings confided that his relationship with Kennedy was, in fact, sexual, to a point. Billings maintained close ties to the Kennedys and their children Blogs; Online will; Shop. Copyright 2023 Irish Studio LLC All rights reserved. JFK's Friendship with Lem Billings: His Best Friend Never Got Over 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. Billings reportedly told Kennedy of his romantic intentions in prep school (JFK pictured chatting with Marilyn Monroe and Robert F Kennedy). . Kirk LeMoyne Billings, a retired advertising executive and a friend of President John F. Kennedy, died Wednesday at his Manhattan apartment. 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. I thought, anything goes with this guy. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., David Kenne. 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. The eyes even wider. Later Years. Forests of redbud and magnolia are thickening around us, and somehow they're all in on the secret, and Kay Starr sings "Wheel of Fortune" on the radio, and, during the second chorus, I sneeze, and Jack says, "Perfectly in tune, Lem," and then the song is over, and we're pulling up in front of . . Hidden away high up on a bookshelf was a small bronze bust of his father. Published in The Elkhart Truth from Feb. 20 to Feb. 21, 2023. Claudette informed Vic that she was told that Lem's lack of a department funeral and motorcade would prevent news headlines about Lem's "dirty dealings". guest every weekend of my married life." Ethel Kennedy "booted" Bobby, Jr. out of the Hickory Hill home at age 14 and basically fed him to Billings. Billings Funeral Home. But it was the only boarding school that Lem Billings could find that would admit him. 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In her memoir, Times To Remember, published eleven years after Jack's assassination in Dallas in 1963, she wrote that Billings had 'remained Jack's lifelong close friend, confidant, sharer in old memories and new experiencesHe has really been part of 'our family' since that first time he showed up at our house as one of 'Jack's surprises. Lem P. Speer, 93, died peacefully in his home on November 20, 2021. It's the weekend before St. Patrick's Day, 1952, and there's still a late-winter nip in the Virginia air, but Jack always keeps the top down because, by age thirty-four, he knows how dashing his hair looks in high wind. And, for once, Billings, who serves as the story's narrator, has as big a voice as the Kennedys. But as I began to research him, I realized he was also very good friends with Jackie," the novelist says. This flower has been reported and will not be visible while under review. It's the last year of . The elder Kennedys at some point desired that the younger Kennedys: I'm not that kind of boy.'. The walls were covered with black sheets with framed photographs of RFK attached to them. As one source told me, "Young Bobby replaced Jack in Lem's heart of hearts.". When Joey Brode heard the story years later, she said that what Bobby had done, if true, was 'disgusting. 50 Lemoyne Billings Premium High Res Photos - Getty Images Lem Chesmore is a 34-year-old Billings native who grew up on the sport of boxing, first competing in 1980 at the Boys and Girls Club located on South 28th Street. His latest book, The Kardashians: An American Drama, will be published in September. 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. Genealogy profile for Lem Billings Kirk LeMoyne Billings (1916 - 1981) - Genealogy Genealogy for Kirk LeMoyne Billings (1916 - 1981) family tree on Geni, with over 230 million profiles of ancestors and living relatives. All the Kennedys were very much aware of Billings's sexual preference, or suspected it, accepted it, and welcomed him into their exclusive inner circle - practically adopted him - although the patriarch Joe Kennedy found him annoying at times. finances. He had his own room in the White House and advised Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in her redecoration of the White House. Lem Billings andBobby Kennedy Jr became close after JFK's death and allegedly took drugs together. , Did President Kennedy meet the Queen of England? But was reportedly upset that her husband spent so much time with him, and that he often stayed overnight at the White House. When a Harvard classmate asked Bobby whether such talk had any reality, whether he seriously thought he could win a presidential election and be the second Kennedy to rule the country, Bobby's response was: 'I feel that is my destiny.'. Lem Billings was a strapping, bespectacled, 'grizzly- bearish' fellow with big feet and a large head topped by curly, dirty blond hair, who always seemed to be smiling. Remembering JFK's Bond with His Boyhood Best Friend, Who Never Got Over Sixteen days after RFK was buried, Ethel and her brood were aboard a yacht destined for Hyannis Port and the Kennedy compound. If you have recently lost a family member or friend, we hope that you will accept our condolences. Like the rest of the free world, Billings was devastated when President Kennedy was assassinated. (See below for an exclusive excerpt.). He attended one of the parents' weekends, but was never seen on campus again. But we speed past all those destinations before steering up Old Dominion Drive. It was all quite bizarre. Inside the relationship between JFK and Lem Billings As they became close, Billings confided that his relationship with Kennedy was, in fact, sexual, to a point. 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. A different side of JFK: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings met atChoate Rosemary Hall and became lifelong friends. From the book Jackie & Me by Louis Bayard. a year so that he and Kennedy could graduate from Choate together in 1935," ', Rose Kennedy, however, had a different, more positive view of Billings. 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 . He later received Still, the Kennedy clan accepted - even welcomed - Lem Billings into their exclusive inner-circle, practically adopting him, and he became a part of the family. 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.". ', White House visitor: Billings often spent the night at the White House, which upset Jackie Kennedy. Fredrik Logevall on JFK, with David Nasaw, October 6, 2020, 3. Son of Frederick Tremaine Billings and Romaine Elizabeth (LeMoyne) Billings. "Because of him, I was never lonely. Billings kept the letters JFK wrote to him between 1934 and 1939, and he donated the entire collection to the Library in the 1970s. It only got worse with the drugs. A Princeton friend and former business partner confided to Pitts about Billings that after Jack's death: "He didn't want to live anymore," and other friends claimed that he never recovered from the loss. A startled Kennedy responded to the note by saying, Please don't write to me on toilet paper anymore. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom was unable to personally travel to Kennedy's funeral because of her pregnancy with Prince Edward but later described "the unprecedented intensity of that wave of grief, mixed with something akin to despair, which swept over our people at the news of President Kennedy's Jacqueline Bouvier and U.S. Representative John F. Kennedy belonged to the same social circle and were formally introduced by a mutual friend, journalist Charles L. Bartlett, at a dinner party in May 1952. With "Jack and Lem," Pitts has indeed turned over a new stone. While Lem Billings was an actual Kennedy intimate, narrator Lem is reminiscent of The Great Gatsby's Nick Carraway, and his fictional reminiscences structure the novel around the triangular friendship he shares with Jack and Jackie in the years leading up to their wedding in the early 1950s. David Pitts, the author of Jack and Lem: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship, told him: 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. times, Lem might have been described as a "confirmed bachelor," although of adding a fruit flavor to disguise the sodium citrate taste. In the spring of 1972, with graduation approaching, Bobby took the SAT college board exam, and filled out his application for college. Billings enthused to RFK and Ethel in his high-pitched voice, which RFK made fun of behind his back. "And she knew, at some level, that she was marrying another version of her father. By ', 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. 'We couched it in terms of what was best for Bobby. According to Palfrey classmates, it was claimed that Bobby simply wrote his name - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - at the top and sent it in, and got accepted. 'He was coming up and he was taking Bobby out to dinner and things like that. 'I thought, that's the kind of s**t heavy drug users pull. 'I never could figure out why Ethel would let Lem have such an intimate relationship,' he once declared. I have no evidence one way or another, but I would discount [any sexual activity.]. He'd be expelled from Millbrook and later be ordered to leave the second school, Pomfret, in rural Connecticut, for using drugs and displaying bad, often bizarre behavior. Lem also worked for JFK in the West Virginia and Wisconsin primaries White House. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Try our online preplanning tool. Take a look inside Dublin's most stylish townhouse, Number 31. mutual distaste for their school and its headmaster, Seymour St. John. Im 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. 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. Billings was a prep school roommate of Kennedy, an usher at his wedding and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. The president was famously believed to have affairs during their marriage. We have 2 volunteers within fifty miles of your requested photo location. As one source told me, 'Young Bobby replaced Jack in Lem's heart of hearts.'. Obituaries act as quiet reminders to help us to remember them and all we enjoyed with them while they were with us, a celebration of their life. and Jack first met at Choate Rosemary Hall in 1933 when Lem was 17 and Jack was ', 'It was that kind of talk, more bragging, but I believed him. They continued to Princeton Unlike Millbrook and Pomfret, Palfrey Street was a day school, so Billings arranged with the Brode family of Cambridge to house and feed him, and watch out for him. Luling TX Obituaries | O'Bannon Funeral Home But the man married to Jackie Kennedy was quietly chided for his compulsive philandering. In Victorian Best Friend | Princeton Alumni Weekly This is one of the questions Louis Bayard raises in his upcoming novel Jackie & Me, which will be published by Algonquin Books in June 2022. After Kennedy was elected president, Billings was a constant presence at the White House, and advisers were concerned about possible political repercussions. JFK's Best Friend Lem: Transcript. Kirk LeMoyne Billings and John F. Kennedy. In the summer of 1934, future United States president John F Kennedy was in his junior year at the prestigious Choate School in Connecticut. education of free black Americans after the Confederate States of America was The president is seen teeing off, among his guests joining him being Press Secretary Pierre Salinger, lifelong friends Lem Billings and Charles Spalding, and British Ambassador Sir David Ormsby-Gore. the bond between Billings and Kennedy became so strong that Billings stayed back Billings was buried near his mother's grave in his hometown of Pittsburgh. 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?". For all I know, she's speculating about the Washington Senators' pennant chances. Try again later. University until Kennedy withdrew for medical reasons. Peter Cole, who taught English, noted, 'We as faculty members all seemed to have this awareness of Bobby's behavior and were totally unable to do anything about it, We did catch him finally and he was going to get tossed.'. Kirk Lemoyne Billings Memorial Page - Home | Facebook President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas 50 years ago, leaving behind a mourning nation and his gay best friend, Lem Billings. During the night of May 28, 1981-almost two decades after JFK's untimely death - 65-year-old Lem Billings died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack. Lem Billings Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images In Jackie & Me, both Jackie and Billings are devoted to the future president and it comes at personal cost. him to drink. Click to browse the Lem Billings Personal Papers KLBPP-001-003-p0015. But, the Skakels had previously been homophobic to Billings. 'Haggard, tired' Ethel was ready for some calm. Mr. Billings and Mr. Kennedy. A wider smile than I would have guessed possible. All Rights Reserved. 'I can't say that I saw him put a needle in his arm,' he stated, 'but he talked like he was and he bragged about it. That kind of thing,' recalled the widow of one of the school's headmasters while Bobby was in attendance. Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Ken Bruce finishes his 30-year tenure as host of BBC Radio 2, Moment teenager crashes into back of lorry after 100mph police race, Alex Murdaugh unanimously found GUILTY of murder of wife and son, Isabel Oakeshott clashes with Nick Robinson over Hancock texts, Family of a 10-month-old baby filmed vaping open up, Ukrainian soldier takes out five tanks with Javelin missiles. John F. Kennedy and Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings met in 1933 as sophomores at Choate Rosemary Hall, a Connecticut prep school where they worked on their class yearbook together. Billings made his desire known while the two were still at school by writing Kennedy a love note on a piece of toilet paper. , updated The result is a meditation on the definitions . This page is created to honor his memory and is dedicated to his family and friends. I have no evidence one way or another, but I would discount [any sexual activity.]". Billings had once told Bobby that when. 'People think I'm a joke,' he once acknowledged. It was pretty clear he had some intravenous drug use back then, and he was the only person we knew who did.'. Bobby finally earned his high school diploma in June 1972 at the experimental and alternative Palfrey Street School, in the Boston suburb of Watertown, where he arrived 'wearing dirty, faded jeans, smelling like patchouli oil,' recalled classmate John Cuetera, who became a psychologist. None of it came as a surprise to his roommate, Fanning. In truth, the Kennedys did have criticisms of Queen Elizabeth following their meeting. He had an older sister, Ruth (Speer) Steele, older brother, Eugene "Bud" Speer, and younger half-brother Lawrence "Larry" Payant. Gore Vidal, the writer who claimed he viewed homosexuality as normal as heterosexuality, disparaged the JFK-Billings relationship during the Kennedy administration. Yesterday was Jack's birthday. 'Everybody was at least smoking pot - everybody - and a lot of people were doing LSD and other recreational stuff,' recalled classmate John Seibel, who became an attorney. Billings had a romantic relationship with JFK's nephew, Bobby Kennedy Jr. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And The Dark Side Of The Dream He also is responsible I'm sure there were moments where they drew aside together and talked about this problem called Jack Kennedy because he was a problem for a young woman that was looking for love and attachment.". John F. Kennedy, whose 100th birthday is being celebrated this year with a Kennedy Centennial postage stamp, TV memorials, a slew of books, and much media coverage, was revered as the 35th president of the United States. The pair had a three-decades long friendship that some have speculated may have also included a romantic affair. Adapted from New York Times bestselling author Jerry Oppenheimer's explosive new book, Mom who lost both sons to fentanyl blasts laughing Biden, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Pavement where disabled woman gestured at cyclist before fatal crash, Isabel Oakeshott receives 'menacing' message from Matt Hancock, Pro-Ukrainian drone lands on Russian spy planes exposing location, 'Buster is next!' Secret Service agents William Greer (driving) and Roy Kellerman are in the front seats. Please consult your doctor before taking any action. He truly loved the Kennedy's and as Jack's best friend. Supposedly. From Algonquin Books. Funeral homes; Help and advice. Bayard's novel takes place primarily in the months leading up to Jack and Jackie's wedding on Sept. 12, 1953. President Kennedy with his wife, Jacqueline, and Texas governor John Connally with his wife, Nellie, in the presidential limousine, minutes before the assassination. the Navy, as described more fully in the separate Wikipedia biography of John Lem Billings would play many roles in Bobby's life, as adventurer accompanying him on expeditions in the wild, as fellow druggie, and as his Dear Abby, advising him on who to date and who not to. 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 . 11 Strict Rules That Elon Musk Makes His Girlfriends & Wives Follow, Justin Bieber Suspected As The Father Of Kourtney Kardashian's Son Reign (Instead Of Scott Disick), Why Kate Moss Was 'Scared' & 'Couldn't Get Out Of Bed For Weeks' After Working With Mark Wahlberg. Lem had extremely poor eye sight and a high-pitched voice. JAMIE RICHARDSON: John F. Kennedy had no shortage of people who considered themselves friends of the 35th president. 2023byTango Publishing Corporation All Rights Reserved. I know he had all that baggage with his father, but being in that pit that was the kind of thing he would do. Obituaries act as quiet reminders to help us to remember them and all we enjoyed with them while they were with us, a celebration of their life. Quirk immediately pegged Billings as gay, noting his "high, screechy laugh," and "high nasal whine of a voice.". To virtually attend a service live By easy degrees, she turns around and bestows on me a fuller version of that first smile. While the 35th president has been legendarily known as a womanizer who frequently cheated on his wife, Oppenheimer alleges that JFK's three-decades-long relationship with his former prep school. "Yesterday was Jack's birthday. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. Writer Gore Vidal once called Billings the chief f****t at Camelot and said Kennedy felt quite comfortable in the company of homosexuals as long as they were smart enough to hold his interest.. Jack and Lem explores the enduring friendship between John F. Kennedy and Kirk Lemoyne Billings (aka "Lem"). Bobby Kennedy Jr's surrogate father was JFK's gay best friend The martyred widow had taken out her anger and frustration on an easy and available target - her third-born, her late husband's namesake, Bobby Jr., who was a behavior problem even before his father's tragic death. Bobby left home with $600, and traveled to California, sometimes riding the rails, and ended up in Berkeley where he bought drugs with money he panhandled. ', 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. Years later, when Bobby was an undergraduate at Harvard, it would be Billings the boy's Svengali-like surrogate father who took control of his life after RFK's assassination who would convince Bobby that one day he could become the next Kennedy president of the United States. According to biographer James Spada, When Kennedy tired of her, he passed her off to his brother in 1962. to Frederic Tremaine Billings, a prominent physician and Romaine LeMoyne (direct The funeral will be held in Pittsburgh. "Oh, yes?" They remained close until Kennedy's assassinationBillings had his own room in the White House, and Joe Kennedy Sr. called him "a second son." (Which is odd considering JFK . In 1965, Mrs. Kennedy invited Billings to accompany her and her children to England for the unveiling of a memorial to Kennedy at Runnymede. "Will we be chauffeuring her fianc, too? Quirk alleged thatBilling and Kennedys relationship included oral sex with JFK always being on the receiving end. Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt from Jackie & Me. 'But the one thing that struck me even at that tender age was that I felt Lem was just obsessed with Bobby the way he watched over him, the way he was hugely protective of him. 2023 Meadowrockalpacas. Given that Billings was a heavy-drinking I say. The fighting Chesmores: Ring veteran Lem Chesmore passing the craft on Because Jack had no intention of ever being a faithful husband. 1934: John F Kennedy in hospital: enemas, porn and blondes - Past Peculiar KIRK LEMOYNE BILLINGS - Remember My Journey The book "Jack and Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship," details the extraordinary relationship between two unlikely friends. 'We'd have these conversations in our room at night, lying there before we'd fall asleep [Bobby on the top bunk, Fanning on the lower], and he told me that when you go to somebody's house always ask to use the bathroom and check in their medicine cabinet because they always have good pills that you can steal.