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. ', Jacqueline Kennedy was reportedly unhappuabout her husband and Billings' three decade long relationship. Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings and Mary Lasker attend a party at the New York City home of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. On June 14, 1977. He attended one of the parents' weekends, but was never seen on campus again. Like the rest of the free world, Billings was devastated when President Kennedy was assassinated. In school JFK and Lem were close. Trio arrested during crackdown fall foul of national security law. Quirk claims he first met Billings at Kennedys first congressional campaignand, as they became closer, he says Billings claimed that his relationship with Kennedy was sexual. Goat's eyes, that's my first churlish thought, or a madwoman's, but maybe that's to forestall the sense that I'm being seen through a wider lens. After the assassination of Robert Kennedy, a distraught Ethel turned over her son, Bobby Jr., to Billings to act as his surrogate father, sparking her brother-in-law, Terrien - RFK's roommate at the University of Virginia law school - to wonder why she would allow "Lem to have such an intimate relationship" with her troubled third born, who would go on to have a a bizarre relationship with Billings, including the taking of drugs. But, the Skakels had previously been homophobic to Billings. 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.". And it was pretty common, of course in those days and that culture, for men not to be that way.". In the early spring of 1971, Bobby was being carefully watched by the administration because of drugs. But we speed past all those destinations before steering up Old Dominion Drive. Lem Billings and John F. Kennedy met as teenagers at their Connecticut prep school and remained lifelong friends. As they became close, Billings confided that his relationship with Kennedy was, in fact, sexual, to a point. As one source told me, 'Young Bobby replaced Jack in Lem's heart of hearts.'. Billings and. Mr. Billings and Mr. Kennedy. Biographer Sally Bedell Smith referred to Billings as probably the saddest of the Kennedy widows., Following the assassination of RFK in 1968, Billings transferred his romantic feeling to Kennedys nephew, Bobby Kennedy Jr, to whom Billings would become a fawning surrogate father and fellow drug user.. Did the 35th US President John F Kenned have a secret gay relationship with his childhood friend Lem Billings? Quirk alleged thatBilling and Kennedys relationship included oral sex with JFK always being on the receiving end. Kirk LeMoyne Billings, a retired advertising executive and a friend of President John F. Kennedy, died Wednesday at his Manhattan apartment. Monroe and JFK were first introduced in 1954 by Peter Lawford, JFK's brother-in-law. 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.". The Kennedys were a liberal family and one that tolerated a lot of heterosexual promiscuity as well. "I think she went into this thinking that she was getting the conventional husband, even though her own father was a complete philanderer and she knew that," Bayard says. By now, my glasses are fairly crusted over with pollen, so I'm making windshield wipers of my index fingers as I ask what it is that Miss Bouvier does with her days. While Billings' missive is long gone, a startled Kennedy responded, "Please don't write to me on toilet paper anymore. mutual distaste for their school and its headmaster, Seymour St. John. Among the faculty there may have been a collective sigh of reliefbecause things with Bobby would have only escalated and the attitude was, okay, he's now the next school's problem.'. In truth, the Kennedys did have criticisms of Queen Elizabeth following their meeting. Somebody who was also not of the Kennedys, but very much wanted to be one of them. defeated. Beyond love, Jackie & Me is also about how decisions can define us. 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. Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings (April 15, 1916 - May 28, 1981) was a close and long-time friend of President John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family. According to one of the school's leading administrators and teachers, Hagop Merjian, Bobby was doing, as he put it, 'Really bad, s**t drugs heavy s**t'. Yesterday was Jack's birthday. The mother of the house, Joanne 'Joey' Brode became a virtual surrogate mother to Bobby who notes years later, 'Ethel didn't even call Bobby on his birthday. ', 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. Jackie, I imagine, is now asking the name of Bobby's daughter or wondering if Eunice will be there and which one is Pat? He's just like Jack!' What if Jacqueline Bouvier had chosen differently? through his life. According to The Telegraph, Cecil Beaton claimed that Kennedy was unimpressed by the palace furnishings and by the Queen's dress and hairstyle. Gore Vidal claimed that Jackie described the queen as pretty heavy going.. "It's very clear to me, too, from the research, that she was absolutely besotted with Jack Kennedy," he explains. Lem even wrote John a love note on toilet paper . "The Kennedys were a liberal family and one that tolerated a lot of heterosexual promiscuity as well.". Because Jack had no intention of ever being a faithful husband. of adding a fruit flavor to disguise the sodium citrate taste. And now that we've crossed into Virginia, the only thing left to figure out is where she might live. 'They make fun of my voice. The hearing, lasting less than a half-hour, was held in private. White House and advised Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in her redecoration of the Bayard explores the beginnings of the romance between the future Mrs. Kennedy, then the inquiring photographer for the Washington Times-Herald, and young Congressman John F. Kennedy, with Jack's best friend, Lem Billings, serving as a "go-between" for the lovers in 1950s Washington, D.C. 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 escorted Mrs. Stephen Smith, sister of the late President, to . Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: RFK Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream. In the summer of 1934, future United States president John F Kennedy was in his junior year at the prestigious Choate School in Connecticut. 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. Jack and Lem explores the enduring friendship between John F. Kennedy and Kirk Lemoyne Billings (aka "Lem"). 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. Share your favorite stories with other history buffs in the IrishCentral History Facebook group. Lem was the second person Jack's sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, called after reaching her sister, Pat Lawford. JFK's Best Friend Lem: Transcript. Joseph Kennedy Sr. called him my sec Robert F. Kennedy Jr., David Kenne. 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. I understand he's not worth it.". /. and Jack first met at Choate Rosemary Hall in 1933 when Lem was 17 and Jack was I say. 'But we never saw Ethel. For Billings, a year older than the future president, it was love at first sight and from the instant they met Billings was sexually attracted to the handsome scion of America's so-called royal family. '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. When Jack Kennedy and Billings were at Choate and later, when they were seemingly joined at the hip at Princeton for a time before Kennedy transferred to Harvard at his father's behest, Billings always accompanied him home on vacations. Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings (April 15, 1916 - May 28, 1981) was a close and long-time friend of President John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family. In 1962, the Queen, then 35, invited Jackie to a lunch when the First Lady was in London visiting her sister, Lee Radziwill, who lived there with her husband Prince Stanislaw Radziwill. "And we could have made a very different choice. 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. '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. Kirk LeMoyne Billings was Jack's very best friend from their time at Choate prep school in 1933 to that fateful day in Dallas 1963. Sixteen days after RFK was buried, Ethel and her brood were aboard a yacht destined for Hyannis Port and the Kennedy compound. Lem had extremely poor eye sight and a high-pitched voice. I have no evidence one way or another, but I would discount [any sexual activity. When we first happen upon her, her face is angled away, as though she's cocking her ear for a nightingale. Copyright 2022 by Louis Bayard. His latest book, The Kardashians: An American Drama, will be published in September. President Jimmy Carter broke royal protocol by kissing the Queen Mother on the lips during his visit in 1977. 'It was kept 'very hush-hush,' recalled the music teacher James Hejduk. Get out of my life.'. Joseph Kennedy Sr. called him "my second son," and he . Nothing for it, then, but to watch Miss Bouvier's headunder the weight of her impending introduction to the Kennedy clanloll ever so gradually to the right. 'We couched it in terms of what was best for Bobby. Quirk had met Billings in the mid-Forties when both were volunteers in Jack Kennedy's first congressional campaign. Mr. Billings was active in all of John Kennedy's campaigns as well as those of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Only a very liberal school [like Pomfret] that needed money would take him.'. He has really been part of "our family" since that first time he showed up at our house as one of "Jack's surprises". I mean, she doesn't look like she belongs there any more than I do, and I briefly wonder if she's a housemaid or a nanny, taking her one allotted evening out. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. 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.' While he didn't have a chemistry teacher like Walter White, aka 'Heisenberg' of TV's Breaking Bad, the Camelot scion was doing everything he could to get high on whatever drugs he could get his hands on. 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. Billings had once told Bobby that when. The piece featured here was a gift from Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings, a high school friend and lifelong confidant who helped Kennedy amass his scrimshaw collection, which included more than 30 . F. To virtually attend a service live at a General Shoe store, Emerson Drug Company VP, and an advertising executive He was born to Otis and Anna Speer on July 14, 1928, in Glasgow, Montana. Kennedy and Billings met in 1933 in their sophomore year at Choate Rosemary Hall, an exclusive Connecticut prep school. Jack was small and inquisitive, a scion of the Catholic, new-money Kennedys. One of those he told was his roommate Jamie Fanning. 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. 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Lem's father died in 1933 placing additional strain on the family's "He also reveals that there was this crucial moment," says Bayard. he's stoned." Initially, Bobby's dorm room with his first roommate had become a veritable shrine to Bobby's father. 'It was clear to me,' said Miesmer, 'that Bobby felt like an outsider, so he felt way more comfortable with the black kidshis father was a champion of helping blacks, so this kid who just lost his father goes to a school where there's a presence of black kids and he felt more comfortable with them.'. He is survived by a brother, Dr. F. Tremayne Billings, and a sister, Lucretia Billings Fisher. What happened when Jackie Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth II met? Jackie was reportedly upset that her husband spent so much time with Billings and that he often spent the night at the White House. guest every weekend of my married life." 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"The book posits the idea that there are these given points in our lives where we're making a really important choice," says Bayard. Brother of Frederic Billings Jr. [spouse (s) unknown] [children unknown] Died 28 May 1981 at age 65 in New York City, New York, United States. The first lady, Jackie, had something of a love-hate relationship with Billings. the bond between Billings and Kennedy became so strong that Billings stayed back 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. His classmates were worried that he was going to kill himself, that we were going to find him dead.'. "And I think he might have been, honestly. 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. But Billings remained closeted publicly for his life. JFKPP-001-012-p0005. He was by all accounts JFK's best. 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. In 1965, Mrs. Kennedy invited Billings to accompany her and her children to England for the unveiling of a memorial to Kennedy at Runnymede. Please consult your doctor before taking any action. Tglich werden Tausende neue hochwertige Bilder hinzugefgt. He passed away peacefully at home February. But the one thing that struck me even at that tender age was that I felt Lem was just obsessed with Bobby. JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century 1917-1956, 6. Find the obituary of Lem Speer (1928 - 2021) from Billings, MT. Irked, Joe Kennedy would sneeringly ask his wife, Rose, 'Do we have to have that queer around all summer? Bobby was an edgy, edgy guy. Billings and Kennedy took 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 . Introduction: My name is Rubie Ullrich, I am a enthusiastic, perfect, tender, vivacious, talented, famous, delightful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you. 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. Later Years. By easy degrees, she turns around and bestows on me a fuller version of that first smile. Young Jfk. 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. He had his own room in the Billings had even begun calling Bobby 'Jack' by mistake, and Billings had instructed one of Bobby's close cousins, Christopher Kennedy Lawford, also a drug abuser at the time, to be to Bobby what RFK had been to JFK. 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. 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?'. '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. Lem Billings. "At one point he was sent by Jack to give Jackie the low-down about what she could expect once they were married. 'He played with Bobby, if you will, more than a father probably would, was just devoted to him, and there was reallyl honest affection between them.'. Since she considered young Bobby the most difficult and troublesome of her seven sons and three daughters (with another child the daughter Rory -- due at any moment), she decided to hand him off to Lem Billings, and moreover, sent him far away to boarding school, in the rural Hudson Valley of New York State. "Because of him," Lem Billings once said of President Kennedy, "I was never lonely" "You learn a lot about how he met Jackie, about how intrigued he was by her, how intrigued he was by them," says Bayard of listening to Billing's testimony stored in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Published in The Elkhart Truth from Feb. 20 to Feb. 21, 2023. As they became close, Billings confided that his relationship with Kennedy was, in fact, sexual, to a point. Billings was devastated after the JFK assassination. 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. 'People think I'm a joke,' he once acknowledged. (Video) Caroline Kennedy on JFK's secret recordings, (Video) JFK's Women: Scandals Revealed | CBC, (Video) July 20, 1962 - President John F. Kennedy arriving home for weekend, (Video) President Kennedy's family reflects on his 100th birthday, 2. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Son of Frederick Tremaine Billings and Romaine Elizabeth (LeMoyne) Billings. In May 1981, as Bobby was about to marry his first wife, Emily Black, 65-year-old Lem Billings suddenly died of a heat attack in his sleep, Shortly before he went to bed he got drunk, started to cry and told a friend, 'I made a terrible mistake. ', Quirk, who acknowledged his own bisexuality, asserted that Billings 'believed that this arrangement 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. Lem was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1916 The pair had a three-decades long friendship that some have speculated may have also included a romantic affair. Miss Bouvier is a destination. Jack's best friend was Lem, and he would want to remind everyone of that today. to Frederic Tremaine Billings, a prominent physician and Romaine LeMoyne (direct 'Bobby would take his hawk and go hunting rats in the midst of the rotting cow carcasses and he sort of reveled in how off- the-wall that was. Billings Funeral Home | 812 Baldwin Street | Elkhart, IN 46514 | Tel: 574-264-2425. 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 . Jerry Oppenheimer is a New York Times bestselling author who has written two books about the Kennedys. I don't know whether she wrote to Bobby, but she certainly didn't telephone or visit him. Make a life-giving gesture. But Bayard says that the reality of their marriage including years of reporting about Jack's infidelities gave him a "degree of empathy" for Jackie when approaching her character in the novel. Kirk Lemoyne Billings Memorial Page. Inside JFKs Intimate Relationship With Gay Best Friend Who Had His Own Room In The White House, Britney Spears Blames Her Mom For Conservatorship Inside Lynne Spearss Complicated Role In Singers Life, Details About Kristen Stewarts Fiance Dylan Meyers & Their Adorably Casual Proposal, The Horniest Animal In The World Is Not What You Think It Is, I'd Rather Get Pregnant With My Gay Best Friend Than My Husband, Teacher Wants Student Removed From His Class Because The Kid's Parents Don't Approve Of His Marriage, Jeffrey Epstein's Relationship With Princess Diana Explored In New Book. the two men was friendship. We learn more curious facts when we read that Lem Billings became a 'surrogate father' to Bobby Kennedy, Jr., after the alleged death of RFK. The content produced by YourTango is for informational and educational purposes only. And it's a kind of interesting love triangle between these three fascinating people.". ', Drugs had become part of the scene at Millbrook, and Bobby would become a major player. 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. Billings reportedly wrote the future president a love note on a piece of toilet paper (pictured at the Kennedys' Palm Beach estate), JFK was famous for his womanizing habits, but one of his closest relationships was withLem Billings. Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings was a bumbling giant, the offspring of a prominent but cash-poor Protestant family. 'Bobby wasn't just a pothead. He's gone. Billings maintained close ties to the Kennedys and their children Knowing the kind of intimate relationship that he had with the president, advisers were concerned about political repercussions, and even blackmail. Jerry Oppenheimer is a New York Times bestselling author who has written two books about the Kennedys. Her knees are drawn protectively to her chest, and there's something quite exposed about her. A startled Kennedy responded to the note by saying, Please don't write to me on toilet paper anymore. 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. A telephone conversation between President Kennedy and Lem Billings. Kennedy.). By Adam Salandra. He had an older sister, Ruth (Speer) Steele, older brother, Eugene "Bud" Speer, and younger half-brother Lawrence "Larry" Payant. In the spring of 1972, with graduation approaching, Bobby took the SAT college board exam, and filled out his application for college. While he told Bobby that he should find a woman like his aunt Jackie, none of Bobby's three wives would be anything like her. And seated close to Kennedy is his shirtless, tanned and oiled best friend forever, his very gay chum, Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings. The result is a meditation on the definitions . ', Hejduk also immediately perceived that the relationship between Bobby and Billings 'was probably one of those unrequited-love kind of things.'. Billings was a prep school roommate of Kennedy, an usher at his wedding and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. He refers to virtually all his girls that way. 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. "He [Billings] was a witness to so much of what was going on. times, Lem might have been described as a "confirmed bachelor," although But was reportedly upset that her husband spent so much time with him, and that he often stayed overnight at the White House. 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. Jackie O. I took drugs with him. 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. 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.'. While the photo of Kennedy cozying up to Monroe is the best known of him with one of his purported lovers, other far less public snapshots show the flip side of Kennedy's intimate relationships. Among the snapshots is one that shows a handsome pre-presidential Kennedy sunning himself, sprawled on a chaise at Patriarch Joe Kennedy's Palm Beach estate. "They make fun of my voice. Kirk LeMoyne Billings was Jack's very best friend from their time at Choate prep school in 1933 to that fateful day in Dallas 1963. But was reportedly upset that her husband spent so much time with him, and that he often stayed overnight at the White House. . Supposedly. Then, when Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, his wife Ethel Skakel had Billings act as the surrogate father to her son Bobby Jr. Reviews: 95% of readers found this page helpful, Address: 743 Stoltenberg Center, Genovevaville, NJ 59925-3119, Hobby: Surfing, Sailing, Listening to music, Web surfing, Kitesurfing, Geocaching, Backpacking. Billings, was a prep school roommate and then They met in 1933 in their sophomore year at Choate Rosemary Hall, the exclusive Connecticut prep school, when both were teenagers, working together on their class's yearbook, and Billings instantly became attracted sexually and otherwise to the handsome scion of America's self-styled royal family. Billings would later spend nights in the White House where he had his own room, Schoolboy crush? President John F. Kennedy may have had an intimate relationship with a gay friend from his prep school days, claims bestselling author Jerry Oppenheimer, who has written two books about the Kennedys. 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