John F. Kennedy (right) and Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings sit in a wicker chair outside the Kennedy family home in Palm Beach. 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 . [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. 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. Billings, he said, "had a natural jealousy. As we both know, homosexual relationships in English boarding schools were put down to adolescent hijinks and men *grew out of them*. JFKs numerous affairs (before, during and after his marriage to Jackie) and his friendships with gay men suddenly had a social and cultural context that was neither gay or straight, but a harbinger of the sexual freedom and experimentation that would soon be championed in the counterculture and the mainstream. 'They make fun of my voice. She was expected to be constantly available for him, he was inconsiderate and unloving, and she was permitted to tell no one. [4] The Muckers would pull pranks around the school and even planned to dump horse manure in the school gym, but that fell through after the headmaster found out. University of Maryland basketball star Len Bias died of "cocaine intoxication" after ingesting an unusually pure dose of the drug that stopped his heart within minutes, Maryland's chief medical . In less than a year, the country would be at war." Otherwise he attended without female accompaniment. After finding the body and returning the heroin . (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. Date (s) of Materials: 25 March 1964. 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. In reference to this relationship, I came across another interview in which JFKs sexuality was discussed and that interviewer defended JFKs relationship with Lem? I don't think it's true that he did not have views of his own, as some have said. 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. The elder Kennedys began to discourage the boys from associating with Billings because of his excessive recreational drug use (including alcohol). 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. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. In addition to Lem, Kennedys bisexual brother in law, actor Peter Lawford, and novelist Gore Vidal, a relative of Jackies, were frequent visitors and playmates. The murder of Curtis Lemansky marked the beginning of the end for the Strike Team. He never lost this.". But even before then, Billings was a Kennedy fixture. [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. ", Still, he was well aware of his proximity to history. He noted that everywhere Jack went, Billings was sure to follow, like a puppy dog. I have been studying human sexuality for 25 years and am a Stanford grad and track athlete. This essay was originally published at OutHistory.orgon November 22, 2013; it has been updated and re-edited. "[58] Though Gore Vidal thought Billings was "absolutely nobody," he also believed "it was a good idea that Jack had somebody he could trust like that around him." Indeed, it often seems that Kennedy did treat people who loved him for granted. But even more than that, the author said that Billings was intimate friends with the Kennedys despite societal norms of the time ingratiating himself with a most powerful family. The two became friends, then roommates. Lem never really left Jacks orbit after boarding school. Lem was a virtual fixture in the Kennedy family who even had his own room at the White House. 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Kennedy Anything Including Possible Affairs, oral history interview for the John F. Kennedy Library. Lem was born on April 15, 1916 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.. Lem is one of the famous and trending celeb who is popular for being a Celebrity. And, say those close to him, Billings never, ever got over how his friend was assassinated one sunny day in Dallas exactly 58 years ago. Public Seminar is a journal of ideas, politics, and culture published by the Public Seminar Publishing Initiative at The New School. Variability in proportionate mortality in 363 Latin American cities by country. The comments below have been moderated in advance. "[27] Billings never had a White House pass and said: "Jack and Jackie were so nice about this that I didn't even have to tell them whether I was coming or going. William Lemp III died an untimely death of a heart attack at the age of 42. Lem Billings died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack on May 28, 1981, at the age of 65. 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. The story about Lem Billings '39 and JFK was very interesting and even moving (cover story, April 12). He certainly didn't have the same interest in politics and women that Jack had. Billings worked on the 1960 campaign, and then lived at the White House for long stretches of time, a room permanently set aside for his visits. 12 pdf icon; leading cause of death data, including firearm, homicide, and drug poisoning mortality data, and infant mortality . [36] When the Kennedys spent the weekend at Glen Ora, their Virginia estate, Jacqueline Kennedy invited Billings to join them more often than the President did. 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. Lem Billings died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack on May 28, 1981, at the age of 65. Though his name isn't as well-known as that of his boyhood best friend, Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings was an important confidante for one of America's presidents and lived a life no less full of its own twists and turns. Jack, Lem, and Caroline enjoying the water, Hyannis Port, 1963. 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. We might even call it a romantic friendship. And did he personally lend a hand from time to time? 'What the hell have you been doing? Billings served with Sargent Shriver as a trustee for the Kennedy family trusts. "'Of course, there was always Cape Cod in Massachusetts when the president wanted to be near the water,' Lem remarked. They always remembered him as the nicest German they ever met." Gore Vidal, the writer who claimed he viewed homosexuality as normal as heterosexuality, disparaged the JFK-Billings relationship during the Kennedy administration. 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.. Lem's sister, Lucretia, who knew Jack as well, said, 'I think he had to do something because Jack was doing so much.' "[Billings] was a witness to so much of what was going on. "[21] In September 1961, he accepted an appointment to the board of trustees of the planned National Cultural Center, which later became the Kennedy Center. Felicia Farr m. 19622001 Cynthia Stone m. 19501956 Jack Lemmon / Wife He was 76. Inside Matt Hancock's 41-hour battle to save his career when photo of 'a snog and heavy petting' with aide Will Vladimir Putin's empress pay the ultimate price for his war on the West? 'It was very hard for him, but he wanted to do it and he stuck with it,' Lucretia added. Because of him, I was never lonely, Billings said once. 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. [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. Like many gay men of his generation, Lem may have been very comfortable with his own sexuality and the privacy of his relationship to Jack. Though Billings who was working as a New York City advertising executive at the time of the assassination continued on at his firm for another decade, his life was never the same. were sexual animals, and its hard for me to believe that a guy like Lem who loved JFK, would stand by and let himself be used and be rebuffed by JFK!