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. If you have recently lost a family member or friend, we hope that you will accept our condolences. "Because of him," Lem Billings once said of President Kennedy, "I was never lonely" For the first time, I begin to wonder if Miss Bouvier is nervousthough it's difficult to confirm because she has a small voice and the wind seems to slap every word back down her gullet. She never was here.' 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. 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. Lem Billings died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack on May 28, 1981, at the age of 65. President Kennedy was the first US president to meet Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace, when the Queen and Prince Philip hosted the president and first lady for dinner in 1961, according to the US Embassy and Consulates in the UK. Billings was a prep school roommate of Kennedy, an usher at his wedding and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. And so the book is full of alternative outcomes, the different roads that these three characters might have taken, particularly Jackie and particularly Lem.". , In office January 20, 1961 November 22, 1963. Featuring interviews with Ben Bradlee, Gore Vidal, Ted Sorenson, friends, family, and many others . She told him, 'I don't really care if you have a girl sleep here, but I want it to be the same person all the time because I want my kids to grow to understating that love is good with one person.'. (See below for an exclusive excerpt.). By the middle of Bobby's second year at Millbrook, around January 1970, he was placed on a secret short list of students considered too difficult to remain enrolled. mutual distaste for their school and its headmaster, Seymour St. John. ', 'It was that kind of talk, more bragging, but I believed him. He was kind of sinister. Miss Bouvier is a destination. Tglich werden Tausende neue hochwertige Bilder hinzugefgt. He once called Billings the 'chief f****t at Camelot.' Jack's best friend was Lem, and he would want to remind everyone of that today.
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. Their close relationship also caused his advisors to fear blackmail and political repercussions from Russian agents. Jerry Oppenheimer For Dailymail.com. Getty Images Billings, for his part, never married and eventually became a marketing executive and worked on the John F. Kennedy Center for the. Lem Billings was called and, according to Donn Wright, who became the new headmaster, 'he didn't try to change anybody's minds. I'm not that kind of boy.'. at a General Shoe store, Emerson Drug Company VP, and an advertising executive
What if Jacqueline Bouvier had chosen differently? David Marciano - Steve Billings (2008, recurring 2005-2007) Benito Martinez - David Aceveda (2002-2008) . 'I had written a report on Bobby, and Billings answered it and didn't agree with me, and that's when I thought, "Uh-oh, he's in charge here. Although Mr. Billings never served the President in an official capacity, he was a frequent guest at the White House. He had an older sister, Ruth (Speer) Steele, older brother, Eugene "Bud" Speer, and younger half-brother Lawrence "Larry" Payant. Featuring interviews with Ben Bradlee, Gore Vidal, Ted Sorenson, friends, family, and many . "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. 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. Jack Kennedy and Lem Billings met at Choate and remained friends until the Dallas gunfire that ended Kennedy's life thirty years later. Mind you, there's nothing in that honorific Miss to signify a lady of distinction. 'We would get a telephone call from that funny old nurse, who sounded like an old-time nanny, and she would say, "It's President Kennedy's birthday and Bobby needs to go to Mass and observe that," and my husband would have to take him,' recalled his widow. In the early spring of 1971, Bobby was being carefully watched by the administration because of drugs. ", 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. 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. Reprinted by permission. "And we could have made a very different choice. education of free black Americans after the Confederate States of America was
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. You didn't want to get too close to him.'. If you need a funeral home you can trust, call today. In the spring of 1971, Bobby was sacked once again. The family went back
In truth, the Kennedys did have criticisms of Queen Elizabeth following their meeting. I mutter something on the order of yes, I must be, and she smiles. Lem Billings andBobby Kennedy Jr became close after JFK's death and allegedly took drugs together. Still, Billings was viewed by many I interviewed for my biography of RFK Jr. as his gay Svengali who guided and literally tried to control every aspect of Bobby Jr.'s life from the time he was in his mid-teens. Their foresight led to the development of a funeral home dedicated to providing the best quality service possible to families at their . Kirk LeMoyne Billings and John F. Kennedy. Quirk had met Billings in the mid-Forties when both were volunteers in Jack Kennedy's first congressional campaign. As George Terrien, Ethel's brother-in-law declared, 'Everyone knew Lem was queer - the Kennedys, the Skakels, everyone.'. 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. The only other adult who was practically a member of the Kennedy family and who was concerned enough about Bobby's welfare to check in on him was the Kennedy family nurse, Luella Hennessey-Donovan. He noted that everywhere Jack went, Billings was sure to follow, like a puppy dog. Billings was buried near his mother's grave in his hometown of Pittsburgh. Bobby's next school on his difficult road to a high school diploma was Pomfret, which was having its own troubles. Kirk LeMoyne Billings, a retired advertising executive and a friend of President John F. Kennedy, died Wednesday at his Manhattan apartment. '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.'. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. "And he also played a very important role in the courtship between Jackie Bouvier and Jack Kennedy. for inventing '50s fad drink Fizzies for the Emerson Drug Company. Standing next to Jack, or lying close beside him in a lawn chaise at the Kennedy oceanfront estate in Palm Beach, as one old photograph showed, Billings appeared to dwarf his chum. At fourteen and fifteen, Bobby was proving his bad-boy bona fides with Jesse Pinkman zeal. (In September, Jack joined
Yesterday was Jack's birthday. ', In fact, in private, she ranted, 'You've dragged your family's name through the mud.'. According to Jerry Oppenheimer, author of RFK Jr.: Robert F. Kennedy and the Dark Side of the Dream, Kennedy responded, please dont write to me on toilet paper anymore. "Will we be chauffeuring her fianc, too? "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. 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. 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 . I have no evidence one way or another, but I would discount [any sexual activity.]. The hearing, lasting less than a half-hour, was held in private. New York City, taking lunch from his job at Lennen & Newell. It was pretty clear he had some intravenous drug use back then, and he was the only person we knew who did.'. According to biographer James Spada, When Kennedy tired of her, he passed her off to his brother in 1962. 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. 'We had a couple of calls from Jackie - "How's my nephew doing?" Oppenheimer wrote in the Daily Mail that their intimate relationship would last from their school years to the day of Kennedys assassination. 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. Kennedy was unwell through much of his childhood, beginning with a near-deadly case of scarlet . One of those he told was his roommate Jamie Fanning. Kirk LeMoyne Billings, a retired advertising executive and a friend of President John F. Kennedy, died Wednesday at his Manhattan apartment. Quirk immediately pegged Billings as gay, noting his 'high, screechy laugh,' and 'high nasal whine of a voice.' After Kennedys assassination, Billings was devastated. Queer question. the two men was friendship. But then I realize she's never seen Jack's car (or Jack himself, maybe) in the naked light of day. "They make fun of my voice. But Billings remained closeted publicly for his life. The teenagers worked together on their classs yearbook, and Billings became sexually attracted to the handsome young Kennedy. who established the African-American LeMoyne-Owen College). "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. He had an older sister, Ruth (Speer) Steele, older brother, Eugene "Bud" Speer, and younger half-brother Lawrence "Larry" Payant. I am sure the good Lord knows that heaven is Jesus and Lem and Jack and Bobby loving one another. In both the book and real life, Bayard explains that Billings played a key part in the couple's romance. I say. 16. "And she knew, at some level, that she was marrying another version of her father. Lem Billings and John F Kennedy were practically inseparable in prep school. Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt from Jackie & Me. 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. And seated close to Kennedy is his shirtless, tanned and oiled best friend forever, his very gay chum, Kirk LeMoyne 'Lem' Billings. 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. "The result is this book, which looks at Jackie before she was Jackie the Jackie that we all think we know. Share your favorite stories with other history buffs in the IrishCentral History Facebook group. 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. Jacqueline Kennedy was reportedly unhappy about her husband and Billings' three decade long relationship. Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you. Their lifelong relationship caused some of the presidents advisers to fear Russian agents may use the information as blackmail. to the arrival of the Mayflower and were ardent abolitionists who championed the
Jerry Oppenheimer For Dailymail.com
While the 35th president has been legendarily known as a womanizer who frequently cheated on his wife, Oppenheimer alleges that JFKs three-decades-long relationship with his former prep school friend Lem Billings may have been a sexual one. 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. Published online July 6, 2017. "Because he was so handsome, and he was so charming, and he just had that way about him.". He was born to Otis and Anna Speer on July 14, 1928, in Glasgow, Montana. 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. While JFK is legendarily known as a master womanizer who frequently cheated on his first lady, his curious three-decades long intimate friendship with Billings suggests more than a simple bromance. Jack and Lem explores the enduring friendship between John F. Kennedy and Kirk Lemoyne Billings (aka "Lem"). When their brother Bobby married Ethel Skakel in a royal-like wedding in Greenwich, Connecticut, the staunchly conservative republican and seemingly homophobic Skakels let their feelings about Billings' gayness be known. 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. Ethel's alcoholic, philandering brother, George Skakel Jr., actually booted Billings in the a** at the church, knocking him into the aisle. In his second year at Millbrook, Bobby began boasting that he was doing certain drugs intravenously - shooting up, like any street junkie. "Because of him, I was never lonely. 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. The Kennedys were a liberal family and one that tolerated a lot of heterosexual promiscuity as well. Bobby was an edgy, edgy guy. Mr. Billings was active in all of John Kennedy's campaigns as well as those of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. ", 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.". The business was started in 1956 by Robert G. Michelotti and John F. Sawyers. to Frederic Tremaine Billings, a prominent physician and Romaine LeMoyne (direct
However, Kennedy's feelings soon changed and he became more amenable to his friend's advances, according to Lawrence J. Quirk, author of The Kennedys in Hollywood, who first met Billings in the mid-forties when both were volunteers in Jack Kennedy's first congressional campaign. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. 'People think I'm a joke,' he once acknowledged. 'But Bobby was doing a little more than some of the rest of us - a little more and maybe harder stuff than the rest of us.'. Copyright 2022 by Louis Bayard. And Bobby was sort of always unkempt.'. Photo / Getty Images. Billings Funeral Home. he's stoned." Kirk Lemoyne (Lem) Billings. If pressed, she'll fall back on the weather. Billings was a prep school roommate of Kennedy, an usher at his wedding and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. By Adam Salandra. 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.'. their summer trip through Europe prior to World War II. 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. "Jack and Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship" Kennedy knew Billings was in love with him (Billings declared his love and was rejected by Kennedy) and Kennedy liked that, the attention and knowing the power he has over billings also his wife Jackie Kennedy hated Billings and hated that he and . By Sydney Taylor Written on Nov 06, 2021. ', White House visitor: Billings often spent the night at the White House, which upset Jackie Kennedy. "He [Billings] was a witness to so much of what was going on. 'But we never saw Ethel. During their wedding in Greenwich, Connecticut, Ethels brother knocked Billings down the aisle at the church. by the end of his own lifetime he would have been described as gay. From all accounts, they became fast friends, drawn to each other by their
He served with the Navy in the Pacific during World War II, then attended the Harvard Graduate School of Business. 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. Ethel's alcoholic, philandering brother, George Skakel Jr., actually booted Billings in the a** at the church, knocking him into the aisle. He was also a trustee of the Kennedy Library at Harvard. 'He seemed a very pleasant fellow,' said Bontecou, a classmate of Bobby's. In 1941, Jack and Lem both tried out for the military but were both declined,
'And there he was hunting rats out of that pile of dead sheep and cow carcasses. Lem Billings. Extent: 82 digital pages. 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. 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. One of the leaders of the group, Rob O. The Kennedys were a liberal family and one that tolerated a lot of heterosexual promiscuity as well., In her memoir, Times To Remember, published eleven years after JFKs assassination in Dallas in 1963, matriarch Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy 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 Billings and John F. Kennedy pictured at the Kennedy familys Palm Beach estate. Sam Gillette is a books Writer/Reporter for People.com and People Magazine. She reportedly had a love-hate relationship with her husband's best friend. Young Jfk. As depicted in Netflix's The Crown, Queen Elizabeth II did actually host President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jackie Kennedy at Buckingham Palace in 1961. 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. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. In a 2007
Quirk immediately pegged Billings as gay, noting his "high, screechy laugh," and "high nasal whine of a voice.". 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. This was at the end of their final presidential debate at Hofstra University in New York in October, 2008. book review of Jack and Lem, The New Haven Register interviewed the author and
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. The result is a meditation on the definitions . Suchen Sie nach Lem Billings Fotos und ber 100 Millionen weiteren aktuellen Bildern und Stockfotos bei IMAGO. ", But Billings was embarrassed about his effeminate mannerisms - he'd remain publicly closeted for his lifetime. Jack was in love with Lem being in love with him and considered him the ideal follower adorer.. President Kennedy was a completely liberated man when he was with Lem.'. Billings said. "People think I'm a joke," he once acknowledged. An intimate of Billings, writer Lawrence J. Quirk, claimed that Billings, whom he met in 1946 when both worked in Jack Kennedy's first congressional campaign, had confided to him that their relationship did, in fact, involve sex acts 'a friendship that included oral sex, with Jack always on the receiving end. /. White House and advised Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in her redecoration of the
'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. The point is there's no way of knowing what they're saying, and Jack sometimes gets cross if I talk too much with his dates (unless I'm doing something useful like showing them the door). 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.". He may have been the
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.. '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. '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, he said. Leave your condolences to the family on this memorial page or send flowers to show you care. 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. The young JFK, messing around with Lem Billings during their Choate years. Everything involving Bobby had to go through Billings. I am sure the good Lord knows that heaven is Jesus and Lem and Jack and Bobby loving one another.. Although there have been several rumors throughout the decades of JFK being romantically involved with Marilyn Monroe, the former president has also faced rumors of a relationship withhis gay best friend Lem Billings. The book is set in 1981, in New York City, where Jackie has settled after becoming the Widow Onassis and joining the working world. Trio arrested during crackdown fall foul of national security law. The first time Kirk Lemoyne 'Lem' Billings was introduced to Bobby Kennedy Jr. the two spent several hours alone in the boy's room at fabled Hickory Hill, Robert and Ethel Kennedy's historic, sprawling estate, in bucolic McLean, Virginia. Ancestors. Ethel Kennedy "booted" Bobby, Jr. out of the Hickory Hill home at age 14 and basically fed him to Billings. The Funeral Home and/or Cemeterys policy is to NOT reproduce any copyrighted or other proprietary materials without verification from the User that they have the lawful right and/or authority to use. quoted from the book: "Jack made a big difference in my life,"
If we had made that very different choice, we would've gone down a completely different road. "The book posits the idea that there are these given points in our lives where we're making a really important choice," says Bayard. Lem
President Jimmy Carter broke royal protocol by kissing the Queen Mother on the lips during his visit in 1977. him to drink. times, Lem might have been described as a "confirmed bachelor," although
Find the obituary of Lem Speer (1928 - 2021) from Billings, MT. Lem Billings, from a distinguished old American Protestant family, was taller, bigger, stronger, with a high-pitched voice and a loud laugh. Lem's father died in 1933 placing additional strain on the family's
He accepted it.' I let him down.'. 2. Sydney Taylor is a writer who focuses on News and Entertainment topics. Their very intimate relationship would last from those school days to Billings even having a room in the Kennedy White House distressing for the first lady to the day of Kennedy's assassination. 'It was kept 'very hush-hush,' recalled the music teacher James Hejduk. By clicking on a service below, you can view the obituary and service details, leave a condolence, send flowers, and if requested by the family attend a service live with remote attendance or view the . "Can't beat a good Irish pub" - David Beckham celebrates son's birthday in Dublin, UPDATE: Alex Murdaugh sentenced to life in prison for murdering wife and son, WATCH: Irish bishop's funeral held in Los Angeles today, Brian Donnelly, Irish American visa hero, has died, Sunak's Northern Ireland deal is a solid one, Irish bishops memorial services underway in LA as murder investigation continues, Ireland named one of the safest places to travel in Europe. Like the rest of the free world, Billings was devastated when President Kennedy was assassinated. University until Kennedy withdrew for medical reasons. The President never failed to introduce Lem formally to visiting heads of state, dignitaries, and celebrities, but the introduction was never simply a matter of "I would like you to meet my friend, LeMoyne Billings." "He'd introduce me as Congressman Billings or Senator Billings, and even General Billings," Lem would later recall . 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. However, according to Lawrence J. Quirk, author of The Kennedys In Hollywood JFKs reaction to Billings quickly changed. Lem Billings was the ultimate "wing man." Billings was quietly gay, at a time when such things were not admitted to, particularly for those people who wanted to stay in high society.