In many ways, Kennedy was also enjoying the kind of sex life that would later characterize the gay mens party of the 1970s. "I just became fascinated with Lem because he was a closeted but as they used to say 'practicing homosexual,' and he was very much part of the inner Kennedy circle from very early in his life," Bayard said. Sprawling home where JonBenet Ramsey was found murdered in 1996 is listed for sale for $7 MILLION by current Royal Mail increase price of first class stamp by 15p to 1.10 in record-breaking hike. Lem felt that the physical regimen at the Kennedy vacation homes was even more exacting than that at Choate. Born in 1916, Billings was the son of a Pittsburgh doctor. Now thats very exciting! said Kennedy with a grin.. 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. 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. Jack's best friend was Lem, and he would want to remind everyone of that today. Have a nice one! He managed the campaign in the Third Congressional District in the Wisconsin primary and then served as general troubleshooter and coordinator of television in the West Virginia primary. Smith, 433-4; see also: Smith, 113: "The only counterbalance to the [Kennedy] family's philistinism had been Lem Billings, whose passion for art and antiques had begun with his Princeton theses on Tintoretto, a precociously sophisticated study. David Pitts quotes Vidal cruelly calling Billings "a lifelong slave," "the principal fag at court," and a "nurse" who helped Jack deal with the pain caused by Addison's disease. "[45] Billings also served the President as an artistic adviser, selecting scrimshaw for display in the Oval Office[46] and, on one European tour, quickly assembling a selection of artworks to be presented as gifts. "[52] One historian wrote that after the 1963 assassination Billings was: "probably the saddest of the Kennedy 'widows'. [37], Billings' role as "first friend" was assessed by many observers at the time and since. At one point, he is said to have remarked: "After I go, there'll be no more Kennedys.". Bobby Kennedy Jr. gave the eulogy. [17] In 1956 he was an usher at the wedding of Kennedy's sister Jean to Stephen Edward Smith. He had clearly been adopted into the larger Kennedy clan, and Jackie drew him into her family circle as well. However, an earlier book by Hollywood writer Lawrence Quirk alleges that Billings was not rebuffed. John F. Kennedy's best friend for three decades was a gay man, according to a new book titled, "Jack and Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings.The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship;" the book documents the relationship between the two men from its beginnings at a New England prep school in 1933 until the gunfire in Dallas in 1963. His latest book, The Kardashians: An American Drama, will be published in September. "Because of him," Lem Billings once said of President Kennedy, "I was never lonely" Knowing the kind of intimate relationship that he had with the president, advisers were concerned about political repercussions, and even blackmail. I have no evidence one way or another, but I would discount [any sexual activity.]. 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 might have been the reason I never got married. In the fictionalAmerican Adulterer (2009), novelist Jed Mercurio s imagines a Kennedy who believes that ejaculating several times a day was crucial to maintaining good health and mental alertness, a form of self-care and that controlled his attacks of Addisons Disease by preventing seminal fluid from backing up into his body. He wanted to be with him, to be a part of whatever he wanted to do to continue Jack's legacy." And seated close to Kennedy is his shirtless, tanned and oiled best friend forever, his very gay chum, Kirk LeMoyne 'Lem' Billings. "Depending upon where the lung cancer was, her heart could have taken a direct hit," said Dr. Sharonne N. Hayes, a cardiologist and founder of the Women's Heart Clinic at the Mayo Clinic. The Kennedys were a liberal family and one that tolerated a lot of heterosexual promiscuity as well. Lem Billings (left) with John F Kennedy (right) Kennedy and Billings had a sexual relationship including 'oral sex, with Jack always on the receiving end.' Kennedys in Hollywood by Lawrence J. Quirk / The Dark Side Of The Dream A different side of JFK: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings met atChoate Rosemary Hall and became lifelong friends. Jack Kennedy and Lem Billings met at Choate and remained friends until the Dallas gunfire that ended Kennedy's life thirty years later. "[29] Historian Sally Bedell Smith compared him to Leonard Zelig, a nondescript character in Woody Allen's 1983 film who is always present in the back row at major events. "'Of course, there was always Cape Cod in Massachusetts when the president wanted to be near the water,' Lem remarked. While at Choate, they formed a club and called themselves "The Muckers". Kirk Lem Lemoyne Billings (15 Apr 1916 - 28 May 1981) 0 references . It would be the last Christmas in which the United States would be at peace for more than four years. 'Dear Mrs. Billings. This essay was originally published at OutHistory.orgon November 22, 2013; it has been updated and re-edited. A crew jock, he met Jack at Choate, a boys' boarding school, in Wallingford, Connecticut (it is now co-ed). The elder Kennedys began to discourage the boys from associating with Billings because of his excessive recreational drug use (including alcohol). [13] He later had several jobs, including selling Coca-Cola dispensers to drugstores and working at a General Shoe store. Even worse, many such slurs aren't from men but 'I couldn't do it without you': Victoria Beckham poses with her whole family after her PFW show - as she Brooklyn Beckham puts on a loved-up display with wife Nicola Peltz as they head back to hotel after Cruz Beckham supports his mother Victoria as he carrying his very own VB handbag on the way to her show Like father, like daughter! In 1958, when Kennedy decided to launch a campaign for the presidency from his Massachusetts Senate seat, the United States had not yet experienced a sexual revolution that would challenge and change many people. I don't know how we will carry on without him. I really got to know them well. Billings, he said, "had a natural jealousy. 73 Photos of Naturally Naked Men by Terry Hastings, 23 Masturbation Tips for People With Vaginas, 22 Terrifying Sexual Fantasies That Must Be Talked About, 30 Kinky Terms Every Gay Man Needs To Know, 10 Sex Toys for All Genders and How to Use Them, Alternative Orgasms: 20 New Ways to Hit the Spot, LGBTQ+ Rights Lawyer Shannon Minter's Home Hit by Tornado, 'First Deep Breath' Is a Moving Story of a Black Family & Queerness, Karine Jean-Pierre on Tennessee Anti-Drag Law: Unacceptable & Unfortunate, Texas GOP May Censure Congressman Over Support for Marriage Equality, 12 LGBTQ+ Films and TV Shows to Watch in March, The Dildo Nazi: Sex Toy-Selling White Supremacist Umasked, Lesbian Gov. Ironically, Motlow, who had sustained a stroke in 1940, died that same year . Published online July 6, 2017. it would not surprise me knowing how most of the Kennedys (including ole Joe!) Sign up for our weekly newsletter to receive selections from new issues of, what historian David K. Johnson calls the lavender scare, According to author Christopher Bram (2012), her fictional account of the love affair between Eleanor Roosevelt. July 24, 2015. Lem was a virtual fixture in the Kennedy family who even had his own room at the White House. He was a beautiful baby," he ducked into a boiler room and wept. 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. "[38] Another said: "Members of the president's staff thought of him as a 'handy old piece of furniture. [18], In 1960, on leave from his job, he worked on Kennedy's presidential campaign. 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. Lem Billings passed away from a heart attack at 65 in 1981. Billings had been a prep school roommate of John F. Kennedy, an usher at his wedding, and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. A telephone conversation between President Kennedy and Lem Billings. JFKs sex life, and his attachments to men, also needs to be better understood for what it reveals about his inner life, and for a moment in United States political history when sex itself was undergoing seismic changes. Could he have been the third leg of what was clearly an unconventional marriage? Some of his partners saw the escape from monogamy as liberating too, understanding their romps with the President as special and carefree episodes that they were happy to flaunt. During that time, he told researchers, "All the kids came over to see me. Published: 16:57 GMT, 9 June 2017 | Updated: 19:00 GMT, 9 June 2017. Date (s) of Materials: 25 March 1964. ", Last edited on 24 December 2022, at 15:36, "JFK's Best Friend Lem: Transcript | JFK Library", Princeton University Undergraduate Senior Theses, 1924-2018 Art and Archaeology, 1926-2018, Alfred E. Clark, "Adolph Toigo, Ex-Chairman of Advertising Agency Dies," January 1, 1982, "End Comes at Lennen & Newell," April 12, 1972, "Miss Jean Ann Kennedy Married," May 20, 1956, "Kennedy Names Friend," September 20, 1961, "U.S. Board Formed to Advise on Fair," January 12, 1962, "Choate Unveils Kennedy's Portrait," May 5, 1963, "Prayer for Nation Joined by Kennedy," January 2, 1961, "Caroline Learns Father Isn't Much of a Kite Pilot," July 7, 1963, "Caroline's 2 Hamsters Hunted in White House," March 5, 1961, "2 Kennedy Sisters in Poland for Visit," September 2, 1961, "Huntington Hartford Weds Diane Brown in New Jersey," October 8, 1962, Luther Turmelle, "Book details JFK's friendship with gay man," May 16, 2007, "Friend of Kennedy Named To Head Memorial Group," July 8, 1964, "Humphreys Attend a Gala Ballet Premiere," January 19, 1966, Nan Robertson, "Glittering Audience Attends Kennedy Center's Opening," September 9, 1971, Michael C. Jensen, "Managing the Kennedy Millions," June 12, 1977, Doris Kearns Goodwin, "Fitzgeralds and Kennedys," March 8, 1987, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lem_Billings&oldid=1129296144, This page was last edited on 24 December 2022, at 15:36. He sent one letter to Lem's mother addressed to the American Field Service PO Box in New York. As we both know, homosexual relationships in English boarding schools were put down to adolescent hijinks and men *grew out of them*. This is fascinating, Claire. Pictures of the first family are typical of Cold War domestic norms: widely distributed before and after his death, these photographs show him as a conventional, heterosexual husband and a devoted father. When they arrived at the cemetery, it was already in place to be lowered. . I'm not that kind of boy.' [50] In 2006, looking back to the Kennedy Administration, Ben Bradlee said: "I suppose it's known that Lem was gay.It impressed me that Jack had gay friends. "He never really came out of it. The first time Kirk Lemoyne 'Lem' Billings was . After Jack Kennedy's election to the presidency, Billings was a constant presence and overnight guest at the White House. Jackie and Vidal werent cousins. 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. They always remembered him as the nicest German they ever met." One famous shot shows the toddler John, Jr., a man who would also die tragically young, playing peek-a-boo under the desk. (Page 64), Harry Dixon, Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy, John Coleman, Charlotte McDonnell, Jack and Lem, Palm Beach, Christmas 1940, "After his sojourn in Hollywood, Jack returned to the East Coast in time for the Christmas vacation period, during which he liked to spend time with his family and Lem. He was by all accounts JFK's best friend . Copyright 20142023 The Editorial Board of Public Seminar, All Rights Reserved. What is most interesting to me is the relationship between sexual abuse and power and how idolized men in particular seem to some along with this inability/unwillingness to be kind.Lems story seems tragic, good material for a play or musical. We are no longer accepting comments on this article. "He did not want to hear one negative syllable, and there were a lot of negatives going along.". 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. After cocktails, Jackie and JFK proposed some skeet shooting and, legend has it, Williams was a better shot than Jack. With that out of the way, their relationship continued essentially unchanged until JFK's assassination thirty years later.". Claire Potteris professor of history at The New School, and Executive Editor of Public Seminar. He reportedly never entertained or enjoyed social outings. But straight men can have a gay side, and JFKs life was filled with prominent gay men, friendships which open the door to other histories. Jacqueline Bouvier would have the same problem, using every possible excuse to avoid the game, after she and Jack were married in 1953." Like the rest of the free world, Billings was devastated when President Kennedy was assassinated. You can follow her on Twitter . On some weekends, Jack and Lem would go up there. "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," Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the president's sister, said in a eulogy. 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. But I'm stuck with the Kennedys emotionally, and I will be to the end of my life. The two became friends, then roommates. Indeed, it often seems that Kennedy did treat people who loved him for granted. Williams, a handsome gay southerner, had already written seven hit plays. Definitions: Cause of death vs risk factors. 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. (Page 35), Jack and Lem in a Palm Beach photo booth just before their European tour, 1937, "Jack and Lem's summer in Europe began on July 1, 1937. From the time John F. Kennedy and Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings met at Choate, until the President's assassination thirty years later, Jack and Lem remained best friends. In "Jack and Lem", author David Pitts looks at the relationship between the late president and Kirk LeMoyne Billings or "Lem". Billings would later spend nights in the White House where he had his own room, Schoolboy crush? Anyone who wants to know more about JFKs actual sex life can email me at tim.a.nicholson@gmail.com Here is my sons grandfather with JFK in Dec 1963. Because of him, I was never lonely, Billings said once. ', 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. "Raffish and yet prissy," they write of Billings "a sort of court chronicler reporting on the old days which even Bobby and Ethel didn't recall and functioning as the all-purpose cheerleader, godfather, and pallbearer who could always be counted on. 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. Adapted from New York Times bestselling author Jerry Oppenheimer's explosive new book, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: RFK Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream. Who was Jack Lemmon's wife? The biographer Sally Bedell Smith, referred to Billings in one of her books as 'probably the saddest of the Kennedy widows.'. Jack Kennedy and Lem Billings met at Choate and remained friends until the Dallas gunfire that ended Kennedy's life thirty years later. myocardial infarction. Born in 1916, he was the son of a Pittsburgh doctor. Billings, for his part, never married and eventually became a marketing executive and worked on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. As they became close, Billings confided that his relationship with Kennedy was, in fact, sexual, to a point. 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. [64] Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis included Billings as a guest at a party marking the birthdays of her children Caroline (21st) and John Jr. (18th) in 1978. I have no doubt the same was true in American upper-crust boarding schools in the single-sex days. He may have been the reason I never got married. Lem Billings died in his sleep of an apparent heart attack on May 28, 1981, at the age of 65. Vidal thought Jacqueline Kennedy thought Billings "was kind of a nothing but Jack needed him and she was practical. 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. It would go on to become one of his most prized possessions." Billings had once told Bobby that. But even before then, Billings was a Kennedy fixture. Wikipedia (3 entries) edit. He may have been the reason I never married.. 'Haven't heard a word from you,' Jack wrote. Have you heard from him?' (Page 276). I don't think it's true that he did not have views of his own, as some have said. 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 . Kennedy first met Billings when they were teenagers at a school called Choate. A Princeton friend and former business partner confided to Pitts about Billings that after Jacks death: He didnt want to live anymore, and other friends claimed that he never recovered from the loss. Maura Healey Says Ron DeSantis Taking U.S. Backwards, Club Q Hero Richard Fierro on the Former Safe Space's Future, Betches Media's Sami Sage on Reaching People Through Humor and Championing Women's Rights, Kentucky Senator Whose Trans Son Recently Died Blasts New Anti-Drag Bill, Hershey's Chocolate Sparks Conservative Outrage Over Women's Day Campaign, Jussie Smollett's Attorneys Appeal Hate Crime Hoax Conviction, Anti-LGBTQ+ Missouri Lawmaker Challenged on Her 'Don't Say Gay' Bill, Michigan's Lesbian Attorney General Receives Anti-Semitic Death Threat, Anti-LGBTQ+ Libs of TikTok Creator Chaya Raichik Does Bizarre CPAC Talk, Iowa Republicans Seek to End Marriage Equality in State, George Santos to Be Investigated by House For Finances, Sexual Misconduct, Tennessee Governor Signs Felony Drag Show Bill, Bans Gender-Affirming Care, DeSantis Appointees Eliminate DEI Programs at Fla. College Amid Outrage, Thomas Orlina Shines a Light on Mental Health for Teen Mental Wellness Day. While trying to locate the body of a dead CI named Angie Stubbs, Lem stole a brick of heroin from Salvadoran drug dealer Pittario and warned him that he would only give it back once he located the body. For example, in Once Upon a Secret (2012), former White House intern Mimi Alford describes a prolonged affair she had with Kennedy, beginning in the summer of 1962 when she was 19 and ending shortly before his assassination on November 22, 1963. His book Jack and Lem: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship, from which the text of this slideshow is excerpted, was one of The Advocate's five best books of 2007. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to receive selections from new issues of Public Seminar. We might even call it a romantic friendship. ', 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. Billings, Lem (Kirk LeMoyne), 1916-1981. The Kennedy Curse" Episode 205 -- Pictured: Grant Logan as JFK, Adam Cropper as Lem Billings -- John F. Kennedy, "Dunker" the dog, and Lem Billings at the Hague, during their Europe trip. 'They make fun of my voice. Eventually, the two friends made contact, however, and began exchanging letters just as they had when both were at home." [51] Red Fay, a friend of the President from his World War II service, said of Billings: "I didn't see anything overtly gay about him; I think he was neutral. 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. 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. cause of death. When JFK was assassinated, he turned his attention to his nephew Bobby Kennedy Jr. JFK appeared to be in love with the idea of Billings being in love with him. 1 leading cause of death among Native Americans in Montana during 2020 and the third-leading cause of death for the general population. Lem Billings may have been present for, but just outside the frame, of these pictures. "And everything ready for a big, big party.". "[Billings] was a witness to so much of what was going on. 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.'. . I was pleased to note that things picked up after your arrival,' referring to Montgomery's battle with Rommel at El Alamein. (Page 307)Listen to a short phone conversation between the two of them: DAVID PITTS is a longtime journalist whose work has appeared in The Washington Post and other leading newspapers. For Jack and Lem, the carefree period of their lives -- their school and college years -- were now behind them. JFK's oldest and best friend was Kirk LeMoyne Billings, known as "Lem." The two became fast friends in prep school and, after graduation, they traveled to Europe together. EXCLUSIVE: Head teacher of leading grammar school is sacked for sending parents a list of striking teachers. The two became friends, then roommates. Deadline reported in 2018 that it was to be the basis for a forthcoming boipic as well. 0 references. In recent years, there has also been talk of a movie adaptation. Perhaps, given his deep personal knowledge of the President and his friendship with the First Lady, he even gave directions as the photographer snapped the candid shots that would charm both the nation and historians. 'Yesterday was Jack's birthday. Joseph Kennedy Sr. called him "my second son," and he sometimes acted as escort for several of the Kennedy women. When Jack discovered that Billings was gay once declining an amorous overture from Billings the friendship is thought to have gone on unharmed. ", Still, he was well aware of his proximity to history. 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. The 51-year-old daughter of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy died Sept. 16 while working out at her Washington, D.C., gym. Advocate Contributors November 22 2013 4:00 AM EST In photos. One reason is that, in retrospect, the Kennedy presidency provides a transition from the years of what historian David K. Johnson calls the lavender scare and the unbuttoned, experimental 1960s that launched the gay rights movement. The story of Jack and Lem opens a window into the presidency, but it also suggests that historians of heterosexuality might want to look more closely to see which gay lives are lived near, but outside the conventional frame, of heterosexual families, a project that novelist Amy Bloom has recently undertaken in her fictional account of the love affair between Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickock. After finding the body and returning the heroin . He became Jackies confidant and the trusted recipient of her views about the other women who flitted in and out of her husbands life. 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. Article. I have one additional comment, probably to be regarded as politically incorrect. Gore Vidal, the writer who claimed he viewed homosexuality as normal as heterosexuality, disparaged the JFK-Billings relationship during the Kennedy administration.