He once called Billings the 'chief f****t at Camelot.' I am sure the good Lord knows that heaven is Jesus and Lem and Jack and Bobby loving one another.'. The family went back ', As Quirk further observed, 'Jack was in love with Lem being in love with him and considered him the ideal follower-adorer.'. 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. However, according to Lawrence J. Quirk, author of The Kennedys In Hollywood JFKs reaction to Billings quickly changed. Everything involving Bobby had to go through Billings. Jerry Oppenheimer For Dailymail.com. Born 15 Apr 1916 in Pittsburgh, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, United States. But then I realize she's never seen Jack's car (or Jack himself, maybe) in the naked light of day. 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. 2023 Meadowrockalpacas. From 1946 to 1948, Lem attended Harvard Business School. Later Years. Kirk Lemoyne Billings Memorial Page. Gore Vidal, the writer who claimed he viewed homosexuality as normal as heterosexuality, disparaged the JFK-Billings relationship during the Kennedy administration. Lem married Rolla Jean Auer on September 17, 1950. ", 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. Her general lilt, as best I can tell, is interrogative, but why should that be a surprise? 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. He thought David Marciano - Steve Billings (2008, recurring 2005-2007) Benito Martinez - David Aceveda (2002-2008) . Ambassador to France under JFK, were hauled into juvenile court in the town of Barnstable on Cape Cod on charges of marijuana possession. "The Kennedys were a liberal family and one that tolerated a lot of heterosexual promiscuity as well.". Enter your email below to have our funeral service notifications delivered to you. Copyright 2022 by Louis Bayard. ", "I thought, 'What a great cat-bird seat he would've had, and wouldn't he make a great narrator?' Our website services, content and products are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. He says Billings even had his own room in the White House, much to Jackie Kennedys chagrin. Just a week after his father's funeral, at his brother David's thirteenth birthday party at a grim Hickory Hill, Bobby had spiked everyone's milk with a laxative. Leave your condolences to the family on this memorial page or send flowers to show you care. Because Jack had no intention of ever being a faithful husband. Sign up to IrishCentral's newsletter to stay up-to-date with everything Irish! '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.'. 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. 228. While Billings' missive is long gone, a startled Kennedy responded, '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 startled Kennedy responded to the note by saying, Please don't write to me on toilet paper anymore. Billings was devastated after the JFK assassination. A falconer, Bobby kept a pigeon-size sparrow hawk that flew loose in the small room. I shoot him a look, and he saysimagine the offhandednessthat we have an additional passenger. 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. the most part, commented to a White House usher, "He (Lem) has been a house education of free black Americans after the Confederate States of America was 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. ', About the odd KennedyBillings relationship, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, one of JFK's five sisters, once remarked: 'It's hard to describe it as just friendship; it was a complete liberation of the spirit. According to biographer James Spada, When Kennedy tired of her, he passed her off to his brother in 1962. He's taken over."'. The two had been friends since meeting as teenagers in prep school, and Billings even had his own room in the White House, but were they merely friends? The eyes even wider. Her knees are drawn protectively to her chest, and there's something quite exposed about her. 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. When he was in his late 20s, he'd be arrested for heroin possession, after overdoing on an airplane flight, on his way to get help for his addiction. Jack Kennedy and Lem Billings met at Choate and remained friends until the Dallas gunfire that ended Kennedy's life thirty years later. 2023byTango Publishing Corporation All Rights Reserved. He's just like Jack!' Once again, Ethel Kennedy made just one appearance at the school, accompanied by Lem Billings, when Bobby was admitted, and 'everything had to go through Billings,' said Warren Geissinger, Bobby's Pomfret advisor, looking back years later. If you have recently lost a family member or friend, we hope that you will accept our condolences. A telephone conversation between President Kennedy and Lem Billings. Lem Billings and John F. Kennedy met as teenagers at their Connecticut prep school and remained lifelong friends. Her moods could swing drastically. Reprinted by permission. through his life. 2. Lem Billings relaxed on the Kennedys' Palm Beach estate the summer of 1936. But we speed past all those destinations before steering up Old Dominion Drive. Although Mr. Billings never served the President in an official capacity, he was a frequent guest at the White House. Published online July 6, 2017. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Billings enthused to RFK and Ethel in his high-pitched voice, which RFK made fun of behind his back. Billings Funeral Home. "And she knew, at some level, that she was marrying another version of her father. Billings had a romantic relationship with JFK's nephew, Bobby Kennedy Jr. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And The Dark Side Of The Dream 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. They adopted a little 'We never saw Ethel on the campus again. JAMIE RICHARDSON: John F. Kennedy had no shortage of people who considered themselves friends of the 35th president. The Kennedys tolerated his homosexuality, which was considered taboo at the time, Lawrence J. Quirk, the author of'The Kennedys in Hollywood' said Billings and JFK's relationship turned sexual at a point. I still to this day see him standing there in his black necktie that he wore every day over a blue oxford Brooks Brothers shirt and a beat-up tweed jacket, and wearing the wildest bell-bottoms that were purple with Day-Glo green stripes like he was some soul band guy, and in his funky boots. Lem's father died in 1933 placing additional strain on the family's 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. In 1964, Billings was named to head a ten-person committee to select a memorial to Kennedy to be placed in the Kennedy Center. Featuring interviews with Ben Bradlee, Gore Vidal, Ted Sorenson, friends, family, and many others . 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. I'm not that kind of boy.". Published in The Elkhart Truth from Feb. 20 to Feb. 21, 2023. Anyone can read what you share. Extent: 82 digital pages Collection: He had an older sister, Ruth (Speer) Steele, older brother, Eugene "Bud" Speer, and younger half-brother Lawrence "Larry" Payant. Ethel's alcoholic, philandering brother, George Skakel Jr., actually booted Billings in the a** at the church, knocking him into the aisle. During their wedding in Greenwich, Connecticut, Ethels brother knocked Billings down the aisle at the church. 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. 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. She reportedly had a love-hate relationship with her husband's best friend. A group home in Fort Myer, maybe. 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. 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.'. 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. They both kept diaries documenting, in words and pictures, their adventures, mishaps, and observations along the way. White House and advised Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis in her redecoration of the 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. He was 65 years old. 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. was running for President. ', 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. "Because he was so handsome, and he was so charming, and he just had that way about him.". 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.. 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 . 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 . White House. Kirk LeMoyne Billings, a retired advertising executive and a friend of President John F. Kennedy, died Wednesday at his Manhattan apartment. 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. '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. The story about Lem Billings '39 and JFK was very interesting and even moving (cover story, April 12). Lem Billings passed away from a heart attack at 65 in 1981. Tglich werden Tausende neue hochwertige Bilder hinzugefgt. the Navy, as described more fully in the separate Wikipedia biography of John In her memoir, published eleven years after the first Kennedy assassination, she wrote that Billings had 'remained Jack's lifelong close friend, confidante, sharer in old memories and new experiences . A different side of JFK: John F. Kennedy and Lem Billings met atChoate Rosemary Hall and became lifelong friends. Somebody who was also not of the Kennedys, but very much wanted to be one of them. He was also a trustee of the Kennedy Library at Harvard. That kind of thing,' recalled the widow of one of the school's headmasters while Bobby was in attendance. Billings kept the letters JFK wrote to him between 1934 and 1939, and he donated the entire collection to the Library in the 1970s. Quirk immediately pegged Billings as gay, noting his "high, screechy laugh," and "high nasal whine of a voice.". 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. Quirk claims Billings would later confide in him that his relationship with Kennedy was sexual, to a point, and included oral sex, with Jack always on the receiving end., Their arrangement, Quirk says, 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, Jack was in love with Lem being in love with him and considered him the ideal follower adorer.. 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. Billings was a prep school roommate of Kennedy, an usher at his wedding and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. Bobby, do you have clothes?" All in all, there's a certain relief in being able to retreat into the Crestline's back seat. 'We couched it in terms of what was best for Bobby. 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. He once called Billings the "chief f****t at Camelot." Lem Billings had heard about the school from Adam Yarmolinsky, a one-time trusted aide to both RFK and JFK, whose son had graduated a year before Bobby's arrival. 'Bobby wasn't just a pothead. But was reportedly upset that her husband spent so much time with him, and that he often stayed overnight at the White House. Bobby's next school on his difficult road to a high school diploma was Pomfret, which was having its own troubles. he's stoned." 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. But I'm stuck with the Kennedys emotionally, and I will be to the end of my life.". As they became close, Billings confided that his relationship with Kennedy was, in fact, sexual, to a point. He had an older sister, Ruth (Speer) Steele, older brother, Eugene "Bud" Speer, and younger half-brother Lawrence "Larry" Payant. 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. 'But we never saw Ethel. whom Lem was also close to, died, Lem became exceedingly depressed and that caused Lem Billings, from a distinguished old American Protestant family, was taller, bigger, stronger, with a high-pitched voice and a loud laugh. The biographer Sally Bedell Smith, referred to Billings in one of her books as "probably the saddest of the Kennedy widows.". "Because of him, I was never lonely. She might be a cashier at the Montelle Pharmacy or Finland's deputy chief of mission, and you won't know until you've pulled up in front of her apartment building and seen her tottering through the front gate, a blonde in a crew-neck cardigan or a brunette in a bullet bra, and it's always the latter who raises her hand for you to kiss and the former who comes at you straight on like an encyclopedia salesman, and whoever it is remains "Miss" in our conversation until such time as the business is consummated, at which point she devolves into her component parts. ', 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. At Pomfret, Bobby didn't change his ways, despite his pot bust, and expulsion from Millbrook. In the summer of 1934, future United States president John F Kennedy was in his junior year at the prestigious Choate School in Connecticut. Kennedy was unwell through much of his childhood, beginning with a near-deadly case of scarlet . , updated All Rights Reserved. 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. Lem Billings and John F Kennedy were practically inseparable in prep school. 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. Make a life-giving gesture. of adding a fruit flavor to disguise the sodium citrate taste. Jerry Oppenheimer For Dailymail.com Fredrik Logevall on JFK, with David Nasaw, October 6, 2020, 3. By 'Haggard, tired' Ethel was ready for some calm. "He also reveals that there was this crucial moment," says Bayard. They both took drugs. 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. 11:10 EDT 13 Oct 2015 He was 65 years old. Her main concern was that he be on time for dinner. ', 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. Yesterday was Jack's birthday. 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.". The Brodes friends included a number of gay men, among them such openly gay politicians as Barney Frank and Gerry Stuuds. Billings maintained close ties to the Kennedys and their children She never visited Bobby,' said James Hejduk, who had arrived to teach music at the same time that Bobby began his Millbrook matriculation. 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. Young Bobby replaced Jack in Lem's heart of hearts, one source told Oppenheimer, who is the author of the book Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And The Dark Side Of The Dream. "Because of him," Lem Billings once said of President Kennedy, "I was never lonely" Jack was in love with Lem being in love with him and considered him the ideal follower adorer.. The enthusiastic pre-adolescent regaled Billings - a New York advertising executive, one of John F. Kennedy's closest confidantes and a closeted homosexual - with stories about his pet collection. Take a look inside Dublin's most stylish townhouse, Number 31. Jack's best friend was Lem, and he would want to remind everyone of that today. He was by all accounts JFK's best. As he acknowledged some years later: 'Soon after my father's death I made a series of choices involving drugs that started me down a road from which I had to struggle to return.'. Kennedy was allegedly on the receiving end of oral sex. 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. 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. "The result is this book, which looks at Jackie before she was Jackie the Jackie that we all think we know. quoted from the book: "Jack made a big difference in my life," What happened when Jackie Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth II met? 'And there he was hunting rats out of that pile of dead sheep and cow carcasses. She never was here.' But it was the only boarding school that Lem Billings could find that would admit him. Kirk Billings, 65, Dies; Friend of the Kennedys, https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/29/obituaries/kirk-billings-65-dies-friend-of-the-kennedys.html. Copyright 2023 Irish Studio LLC All rights reserved. Quirk had met Billings in the mid-Forties when both were volunteers in Jack Kennedy's first congressional campaign. 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.'. Then she leans toward Jack and, in a whisper stagy enough for me to hear, says, "I like your friend.". The young JFK, messing around with Lem Billings during their Choate years.