All language subtitles for Before.The.End.Searching.For.Jim.Morrison.S01E01.WEB.H264-RBB_track3_[eng]

I like interviews
because it's that strange area

where you try and pin down
something that happened
in the past.

Those who insist
the legendary Jim Morrison
died at age 27 in Paris, France,

on or around July 3rd, 1971,

are speculating
or withholding information.

That, combined with a lack
of autopsy,

no verified corroboration
substantiating

the French medical practice
of Dr. Max Vasile,

his purported French
death certificate signature,

or his presumed cause
of Jim's death as,
quote, "heart failure,"

as well as a sustained absence
of Morrison's reputed
1971 United States passport,

raises the question
of collusion, places the burden
of proof on those in the know,

and renders the variable,
quote, "official story,"
a cold case mystery.

Fifty years later,
as of the year 2021,

testimonial evidence,
the type admissible
in a court of law,

and probatory information
supporting Morrison
staging his death

has never been brought to light.

Until now.

...of landing a man on the moon
and returning him
safely to the--

Jim Morrison, the lead singer
for The Doors,
a rock music group, is dead.

He was 27.

His personal manager
said he died in Paris, probably
of heart failure, last Saturday.

His manager said Morrison died
six days ago in Paris, either
of a heart attack or pneumonia.

Jim Morrison is dead,
and they say natural causes,

which is really a strange thing
in a 30-year-old person,
or thereabouts.

Natural causes.

Which natural causes,
in specific, he wasn't sure.
Someone else...

We are awaiting
Mr. Siddons' arrival here
to make it official.

They said that the
reason they didn't announce it

prior to the middle of the night

was because they wanted to avoid
this sort of circus carnival.

But the death was kept
secret to avoid a sensation.

He was buried in Paris
in the same cemetery

where Balzac and
other French immortals lie.

My name is Jeff Finn,
and I'm a lifetime fan
of Jim Morrison,

most well known as the infamous
lead singer and lyricist

of groundbreaking
1960s rock band, The Doors.

Legendary though he may be,
there's far more
to Morrison's story.

I've made it my life's work
to extract the truth
from a 50-year-old tale

that's been riddled with rumor,
lies and myth.

Who was the real
James Douglas Morrison?

Join me as I dive down
the Morrison rabbit hole.

But I can't guarantee
you'll make it back out
with your sanity fully intact.

Because as I've found,
the walls of the rabbit hole
are lined with coincidences,

often too many to explain.

From July 1965 to April 1971,

a short span that bookended
the turbulent late 1960s,

Jim dragged the innocuous era
of rock and roll

kicking and screaming into
the more mature realm of rock,

which quickly evolved from
John Lennon sweetly singing
about wanting to hold your hand,

to Jim howling about wanting
to kill his father
and fuck his mother.

In the spring of 1966,
The Doors scored
their first big break

when they became the house band
at the Whiskey a Go Go
on Sunset Boulevard.

Deriving cinematic inspiration
from the shared
UCLA film school education

of Jim and fellow student
Ray Manzarek,

The Doors
also wielded the techniques
of avant-garde theater

via the orgasmic
tension and release
of surreal pregnant pauses.

As a band, they employed
the unorthodox approach

of Manzarek's
carnivalesque organ...

John Densmore's dynamic
jazz-influenced drum accents...

and Robby Krieger's
eerie bottleneck guitar
and unique songwriting ability.

Jim, who had no formal
musical training,

had a natural aptitude
for vocal melodies
and song composition,

which he wedded
to his immersive poems
in the form of lyrics.

♪ Before you slip into
Unconsciousness ♪

The Doors, the first
dark band to seize the mass
postmodern consciousness,

enjoyed many firsts,

from having
their debut album promoted
via the first rock billboard

on Hollywood's Sunset Strip,

to Jim infamously ignoring
a censorship plea
from The Ed Sullivan Show.

The Doors, who had
number-one singles in the US

with 1967's "Light My Fire"
and 1968's "Hello, I Love You,"

truly were
a groundbreaking unit.

The Doors also helped
usher in arena rock,

and Jim, as if in defiant reply,

promptly became the first
rock star arrested on stage.

By the time of Jim Morrison's
alleged death, The Doors had
sold nearly five million albums,

and they went on to become
the first American band

to accumulate eight
consecutive gold records.

In 1993, The Doors were inducted
into the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame.

And by 2021, they had sold
over 100 million records
worldwide,

earning them the title of
one of the best-selling
musical artists of all time.

Taken together,
this is truly remarkable,

especially given the erratic
nature of Jim Morrison,

who single-handedly created
the post-James Dean archetype

of the "live fast, die young"
rock frontman.

Jim Morrison
accomplished all of this
in just under six years

and before the age of 27.

I've always found Jim's untimely
death at 27 highly suspicious.

Exasperated by the ravages of fame,

Jim and his on-off soulmate
Pamela Corson fled to Paris.

Pam flew out of L.A.
around Valentine's Day,

and Jim joined her
a few weeks later in March.

Their French sabbatical
lasted less than four months.

He seemed to enjoy
living as an outlaw

in self-imposed exile
for a while.

Paris was Jim's
most romantic option,

but a fresh identity
was his most realistic way out

after having been pigeonholed
as a rock star.

For Jim, it was either
a new life or death.

Pam claimed she had
a French doctor prescribe
asthma medication for Jim,

but no proof has materialized.

In any case,
like the apparent doctor who
signed Jim's death certificate,

there's been no trace
of the asthma doctor.

Jim and Pam were said
to have been platonic
for more than a year, pre-Paris.

And in the City of Light,
they seem to have spent
as much time together as apart.

Pam spent time with her periodic
lover and drug dealer,
Jean de Breteuil,

while Jim enjoyed the company
of his close friend,
Alain Ronay, and others.

Arnold Derwin,
Jim's Los Angeles doctor,

told me that other than
his drinking, Jim was,
quote, "healthy as a horse"

in the year before he left L.A.

Another source that shall
be revealed informed me,

quote, "Jim was no alcoholic
when I knew him in Paris,
and Pam was no junkie."

That same source stated
that the rumors of Jim
dying of heroin

were, quote, "ridiculous."

But back to the official story.

Jim purportedly died
of any number of maladies,
with alcohol winning out.

A coffin was delivered
to Jim and Pam's apartment,

where his corpse
was placed inside
and the coffin was sealed

before any Morrison
family member could travel
to identify the body.

Assuming a coffin was buried,
it would be just like Jim,
a notorious prankster,

to hide behind a tree
at his own funeral.

A grieving Pam flew back to L.A.
with a unique carry-on item,

a metal strongbox full of Jim's
poems and the cryptic phrase,
"127 fascination."

The more I learned
about Jim's reported death,

including the various rumors
and alternate stories

regarding his supposed
heroin overdose

at the Rock 'N' Roll Circus,

with its altruistic bouncers
and-or drug dealers

apparently having transported
his body across town
to his Paris flat,

the more I found myself
with infinitely more questions
than answers.

For this docuseries, I traveled
across the United States
several times.

I contacted nearly
a thousand people

and interviewed hundreds
who are connected to Jim.

So while I ultimately
may not prove anything,

it's my goal to leave you,
my fellow detectives,

with enough
scenarios and evidence

to form your own opinions
and draw your own conclusions.

But a word of advice:

Never take anyone or anything
at face value.

And that includes
the face of a ghost.

So, and that's how
he shows up as deceased.

Because the last name
is spelled incorrectly.

That's totally possible.

Following nearly a year
of positive and friendly
communication

with Morrison insiders

regarding potential interviews
for this documentary,

including some of the most
high profile figures
related to The Doors,

one by one, like dominoes,
nearly two dozen
stopped speaking with me.

I thought it was strange that
each of them went radio silent
around the same time...

until much later, when I learned
the usual suspects
had shut down my talks.

And to add to the film noir-like
air that reeked of collusion,

that particular information was
imparted to me by my movie's
very own Deep Throat,

who prefaced
their ironclad evidence
with the telling phrase:

"You didn't hear this from me."

Initially, this docuseries
was completed in late 2016,

but a sudden and unexpected
development took my search
for Jim Morrison, the person,

on a surreal trip
I never could have imagined.

The Facebook page for
Before the End was the early
headquarters for my project

before it was tainted
by the obligatory
haters and trolls.

Nevertheless,
I'll always be grateful
for the true believers

who supported my vision
with their patience,
understanding and good humor.

A follower of my Before the End
Facebook page

saw a post
on my personal Facebook page
that I had made public.

The person who I didn't know
liked and shared my post.

When I checked out
the stranger's profile photo,
it was surreal:

a picture that was cropped,
revealing only half his face.

I opened the photo
and the image I saw haunted me.

The right side of the photo
showed someone
I was very familiar with,

John Densmore,
the drummer of The Doors.

And on the other side was a man
who looked to be in his 70s.

I recognized his face.

Was this the man
I'd been researching
for over half my life?

Could this be Jim Morrison?

Skeptical that
it might be a hoax,

I took the images
to Cheryl Bombaugh,
my private investigator,

to trust in her
professionally trained eye
and objective opinion.

My cases vary a lot, but I've
never had a case, you know,
at all like this.

I mean, the guy doesn't
have a wrinkle on his face.

- Right.
- You know?

And his eyes do resemble
Jim's, I think.

Just the way they look.

I know that they're not
the same color,
because Jim's eyes are blue.

Um...

I don't know.
I don't even know what to say.

I mean, I really could be led
either way.

Armed with this information,

I went home
and began digging deeper into
the man I nicknamed Frank X.

I was intrigued to learn
he was Facebook friends

with a number of Morrison
and Doors-related people,

some of them insiders,
including Julia Negron,

Doors drummer
John Densmore's ex-wife,

Tony Funches,
Jim's former bodyguard,

and Hervé Muller,
one of the few friends Jim made

during his brief time in Paris.

I was enticed by Frank's
scant Facebook photos,

so I messaged him
because I suspected he was Jim.

And to my surprise,
six days later, he replied.

He told me he shared
the same love for The Doors
and Jim's music and poetry.

Then Frank joked
about bumping into The Doors
at the Eastman Theatre

in Rochester, New York in 1968.

So I asked if he'd send me
another photo of himself
from when he was younger.

He said he would look around,
but then he went dark
on Facebook for a spell.

It felt like a game
of cat and mouse.

Then Frank sent me an old photo
of a signed ID card from 1978.

In my research,
I found another Frank
in Syracuse, New York,

with the same first, middle
and last name.

But he apparently died in 2015.

I took the photos to a photo lab
to see if they could be
the same person

nearly 40 years apart.

I learned about rosacea
and scarring, and was told that,

like thinning hair,
eyebrows can fade,

but their shape remains.

Whether or not
the two Franks were the same,

I imagined
Syracuse ID Frank met Jim,
perhaps at the Eastman Theater,

and Jim made Frank
an offer he couldn't refuse.

Cheryl said,
like identity theft,

the consensual use
of another's identity
is known as piggybacking.

Upon closer inspection,
it appeared where Jim
had a mole, Frank had a scar.

I decided
the only way to uncover
what was really going on

entailed my paying a visit
to Frank X in person.

So I enlisted Cheryl's help,
and we were off.

- Let's go find...
- Let's go find Frank.

Yeah, or as we might be
referring to him, Mr. X.

Yes, Mr. X.

I tried to get some rest
on the plane,

but was having a difficult time
because all I could see
were two images.

One was Jim's face
with a mole near his nose.

The other was Frank's face
without the mole,

but there appeared
to be a small scar.

Here it is, finally happening.

Welcome to Syracuse, New York.

Let's do this.

After doing some
preliminary recon,
we checked into our rooms.

The gravity of what was about
to go down the following day
was overwhelming.

I have spent a better part
of my life since I was 18

searching for Jim Morrison,
literally and figuratively.

And to now be this close,
it's a strange thing.

I don't want to ever bring,
you know, pain to him
or Jim or anyone.

At the same time,

I want to share the joy
in knowing that Jim survived.

All right. Here I am.

Somewhere in New York.

I've, uh... I'm waiting.

I'm now waiting.

There we go.

Here he is. Frank.

Hello?

Frank?

Yeah.

Hey, how are you?

- Yeah. Okay.
- Okay.

- Thanks, man.
- See you then.

- Okay, bye.
- Okay.

Holy shit.

Well, we're gonna meet.

I can't believe there's
a thunderstorm outside.
It's amazing.

Riders on a storm.

All right.

Last interview for
Before The End:
Searching For Jim Morrison.

And amazingly I call Frank,

and he's been kind enough
to allow me to
do this interview.

Frank and I have been friends
on Facebook...

I decided to throw Frank
a curveball right off the bat
to see if he was legit.

Poetry was key
to James Douglas Morrison.

It would be one thing
for a maintenance man

living in middle-of-nowhere
New York

to have an appreciation
of classical poets.

But for those poets to be
the exact ones Jim favored
stretched credulity thin.

And only added
to an already absurd amount
of growing coincidences.

And who would you say
is your favorite poet?

I like Baudelaire.

I don't read a lot of, uh,
new poetry that I can think of.

He said that pleasure
cannot be possible
without the presence of evil.

And forgive me,
whose quote was this?

Baudelaire.

Jim was always a reader
and I think poetry or romantic
in some ways and, uh...

He had some vision,
I can't imagine what.

He wanted to commune with nature
or be closer to the heavens
or whatever.

But he had me climb the tree
because I was more of a handyman
than he was.

And anyway, if he could get me
to do something,

he could be on the lazy side
and why not have
your little brother do it?

But I climbed high up
in the tree

and I had some nails
and a hammer that I drug up
in some wood

and built him a little seat,
like a little nest up
in the tree.

And he went up one day
and sat there
for about an hour,

blowing in the breeze,

and I think he kind of
gave up on that

as being that romantic
and inspirational
or whatever he was,

and I don't think
he ever used it again.

He read voraciously.

He dragged his books around
with him when they moved.

He read far more challenging
books than were required
in his classes

and sometimes his teachers
were amazed at the stuff
he said he had read,

and then to find
that he actually had read

and could carry on
an intelligent conversation
about it.

He was known for being
intellectually advanced

anytime we got into topics
like anything literature.

It just wasn't a question,
you know,

that I think he pretty much
whapped everybody else
in school for that.

He was number one.

Obnoxious most of the time,
but he was number one.

If you're number one,
you can be obnoxious about it.

When I asked Jim's
high school classmate,
John Huetter,

if Jim ever submitted writing
to the student newspaper,
this was his response.

No.

No, he thought that was...

Heh, I'm not trying to use
the term loosely, sophomoric.

I mean, he thought that was
really not interesting.

That was something that
would-be English majors did,
you know.

But yeah, I forgot about that.

Wow, you did some research here.

I was the editor
of The Little Hatchet too. Yeah.

Some of Jim's old friends
agreed to let me interview them
in the house where Jim lived

while he attended
George Washington High School
in Alexandria, Virginia.

So I headed over to meet them.

I followed the
four of them down
to Jim's former bedroom,

which occupied
the entire basement
of the house.

I'll just fall down
for dramatic effect.

Yeah, right.

We shared a stair
narrower than this.

Now, look at this, Jim.

- I mean, it's all open.
- Oh, my God.

- Yeah. Where are all the books?
- Jesus.

- Trying to remember
what it looked like.
- I remember that.

This door here, it was open
for anybody to come in. But this
is where everybody came in.

And doors were open.
It was open for anybody.

That's the only way I ever
came in was through that door.

- Exactly.
- I was never upstairs.

I was just gonna ask
you, did you guys generally

enter and exit
through the exterior door?

- Yeah. That was it.
- That was the way to get in.

- And so did Jim.
- Yeah.

Yeah. It's true.

So he was pretty much free
to come and go as he wanted.

Jim, this is how he came and--

You know, came and went
from the house.

- He was on foot
most of the time.
- Yeah.

This was like his apartment,
if you really think about it.

I don't know how much time
he spent upstairs at all.

This place was full of books.

- It was all books.
- Had a lot of books.
That's for sure.

- And he read every one of them.
- Yeah.

So we go to the bookstore.

Everybody says, "Jim."

Go to another bookstore.
"Hey, Jim."

- Everybody knows this guy
in the bookstores, you know?
- Yeah.

And a few little taverns
and mostly coffee shops.

Yeah, there were liquor stores
there and bookstores there.

He drank. Now,

I saw him drink half
a fifth of whiskey one night
down in my basement.

And I mean...

you know, and then
a few minutes later...

like that, you know,
and then it was like...

He drank out of the bottle.

How many people drank
out of the bottle
when we were in high school?

- You know?
- Well...

Yeah.

Well, he would come over, I had
an art studio in my basement,

and he'd come over there
and I had this huge piece of
canvas I tied across the room

and he would sit there
and look at this canvas

and then he would get some paint
and get up and...

he would start putting
these Oriental designs on it.

It's what he said.

He tried to convince me
that he could write Japanese.

That's so Morrison.

He had this one picture that he
made it over and over
and over again

and it really made--
I just thought
this was the best.

It was Christ on the cross
and of course he looked like
a shmoo.

And below him were these
Roman soldiers with beers.

You know?

And they're like,
glug, glug, glug,
and pointing...

And there's, you know--

And I thought,
"That's fabulous." You know?

Only Morrison could take
something that...

- Sacred.
- Yeah, thank you, sacred,
and make it funny.

And I just thought,
"This guy's really out there."

- Well, I'm interested in seeing
this picture of Morrison.
- Yeah.

Yeah, should we do it?
You want to do the honors?

You do it.
You've got it. I mean...

Yeah.

- And there it is.
- You've had it all these years.

Yeah, all these years.

It's kind of, once again,
the Christ thing, you know?

- Yeah.
- With his little joke,
Christ on the cross.

Now, Jim, can you
describe for us how you came
into possession of the painting?

Well, Morrison was going to
throw it out, and he tossed it
out here in the...

Where's the garage?

I think there was a garage
out here at the time.

The garage?
Yeah, there was, in the back.

You know, he was going to throw
it out, and I retrieved it.

And, you know,
I'm going to take this home
and, you know, save it.

And he's like, "I don't care
what you do with it."

You know, "I don't want it."

So, um, that's what happened.

But the thing about Jim
in high school is,
compared to most of us,

he was in the here and now,
you know?

When you would encounter him,
some of the time, there was
this presence about him.

And here we were just trying
to belong and feel like
we were cool.

And Jim was
in another space altogether.

- He didn't care
if you were there.
- He did not care.

Like I said earlier, when
Morrison said, "I'm gonna do
this," I knew he would do it.

You know,
and a lot of other people
thought he was just joking.

Yeah, the railing over
the Potomac, by the Potomac
at Hains Point,

- he would get up and walk
on that railing.
- No kidding.

And of course,
if you fell off,

because the wall
comes straight up
and then there's a railing

so you don't fall
into the river,

and he'd get up and walk on it,
and if you did fall into it,
you were history.

If he had fallen off left,
he would have gone down
many, many feet,

we'd have never been able
to get him out ourselves,
I don't think.

No.

He would switch gears from this
very solemn somber demeanor.
He'd switch gears, right?

You could tell when he was
gonna switch gears, "Uh-oh,
what's he gonna do?"

- Right. That's true.
- Next thing you know,

he's jumped up on something,
he's performing.

He liked to take risks.
Basically, he was a show-off,
if he could get an audience.

You know, you could see where
this was gonna go eventually.

I always thought
his IQ was so much higher.

I mean, like you said,
he's different.
It was just a different level.

So maybe it was that whole...

ball of wax.

- I think he escaped
into that stuff.
- Right.

And so he escapes
into literature

and becomes the characters
he's reading about
and tries it out.

But I discovered
this guy Huxley.

I said, "Jim, you really ought
to read this book,
Brave New World, you know?

This guy is a real--
And some of his other stuff."

And he was kind of taken aback
that I suggested
something to him

- that he wasn't
as familiar with.
- Oh, man.

Every so often, I was curious
about what he thought
about stuff.

And so I was trying to
move a conversation--

Maybe you were the genesis for
the name "The Doors," because
Aldous Huxley wrote something--

- Well, The Doors of Perception.
- The Doors of Perception.

- They were some essays
about mescaline and peyote.
- Yeah. Right.

But "The Doors,"
that all came out of Blake.

Oh, yeah, yeah, "The Doors,"
the expression comes from Blake.

- It comes from Blake.
- Right. That's true.

- Who knows?
- Yeah. Yeah.

The conversation
turned to the topic of Jim's
first girlfriend, Tandy Martin,

who I believed held one of
the keys to understanding him
as a real person.

Did he ever have a date
that you know of?

Other than Tandy?

- Well, Tandy.
- Yeah.

He didn't date anybody
that I know.

With Tandy, I don't know
what kind of a relationship
it was, but...

- According to her,
it wasn't much.
- Is that right?

- They were friends.
- Yeah.

I remember having a conversation
with Tandy about Jim's future,

and she was certain that he was
going to become something
bigger than life.

And I said, "Yeah.
He's going to be in prison."

You know?

And she got really upset.

"No, no, no. He's not going
to go to prison."

I said, "Yes, he is.
He's going to jail."

And I believed it.

- I thought,
"This guy's a nutcase."
- Yeah.

"He's capable of doing anything,
and it'll probably
land him in jail."

What are your takes
on Jim and Tandy?

I think she liked Jim
a good bit, but I think
he liked her a lot more.

You know, because Tandy
just jerked people around, men.

She just...

That's what she did.

Tandy was no fool.

She was well-read.

That was why Tandy, I think,
had such an effect on him.

Because, you know,
he couldn't control her.

- Yeah.
- Can you guys share your
memories of the first time?

Like, where were you
or what was your reaction
when you first heard that Jim

had gone on
and he was in The Doors.

I wasn't surprised he got
famous, but I was surprised
he got famous as a singer.

Because I saw nothing
that led that way.

- Ever.
- He never sang in high school.

- No.
- Apparently not.

- It was all literature.
- Yeah.

Well, he did give us a couple
lectures, though, about,
at least twice, I think,

about he was going
to be famous someday.

- Well...
- Oh, yeah.

- But that's...
- Yeah, right, right.

Didn't want to have
anything to do with us.

He did. He did. I remember that.

You have to figure out
whether you're going
to take him seriously

when he says stuff like that,
or whether he's just
putting you on.

- And I never knew.
- Yeah, yeah.

I guess I had a reaction
somewhat like yours.

You know, the guy was capable
of anything.

- Music?
- Yeah.

- Go figure.
- Yeah.

But the thing that really
blows my mind is you guys,
apparently, you,

upon learning
of his alleged death,

each of you, is that correct,
that each of you thought
right then and there

that, "Oh, no,
he may have faked it"?

Because those rumors
didn't really start
to trickle down

to the public until,
you know, a little later.

So is that correct
that that was--?

- Absolutely.
- That's correct.

- Absolutely.
- Yeah.

That's amazing.

Because nobody else
in high school talked
about disappearing,

taking on another life
and stuff.

We were all like, huh?

So and then to have him
actually do it,

because if anybody
in the world could do this
or would do it...

Well, he was smart enough
with that--

Think about it
with that intelligence.

Maybe he figured out a way so
that all those French police
documents looked bonafide.

And, uh, he slipped away.

At least once he talked about
how neat it would be to, like,

disappear and become
a whole different person
and all this stuff.

- Didn't he?
- That doesn't surprise me.

Yeah, well, that's exactly
right, because I figured he'd...
I wasn't the only one.

I figured he'd faked the whole
situation and he was gone
for a number of reasons.

A lot of people felt that way.

First of all, he'd just been
convicted in Florida

and he was facing
a six-month sentence

and he was on appeals.

If that wasn't successful,
then he was in jail.

But mainly, I think he didn't
like, I thought at the time,

and I have absolutely nothing
to base this on other than my
recollection from high school,

he didn't like his lifestyle
and he wanted to disappear

and do something else.

And he said stuff in high school
about doing that very thing.

- He talked about
doing that very thing.
- Yes.

Yes. Yes, he did.

All I know is if anybody
in the world could have done it,
pulled it off,

- I think it would have been him.
- Absolutely.

It wouldn't surprise me today to
learn that he'd gone over there
to fake his death.

Unfortunately for him,
in the intervening time,

- he died before
he got to pull it off.
- Yeah.

That wouldn't surprise me
at all, but I don't think
he's alive.

This is when we need
Tandy around,

because she might have
some insight.

- She might.
- Did Tandy have
any role in this conflict?

Tandy was always a...
She's like a ghost
in this whole thing.

I couldn't figure out
how he died.

He's supposedly in a bathtub,
right, with a smile on his face.

But... of what?

- How do you die when you're--
- I think he died of
a drug overdose.

Well, you don't die of a heart
attack and look like that
when you're 27 years old.

Well, does anybody know
how he looked?

You know, there's
this shroud of secrecy.

There was no autopsy, right?

And so this has been analyzed
and analyzed and analyzed
forever, right?

- No one knows.
- Yeah.

As I left Jim's
Alexandria-era home, I reflected
upon what his friends said.

Tandy Martin's name kept
appearing in regard to Jim's
high school years in Virginia.

I'd reached out to speak
with her, but she agreed
to only appear via cameo.

During my research, I found in
the 1980 Morrison biography,
No One Here Gets Out Alive,

that Tandy was referenced
as someone to whom Jim hinted
at a dark secret.

Tandy and her mother
went so far as to take Jim
to talk with a youth minister

at the nearby
Westminster Presbyterian Church.

But it's unclear
if Jim and the minister
actually met.

Further complicating matters,

Linda Ashcroft,
one of Jim's lovers

during the late 1960s
and early '70s,

published a 1997 book
called Wild Child:
Life with Jim Morrison.

The book alleged Jim had been
sexually abused by his father,

apparently in part,
during his time in Alexandria.

Although the molestation was
said to have begun years earlier
when Jim was a small boy,

Incidentally, the first edition
of Wild Child
was quickly censored

and copies destroyed
after Jim's parents sued
Ashcroft's publisher.

The book later reappeared
with the chapter
in question expunged.

Given all this,

my plan was
to locate and interview

Linda Ashcroft
in an effort to learn more.

Well, I like
Artificial Paradise.

Uh, I like interviews because...

Well, I like
Artificial Paradise.

Uh, I like interviews because...

- I like interviews because...
- Well, I like
Artificial Paradise.

Back with Jim's
classmate, John Huetter,

I asked which books
Jim would buy

or permanently borrow
from bookstores or libraries.

Like Céline, uh, French poets,

Baudelaire maybe even,
is that Flowers of Evil? Yeah.

Flowers of Evil, I just kind of
scanned that before

and I'm getting ready
to read that again...

...which is obviously
about, uh...

opium.

As Frank continued
to expound uponFlowers of Evil,

he shocked me once again
with a turn
to a different subject,

one near and dear to Jim,
his college sweetheart.

And this time, Frank was
asking the questions.

Not to pick the book up,
never pick the book up.

I was concerned,
if you want me to bring it up,

about his girlfriend
that he sent there from Florida.

And what happened with that?

I mean, why would he send
his girlfriend all the way
from Florida?

And then, well, I guess she
couldn't put up with all the...

...you know,
everything he was doing.

You're talking about
Mary Werbelow?

- Yeah.
- Right.

Yeah, I'm very interested
in what happened to her.

And you said she kind
of went down the tubes.

She's got a--
I mean, I met with her.

She lives in a mobile home
facility in L.A.

Was she-- Did she want to
talk about him at all?

She did.
She talked at great length.

We talked for like three and
a half, four hours that day.
It was incredible.

And said she was gonna do
an interview, then she wasn't,
then she was,

and she went back and forth
for quite a while.

What did you think of her
as a person?

I thought she was wonderful,
but I also was, you know...

She was a lot older.

Broke my heart because she has,
and these are her words,

she has multiple
chemical sensitivity disorder.

So she can't-- So she can't,
you know, touch certain fabrics.

Frank's concern for
Mary Werbelow amazed me.

I felt he knew Mary
from the past.

His feelings seemed genuine,
as if she were an old lover.

This, more than anything else,
confirmed my instinct
that Frank was Jim.

No one would care and want to
know so much about someone
they never met

unless they had met
and knew each other intimately
long ago.

Hi. It's Mary Werbelow.

Mary was later, quite a few
years later, that he met
down at St. Petersburg.

I think it was
at the junior college.

And she came out to California,
and I guess they...

went different directions
after a while.

But they were tight.

I knew that Jim was in Florida.

I knew he was going
to school down there.

And I knew he was doing what
he always said he wanted to do,

was something to do
with movie making.

And so, I mean, I knew
he had gone to do that.

So what happened?

How come my parents
or the state or the university
didn't look ahead?

In September 1961,
Jim began classes at
St. Petersburg Junior College,

to which he commuted
via city bus.

For one year, he lived with
his conservative
paternal grandparents,

Paul and Caroline Morrison,
in a small house

at 314 North Osceola Avenue
in nearby Clearwater.

While his bedroom
was stacked with books,
his grades were average.

Shortly after he finished
the school year
in the summer of 1962,

Jim first met Mary Werbelow

at Pier 60 on Clearwater Beach.

They instantly
became inseparable,

but Mary's father later banned
Jim from the Werbelow home

for reasons still unknown.

Do you have any idea
why Mary's father

allegedly banned Jim
from the Werbelow household?

Well, probably because
he didn't want her dating him.

He didn't think
he was her type, I'd say.

Bad influence.

When did you first meet
Jim Morrison and what was
your initial impression?

I met him in the summer of 1963.

I was teaching summer school

and he took a course
in Medieval History
that I was teaching and...

He was in the class
and he came to my office
one day.

I had assigned,
as part of the coursework,

three short papers on set topics

and he came to say that
he just couldn't bear to write
on those topics.

He didn't find them interesting.

And he wanted to do
a different paper.

And he explained to me that
he was very interested in
the heresy of the free spirits,

which is a late medieval heresy.

And he wanted to connect
that heresy to the paintings
of Hieronymus Bosch.

And I thought, "Well,
that's interesting
and rather original."

And I thought, "Well, why not?"

So he wanted to write
one large research paper
instead of the three papers.

So I said, "Okay."

And then after that,
he'd come in and talk to me
about the paper.

And I had to walk from my office
to another building
to the class.

Sometimes he'd walk over
with me and we'd talk some.

Jim was a student
at St. Pete Junior College,

and Beaux Arts
was well-known in the area

as a center for the arts
and bohemian type activities,

which Morrison was a big fan of.

It was actually
on the off-limits list
for St. Pete Junior College

from what I understand.

But that was probably even more
of a draw for Jim to come here.

So it was in early fall of '61

that Morrison came here

to Beaux Arts Coffeehouse
and first met with Tom Reese.

I was at Beaux Arts
art gallery in St. Pete.

I frequently went there because
it was sort of an old-fashioned
'60s coffeehouse.

And they had
an art film theater,

a room for checkers
and chess,

a place for folk singers
and poetry reading
and that sort of thing.

And Tom Reese,
who was the owner of the place,

met everybody
at the front door,

announced all the events,
showed all the movies.

So in terms of their--

With all due respect
to both of them,

do you know, did they have
an actual relationship
in that regard?

Not that Tom would admit.

Tom was always
very elusive about that.

And so he never admitted
that to me,

although I suspect
that that may have happened.

Uh, Morrison was young.

Tom, at the time, probably
had coerced him somehow.

Possibly a willing partner too,
I don't know.

But, you know, it probably
isn't out of the realm
of possibility.

And Tom Reese came down
one day from the third floor,

which is where everybody went
to get high ,

and announced that
Jim Morrison would be
down in a minute

to read some of his poetry.

And he wanted everybody
to gather around
to hear the poetry reading.

And a few minutes later,
about five minutes later,

Jim kind of sleepily came down.

His pupils were
very small and fixed.

And he proceeded to read
some of his poetry

in a very cool,
detached fashion,

which I thought was
kind of interesting.

And that lasted
about 15 minutes or so.

And then he went back
up to the third floor.

Maybe to...

Probably to have a smoke
or something else, but...

I understood that mostly
he enjoyed heroin.

- Heroin?
- Heroin, yes.

- Really?
- Yes.

Wow. So heroin--
Was heroin prevalent

or easily available
in Clearwater at that time?

Apparently it was.

I knew several other people
who used it.

He asked me if he could borrow
my car since Mary was there.

I was hesitant because
I knew he didn't handle
liquor well at all.

But he said, "Look,
I'm not drinking.
I don't ever drink around Mary."

And I said, "Oh, okay then."
And so he did.
He borrowed my car.

And the next morning
he came to my apartment
to return it to me.

Following his year at
St. Petersburg Junior College,

Jim transferred to Florida
State University in Tallahassee.

Met Jim Morrison
when he was introduced to

several of my
soon-to-be roommates
at Florida State University.

We all assembled in one place
to get ready to go over
to the house that we had rented.

We had five guys
that I was aware of,
and we had needed a sixth.

And all I knew was
Chris Kallivakos says,

"This is the guy
I want to be our sixth man.

His name is Jim Morrison,
and I knew him
at junior college."

And from that moment on,
I knew Jim.

I didn't see
a whole lot wrong with him.

Outside of that, his antics
and his desire to get attention
was annoying.

We knew in no time at all
that he was quite
the provocateur.

He was a very intelligent guy.

And he was going to be very
interesting, to say the least,
as a roommate.

Well, I'll tell you one thing.
I caught him doing one day.

I went into his room.

I wasn't looking for him.

I went into his room,
and he was naked,

squatting down
over a mirror on the floor.

And I said,
"Jim, what are you doing?"

He said, "I'm contemplating
my anus."

I said, "Your what?"

He said, "I am contemplating
my anus."

And with that, you know,
I said, "Okay."

"I'm leaving."

We soon discovered, however,
that this talent for provocation

was continuous, nonstop,
and intense.

That year,
they were taking the census,

and they came to that house,
wanted to know who lived
in that house,

and they wanted to fill it
all out.

Well, they were interviewing me
at the time,

and I was telling them,
because I answered the door,
and I didn't know it,

but Jim was behind me
in the living room

doing a handstand
with no clothes on.

His provocation of people
never appeared to be

with a mean streak involved.

He was simply curious
about people and was interested
in how they might react.

You could find Jim sometimes on
a Tallahassee corner

spewing his own poetry
whether there was anybody there
to listen or not.

He would recite poetry and prose

and anything else he wanted to.

Sometimes he would
recite it out loud

and, um, couldn't stop him.

He would just go on, and it
didn't matter what you said
or did, he wouldn't stop.

Did Jim physically
have a notebook

in which he would
record reactions
to his extreme actions?

"Notebook" is an understatement.

He, at any given time,
would have
10 to 12 notebooks going.

He had notebooks with respect
to what he was reading,

notebooks with respect
to poetry
that he was trying to write,

notebooks with respect
to the classes
that he was taking,

and notebooks with respect to
the goings-on each day

within the house
and within the school area.

I have to tell you that
he was extremely bright.

Probably had an IQ close to--

I don't know, they say genius,
you have to be 160
to be a genius,

but my guess is
if he wasn't there,
he was getting close to it.

The thing I liked
best about him

was how rapidly he revealed
the depth of his intellectual
capabilities.

It was clear that he was
one of the most
well-read individuals

I've ever encountered
in my life.

Not only had he read
the masters at that age,

but he was able to
quote from them frequently,

understand them, explain them.

He was a true intellectual,
a type of person I'd never
encountered before,

and that's what I liked
about him the most.

He was an A student,
English major,
had a phenomenal memory.

There was nothing he couldn't
memorize first time out.
If it went in, it stayed in.

While at Florida State,
Jim became a theater arts major

and performed in his
one and only stage play,
The Dumb Waiter.

The local FSU student newspaper
printed a review of the play

and even referred to Jim
by his stage name,
Stanislaus Boleslawski,

a hybrid of
Konstantin Stanislawski,

the Russian creator
of method acting,

and Richard Boleslawski,
the Polish film director.

For Jim,
hiding behind pseudonyms
would become a recurring theme.

Jim would interact
with girls that came in

as a result of other people's
invitations and so forth,

but he never did much
in the way of generating
any kind of relationships.

And if you ask him about that,
it was always,
"I'm being true to Mary.

I don't date other girls,"
and so forth.

I don't think Jim
was dating anybody, really,
at Florida State.

Werbelow was it,
was his girlfriend.
She would come up.

But he didn't date.
He didn't date anybody.

And his relationship
with Mary Werbelow
was very interesting

because it seemed like
he did not find her
in any way threatening,

that she was pure
from his point of view.

Pure girl, so to speak,

that he had no reason
to be intimidated by
or feared or anything else.

So they developed
a real loving relationship

that appeared

to depend on her willingness
to keep him totally at ease

and feel non-threatened.

So given all that,

and it's obviously speculation,
but I'm wondering,

as you were a friend of his,

not long after he told
those two guys
that he wanted to disappear,

do you feel that's something
that he was capable of,

of faking his actual death?

Oh, yes, I think he could.

But the only reason
that makes me...

hesitate to think that
is because of Mary.

I really do believe
that if he were still alive,

he'd have gotten back with Mary.

I was getting a bit dizzy
from all the coincidences,
so I pulled over for a break.

I called Cheryl, who'd been
doing some more digging for me,
to hear what she had found.

Hey Jeff, so I did
the research you asked me to do

regarding Jim's
Social Security number,

and I think you're gonna
be surprised by what I found.

- What is it?
- Well, Jim Morrison's

Social Security number,
apparently is still active.

- How?
- Isn't that crazy?

- Have you ever seen
anything like this before?
- No, never.

I know it could take a while
for government agencies
to update their systems,

but that was 50 years ago.

- And there's more.
- Okay.

Jim's Social has been current
as of 2014 in Rochester,
New York,

which is less than an hour
from where you are now.

Holy shit.

- But there's even more.
- Yeah?

That guy, Frank,
you were interviewing,

according to the database,
he may have
two Social Security numbers.

- Two?
- I'll send it to you.

- Seriously?
- I don't know how to explain it.

You could really
be onto something.

After hanging up with Cheryl,

my mind was spinning
about Jim Morrison's
Social Security number

still being active,

and Frank having two
Social Security numbers.

But that paled in comparison
to my shock after Cheryl
sent me the actual numbers.

Frank's second
Social Security number began
with the numeric sequence 127.

This dared me to call it
yet another coincidence.

A 1989 issue
of the Chicago Tribune

reported that labeled on
Pam Corson's strong box

was the cipher
"127 fascination."

That code
had never been cracked.

My inner Sherlock
was freaking out.

♪ Our electric friends
Just pretend ♪

♪ Our electric friends
Just pre-- ♪

♪ Tell me again
why, where, when ♪

♪ Should I delete
Or hit send? ♪

♪ Element bend
See how you trend ♪

♪ Shall we deny or unfriend? ♪

♪ Tell me again
why, where, when ♪

♪ Should I delete
Or hit send? ♪

♪ Goodbye last band
See how you trend ♪

♪ Shall we deny or unfriend? ♪