"He needed Lem Billings to get around better than a trained nurse" that would have made his political career impossible. We might even attach the adjectives exclusive and romantic to this youthful friendship. A crew jock, he met Jack at Choate, a boys' boarding school, in Wallingford, Connecticut (it is now co-ed). "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 . Allegheny Cemetery. Advocate Contributors November 22 2013 4:00 AM EST In photos. However, he avoided the notoriety of coming out even after Kennedys death, perhaps because he feared that it would draw more negative attention to the extended Kennedy family, which soon struggled with a range of scandals: Chappaquidick, alcoholism, divorce and drugs were but a few. They were especially fanatical about football. I have no doubt the same was true in American upper-crust boarding schools in the single-sex days. One of the most credible accounts of the Kennedy-Billings relationship was told by David Pitts, who I interviewed extensively for my book, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.And The Dark Side Of The Dream, because the strapping, bespectacled Billings, with a high-pitched, effeminate voice, would later become the fawning surrogate father and fellow drug user of JFK's nephew, Bobby Kennedy Jr., with whom Billings also had intense romantic feelings. About Lem Billings A long time best friend and alleged secret Gay lover of President JFK and later a surrogate father for Robert Kennedy Jr. after the murder of his father. Eunice Kennedy Shriver said, '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. On some weekends, Jack and Lem would go up there. [36] When the Kennedys spent the weekend at Glen Ora, their Virginia estate, Jacqueline Kennedy invited Billings to join them more often than the President did. 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. [24], Billings visited the White House for most weekends during the Kennedy Administration. Sign up for our weekly newsletter to receive selections from new issues of Public Seminar. I have one additional comment, probably to be regarded as politically incorrect. Criticisms from others in the Kennedy orbit insinuate that Jack took advantage of Lem's love for him without reciprocating. 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. [37], Billings' role as "first friend" was assessed by many observers at the time and since. [67], On May 28, 1981, Billings died in his sleep following a heart attack in his Manhattan apartment. Click to browse the Lem Billings Personal Papers KLBPP-001-003-p0015. But I'm stuck with the Kennedys emotionally, and I will be to the end of my life. In photos and excerpts from David Pitts's book Jack & Lem, we remember President John F. Kennedy through the lens of his lifelong friendship with Lem Billings. "He never really came out of it. "[21] In September 1961, he accepted an appointment to the board of trustees of the planned National Cultural Center, which later became the Kennedy Center. Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings (April 15, 1916 - May 28, 1981) was a close friend of the Kennedy family, who had his own room at the White House during the Kennedy presidency. 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 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. When Jack discovered that Billings was gay once declining an amorous overture from Billings the friendship is thought to have gone on unharmed. I'd read a bit about Lem Billings in various Kennedy bios . https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3269576/How-Ethel-Kennedy-.. view all Lem Billings's Timeline The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. Like many gay men of his generation, Lem may have been very comfortable with his own sexuality and the privacy of his relationship to Jack. Jack" he said as he gazed at him softly, It's been a long time. In 1958, her cousin Gore Vidal brought playwright Tennessee Williams to the Kennedy home in Palm Beach, FL. 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. I'm not that kind of boy.' ', 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. The first lady, Jackie, had something of a love-hate relationship with Billings. (Page 213), "Jack made a big difference in my life. EXCLUSIVE: Head teacher of leading grammar school is sacked for sending parents a list of striking teachers. 0 references. Kirk LeMoyne Billings and John F. Kennedy. Billings repeated his senior year so that he and Kennedy could graduate from Choate together in 1935. [23] He represented the President when the alumni association unveiled Kennedy's portrait at Choate in May 1963. [34] He joined the President's entourage for his tours of Europe in both 1961 and 1963. Claire Potter is professor of history at The New School, and Executive Editor of Public Seminar. Both Jack and Lem were crazy about dogs and soon fell totally in love with little Dunker. Anyone who wants to know more about JFKs actual sex life can email me at [email protected] Here is my sons grandfather with JFK in Dec 1963. It impressed . Kennedy later graduated from Harvard, but the pair wrote letters back and forth, spent weekends together in New York and traveled to Germany in the summer of 1937. [18], In 1960, on leave from his job, he worked on Kennedy's presidential campaign. At least one of these intimates, Kirk LeMoyne Lem Billings, was one of Jacks cherished body men, and he lived part-time in the White House throughout the three years of Kennedys presidency. A funny photo of Senator John McCain catching himself after he nearly left the stage in the wrong direction after shaking hands with Senator Barack Obama. Wikipedia (3 entries) edit. [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. [3] They became fast friends, drawn to each other by their mutual distaste for their strict school. [48] Billings saw the President for the last time when they dined at the White House with Greta Garbo on November 13, 1963, nine days before the President's assassination in Dallas. I have been studying human sexuality for 25 years and am a Stanford grad and track athlete. A new book is claiming that John F. Kennedy had more than just a platonic friendship with his life-long gay best friend, Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings. Jack, meanwhile, drew on Billings' unerring presence in his life by his side in sickness and on the campaign trail and even at the White House, where Billings had a room (and where there were at least whispers among the staff about the truth of his personal relationships). ', 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. We are a non-profit organization, wholly supported by The New School, and by the generosity of our sponsors and readers. Jack Kennedy and Lem Billings met at Choate and remained friends until the Dallas gunfire that ended Kennedy's life thirty years later. "Jack made a big difference in my life," Billings said in his oral history for the Kennedy library, adding, "He may have been the reason I never got married.". When JFK was assassinated, he turned his attention to his nephew Bobby Kennedy Jr. 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. Joseph Kennedy Sr. called him "my second son," and he sometimes acted as escort for several of the Kennedy women. (Page 95), Jack and Lem on leave, Palm Beach, 1944"It's not clear whether Lem wanted to join the navy and see combat because Jack had, or because he wanted it for himself. As a younger man, he also served as something of a "go-between" for a young Jack Kennedy and the woman who would become Kennedy's wife, Jackie Bouvier, in 1950s Washington, D.C. He had a very independent mind. He escorted Mrs. Stephen Smith, sister of the late President, to . Indeed, it often seems that Kennedy did treat people who loved him for granted. 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. This was at the end of their final presidential debate at Hofstra University in New York in October, 2008. For Billings' funeral, some of the younger Kennedys served as pallbearers (as Billings himself had done for some of their own, like the slain Sen. Robert F. Kennedy). He once described the Kennedy family's lack of business awareness: "Listening to the Kennedy brothers talk about business was like hearing nuns talk about sex. 384 pages, $26.95 THE OLD black-and-white photograph shows two good-looking young men sitting close together on the back bumper of a car, their fingers touching gently as they fondle a dachshund pup. And, say those close to him, Billings never, ever got over how his friend was assassinated one sunny day in Dallas exactly 58 years ago. Jack, Lem, and Caroline enjoying the water, Hyannis Port, 1963. Authorities have identified the woman found dead Tuesday in a residence on Avenue B in Billings as Shanna Lynn Booth. The . His latest book, The Kardashians: An American Drama, will be published in September. Kirk Lem Lemoyne Billings (15 Apr 1916 - 28 May 1981) 0 references . "Early on in their friendship, Lem sent Jack such a note and Jack replied in their usual jocular way, adding in parentheses, 'Please don't write to me on toilet paper any more. Jack's best friend was Lem, and he would want to remind everyone of that today. In the epidemiological framework of the Global Burden of Disease study each death has one specific cause. [20] He later said: "I realized that I did not want to work for the president because I felt it would change our relationship. He might have been the reason I never got married. As they became close, Billings confided that his relationship with Kennedy was, in fact, sexual, to a point. 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. 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. I'm not that kind of boy.'. 0 references. "He may have been the reason I never married." This essay was originally published at OutHistory.org on November 22, 2013; it has been updated and re-edited. ", Still, he was well aware of his proximity to history. I really got to know them well. "[38] Another said: "Members of the president's staff thought of him as a 'handy old piece of furniture. ', But Billings was embarrassed about his effeminate mannerisms he'd remain publicly closeted for his lifetime. Who was Jack Lemmon's wife? The young Kennedys took the casket and carried it around the gravesite before returning it to the burial plot. JFK's Best Friend Lem: Transcript. Have you heard from him?' But the man married to Jackie Kennedy was quietly chided for his compulsive philandering. Lem outlived his friend by eighteen years; he died in 1981, and left his papers to the JFK Presidential library in Boston, MA. When Jack reached home, the two friends greeted each other like there was no tomorrow." When a butler commented on the fact that Billings was leaving his belongings in one of the third-floor guest rooms, the First Lady replied: "He's been my house guest since I was married. As the previous article mentions more has to be explored regarding the relationship between Lem and JFK! And seated close to Kennedy is his shirtless, tanned and oiled best friend forever, his very gay chum, Kirk LeMoyne 'Lem' Billings. Was this part of his commitment to the Presidents good health? Ted Sorensen called him "an admirer almost a fawning admirer of his friend. Although Jack and Bobby were of different temperaments -- Jack, detached and cerebral, Bobby, intense and emotional -- Lem saw so much of Jack in Bobby. Their lifelong relationship caused some of the presidents advisers to fear Russian agents may use the information as blackmail. Vidal, the author of a best-selling gay World War II novel, published in 1947 at a time when most queer books were ruled obscene and evidence of homosexual acts could bring a prison term, was unabashedly public about his affairs with men. 0 references. [6][7], In 1941, Billings failed medical tests required by the military. Both boys kept diaries on the trip, although Lem's was more of a scrapbook. He believed Billings loved Kennedy. In recent years, there has also been talk of a movie adaptation. 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. Billings served with Sargent Shriver as a trustee for the Kennedy family trusts. I mean, I could have had a wife, and family, but what the hell -- do you think I would have had a better life having been Jack Kennedy's best friend, having been with him during so many moments of his presidency, having had my own room at the White House, having had the best friend anybody ever had, or having been married and settled down and living somewhere." The year also brought a staggering . For many other Americans as well, Bobby became the last best hope for resurrecting Camelot, for a return to the kind of liberal idealism that Jack had epitomized. He noted that everywhere Jack went, Billings was sure to follow, like a puppy dog. Needless to say, JFK may have had, in a sense, two widows. As Billings told researchers for an oral history interview for the John F. Kennedy Library, the two met as teenagers at Choate Preparatory School for boys in Wallingford, Connecticut, in 1933, while working on the student yearbook. Kennedy and Billings remained intimate in part by managing Jacks sex life, his career, and his family, together. But this may, in fact, just be gossip. President John F. Kennedy has become infamous for his vivid, and some might say almost compulsive, heterosexual affairs. ', 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. COVID-19 became the No. Health Insurance data come from Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates From the National Health Interview Survey, 2014 pdf icon; 2014 birth data come from National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. He wanted to be with him, to be a part of whatever he wanted to do to continue Jack's legacy." Billings kept the letters JFK wrote to him between 1934 and 1939, and he donated the entire collection to the Library in the 1970s. 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.'. But even before then, Billings was a Kennedy fixture. 64, No. Billings was a prep school roommate of Kennedy, an usher at his wedding and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. But was reportedly upset that her husband spent so much time with him, and that he often stayed overnight at the White House. Plastic surgeon reveals five cosmetic procedures she would NEVER get - from dangerous Brazilian butt lifts BEL MOONEY:Why does caring for my dad take over my life? His mother was a Mayflower descendant and his great-grandfather Francis Julius LeMoyne was a prominent abolitionist linked to the underground railroad who helped establish what is today known as LeMoyne-Owen College. LeMoyne Billings and Ethel Kennedy attend Liza Minnelli Concert on May 23, 1970 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. [30], The press frequently reported on his presence at Kennedy family events, such as the arrival of the Kennedy children in Washington in February 1961. After the assassination of RFK in 1968, the flamboyant Billings transferred his obsessive affection for Jack, to handsome teenager Bobby Jr. David Pitts, the author of 'Jack and Lem: The Untold Story of an Extraordinary Friendship,' told me, '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. 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. Kennedy. [56] Charles L. Bartlett, a journalist who introduced Kennedy to Jacqueline Bouvier[57] and friend of both Billings and Kennedy, described their relationship: "Lem was a stable presence for Jack. "[41] At the same time, he admitted that no one ever expressed the idea aloud during Kennedy's White House years. As the then-Senator stepped up for his turn, Williams admired his body. It remains the worst such failure in the history of advertising agencies. 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. Williams, a handsome gay southerner, had already written seven hit plays. And did he personally lend a hand from time to time? 1 leading cause of death among Native Americans in Montana during 2020 and the third-leading cause of death for the general population. He was a beautiful baby," he ducked into a boiler room and wept. (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. I've had enough of life': Grandmother, 86, is reduced to tears after killjoy Tory RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: As Florida governor and Donald Trump rival Ron DeSantis steps up his bid to win the Hairy Bikers star Dave Myers speaks out on his deep depression after chemotherapy which left him having 'How I snatched JK Rowling's baby out of her abusive husband's arms - and helped her flee with the Harry Top equestrian rider, 39, once known as the 'golden girl' of horse eventing, is facing jail after being A possum feared extinct is discovered by an amateur naturalist in Papua New Guinea being cooked on a Now California reparations panel RAISES amount it wants to give 1.8m black people from $220,000 to $360,000 My weekly horoscope: What will March 4th 2023 bring for MY star sign? (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. She had to submit questions in advance. 12 pdf icon; leading cause of death data, including firearm, homicide, and drug poisoning mortality data, and infant mortality . 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. Lem Chesmore is a 34-year-old Billings native who grew up on the sport. With so many people looking for a relationship with him as he rose through the political ranks, there was one man who stood out as one of JFK's near-constant companions. 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. On school breaks, Jack often brought Billings home with him, sparking Joe Kennedy to complain to his wife, Rose, 'Do we have to have that q***r around all summer?'.