"I think she went into this thinking that she was getting the conventional husband, even though her own father was a complete philanderer and she knew that," Bayard says. It was Bobby Kennedy Jr. who gave the eulogy. In her memoir, Times To Remember, published eleven years after Jack's assassination in Dallas in 1963, she wrote that Billings had "remained Jack's lifelong close friend, confidant, sharer in old memories and new experiences", He has really been part of "our family" since that first time he showed up at our house as one of "Jack's surprises. He was also a trustee of the Kennedy Library at Harvard. Joseph Kennedy Sr. called him my sec 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. See additional information. Mind you, there's nothing in that honorific Miss to signify a lady of distinction. quoted from the book: "Jack made a big difference in my life," Genealogy profile for Lem Billings Kirk LeMoyne Billings (1916 - 1981) - Genealogy Genealogy for Kirk LeMoyne Billings (1916 - 1981) family tree on Geni, with over 230 million profiles of ancestors and living relatives. The teenagers worked together on their classs yearbook, and Billings became sexually attracted to the handsome young Kennedy. By clicking on a service below, you can view the obituary and service details, leave a condolence, send flowers, and if requested by the family attend a service live with remote attendance or view the service at a later time. 'We would get a telephone call from that funny old nurse, who sounded like an old-time nanny, and she would say, "It's President Kennedy's birthday and Bobby needs to go to Mass and observe that," and my husband would have to take him,' recalled his widow. F. I was told by Billings, "Nothing ever goes directly to Ethel." Doesn't she hear the car's tires on the gravel? 2023byTango Publishing Corporation All Rights Reserved. ', Rose Kennedy, however, had a different, more positive view of Billings. The only ties he now had to his family while in school was Lem Billings. She reportedly had a love-hate relationship with her husband's best friend. Gore Vidal, the writer who claimed he viewed homosexuality as normal as heterosexuality, disparaged the JFK-Billings relationship during the Kennedy administration. 'It was clear to me,' said Miesmer, 'that Bobby felt like an outsider, so he felt way more comfortable with the black kidshis father was a champion of helping blacks, so this kid who just lost his father goes to a school where there's a presence of black kids and he felt more comfortable with them.'. Billings maintained close ties to the Kennedys and their children Copyright 2023 Irish Studio LLC All rights reserved. But Kennedy's reaction to Billings gay come-on soon changed and he became more amenable to his friend's advances, according to the writer Lawrence J. Quirk, author of "The Kennedys in Hollywood." I thought, anything goes with this guy. and helped gather delegates at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles when JFK Beyond love, Jackie & Me is also about how decisions can define us. Billings was a prep school roommate of Kennedy, an usher at his wedding and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. 11 Strict Rules That Elon Musk Makes His Girlfriends & Wives Follow, Justin Bieber Suspected As The Father Of Kourtney Kardashian's Son Reign (Instead Of Scott Disick), Why Kate Moss Was 'Scared' & 'Couldn't Get Out Of Bed For Weeks' After Working With Mark Wahlberg. New York City, taking lunch from his job at Lennen & Newell. 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. The piece featured here was a gift from Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings, a high school friend and lifelong confidant who helped Kennedy amass his scrimshaw collection, which included more than 30 . Lem P Speer <p>Lem P. Speer, 93, died peacefully in his home on November 20, 2021. I will stand by him. Introduction: My name is Rubie Ullrich, I am a enthusiastic, perfect, tender, vivacious, talented, famous, delightful person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you. (Video) Caroline Kennedy on JFK's secret recordings, (Video) JFK's Women: Scandals Revealed | CBC, (Video) July 20, 1962 - President John F. Kennedy arriving home for weekend, (Video) President Kennedy's family reflects on his 100th birthday, 2. I'd known him then for a few months and knew he'd do anything. I took drugs with him. He once called Billings the "chief f****t at Camelot." . But it was the only boarding school that Lem Billings could find that would admit him. Credit: JFK Presidential Library and Museum. 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Lem P. Speer, 93, died peacefully in his home on November 20, 2021. 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.". When the President was assassinated in Dallas, Lem was in 10 Lem Billings Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images Images Images Creative Editorial Video Creative Editorial FILTERS CREATIVE EDITORIAL VIDEO 10 Lem Billings Premium High Res Photos Browse 10 lem billings stock photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more stock photos and images. The family went back John F. Kennedy and Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billingsmet in 1933 as sophomoresat Choate Rosemary Hall, a Connecticut prep school where they worked on their class yearbook together. Adapted from New York Times bestselling author Jerry Oppenheimer's explosive new book, Mom who lost both sons to fentanyl blasts laughing Biden, Missing hiker buried under snow forces arm out to wave to helicopter, Pavement where disabled woman gestured at cyclist before fatal crash, Isabel Oakeshott receives 'menacing' message from Matt Hancock, Pro-Ukrainian drone lands on Russian spy planes exposing location, 'Buster is next!' The content produced by YourTango is for informational and educational purposes only. Beyond the senator, young Bobby's aunt Jackie had inquired about his welfare but never visited.'. Billings made his desire known while the two were still at school by writing Kennedy a love note on a piece of toilet paper. "Yesterday was Jack's birthday. I know he had all that baggage with his father, but being in that pit that was the kind of thing he would do. ', 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. Son of Frederick Tremaine Billings and Romaine Elizabeth (LeMoyne) Billings. LeMoyne Billings and Ethel Kennedy attend Liza Minnelli Concert on May 23, 1970 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. According to biographer James Spada, When Kennedy tired of her, he passed her off to his brother in 1962. After Kennedy was elected president, Billings was a constant presence at the White House, and advisers were concerned about possible political repercussions. Kennedy and Billings met in 1933 in their sophomore year at Choate Rosemary Hall, an exclusive Connecticut prep school. In both the book and real life, Bayard explains that Billings played a key part in the couple's romance. 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. While her husband had his qualms about Billings and couldn't stand to have him around, the matriarch Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, had a different take. Jackie, I imagine, is now asking the name of Bobby's daughter or wondering if Eunice will be there and which one is Pat? Lem Billings (right) was Kennedy's roommate at Choate and Princeton and an usher at his wedding, Spending most weekends at the White House during JFK's presidency, he became known as the "first. ", 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. During their wedding in Greenwich, Connecticut, Ethels brother knocked Billings down the aisle at the church. It was all quite bizarre. Biographer Sally Bedell Smith referred to Billings as probably the saddest of the Kennedy widows., RELATED:Details About Kristen Stewarts Fiance Dylan Meyers & Their Adorably Casual Proposal. A falconer, Bobby kept a pigeon-size sparrow hawk that flew loose in the small room. But I'm stuck with the Kennedys emotionally, and I will be to the end of my life. 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. It was he, not Ethel, who handled all of Bobby's expenses 'He would come over fairly frequently for dinner whenever he was in town,' she recalled. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. defeated. 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. 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 . 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. Kirk LeMoyne Billings, a retired advertising executive and a friend of President John F. Kennedy, died Wednesday at his Manhattan apartment. He was born to Otis and Anna Speer on July 14, 1928, in Glasgow, Montana. He'd say, 'When you're shooting speed it's such a good rush. 'Bobby was Machiavellian. All Rights Reserved. After Kennedys election Billings would frequently be an overnight guest, which supposedly upset the First Lady, Jackie Kennedy. 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. Jack was in love with Lem being in love with him and considered him the ideal follower adorer.. It's when we're crossing back over Chain Bridge that she rouses herself to ask: "Jack, what color is your car?". He'd be expelled from Millbrook and later be ordered to leave the second school, Pomfret, in rural Connecticut, for using drugs and displaying bad, often bizarre behavior. According to Jerry Oppenheimer, author of RFK Jr.: Robert F. Kennedy and the Dark Side of the Dream, Kennedy responded, please dont write to me on toilet paper anymore. Nature rushes forth, and the car dealers and the Hot Shoppes fall away before dogwoods and tulip trees, tatters of forsythia. 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. According to Palfrey classmates, it was claimed that Bobby simply wrote his name - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - at the top and sent it in, and got accepted. Fredrik Logevall on JFK, with David Nasaw, October 6, 2020, 3. the most part, commented to a White House usher, "He (Lem) has been a house With "Jack and Lem," Pitts has indeed turned over a new stone. The Kennedys were a liberal family and one that tolerated a lot of heterosexual promiscuity as well. If pressed, she'll fall back on the weather. Sydney Taylor is a writer who focuses on News and Entertainment topics. reason I never got married.". President John F. Kennedy was killed in Dallas 50 years ago, leaving behind a mourning nation and his gay best friend, Lem Billings. She has dabbed herself with Chateau Krigler 12 (I consider telling her it's my mother's favorite), and there is the complicating counter-aroma of Pall Malls, and somewhere at the back, simple bovine perspiration. It was pretty clear he had some intravenous drug use back then, and he was the only person we knew who did.'. Bayard's novel takes place primarily in the months leading up to Jack and Jackie's wedding on Sept. 12, 1953. The first lady, Jackie, had something of a love-hate relationship with Billings. JFK appeared to be in love with the idea of Billings being in love with him. 'But we never saw Ethel. I have one additional comment, probably to be regarded as politically incorrect. ", "I thought, 'What a great cat-bird seat he would've had, and wouldn't he make a great narrator?' Like the rest of the free world, Billings was devastated when President Kennedy was assassinated. 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. Copyright 2022 by Louis Bayard. "And who should that be?". JFKPP-001-012-p0005. What happened when Jackie Kennedy and Queen Elizabeth II met? " Bayard says of Billings. In June 1961, just months after Kennedy began his presidential term, he and Jackie visited Buckingham Palace, where a black tie banquet was hosted in the President's honour. They remained close until Kennedy's assassinationBillings had his own room in the White House, and Joe Kennedy Sr. called him "a second son." (Which is odd considering JFK . 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?'. Lem Billings passed away from a heart attack at 65 in 1981. Photo / Getty Images. And, for once, Billings, who serves as the story's narrator, has as big a voice as the Kennedys. through his life. Lem had several jobs including selling Coca-Cola dispensers to drugstores, working 'People think I'm a joke,' he once acknowledged. "And she knew, at some level, that she was marrying another version of her father. Murdaugh is heckled as he leaves court, Ken Bruce finishes his 30-year tenure as host of BBC Radio 2, Moment teenager crashes into back of lorry after 100mph police race, Alex Murdaugh unanimously found GUILTY of murder of wife and son, Isabel Oakeshott clashes with Nick Robinson over Hancock texts, Family of a 10-month-old baby filmed vaping open up, Ukrainian soldier takes out five tanks with Javelin missiles. In Lem, Jack found a confidant and caretaker; Jack was frequently ill while at Choate, but Lem kept his spirits high . I don't know whether she wrote to Bobby, but she certainly didn't telephone or visit him. 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. ', Roommates: JFK and Billings (right) roomed atChoate and again atPrinceton (pictured mid-1930s outside a drugstore with roommate Ralph Horton Jr), JFK's sisterEunice Kennedy Shriver said his relationship with Billingswas a 'complete liberation of the spirit' for Jack (Pictured on their Christmas card with fellow Princeton roommateRalph Horton Jr), While her husband had his qualms about Billings and couldn't stand to have him around, the matriarch Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, had a different take. Reviews: 95% of readers found this page helpful, Address: 743 Stoltenberg Center, Genovevaville, NJ 59925-3119, Hobby: Surfing, Sailing, Listening to music, Web surfing, Kitesurfing, Geocaching, Backpacking. In his heartfelt and rather candid eulogy, Bobby 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. Ancestors. Billings had once told Bobby that when he died he wanted the pall-bearers to be members of Bobby's circle of young friends, whom he knew well and with whom he had done drugs. The first lady, Jackie, had something of a love-hate relationship with Billings. /. He headed the committee that oversaw the construction of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. "You learn a lot about how he met Jackie, about how intrigued he was by her, how intrigued he was by them," says Bayard of listening to Billing's testimony stored in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. But it also looks at her through this particular prism of another outsider, Lem Billings. She saw that Lem Billings was obsessively devoted to Bobby. Lem was John F Kennedy's best friend. But Bayard says that the reality of their marriage including years of reporting about Jack's infidelities gave him a "degree of empathy" for Jackie when approaching her character in the novel. And it's a kind of interesting love triangle between these three fascinating people.". Among the snapshots is one that shows a handsome pre-presidential Kennedy sunning himself, sprawled on a chaise at Patriarch Joe Kennedy's Palm Beach estate. 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. As one source told me, 'Young Bobby replaced Jack in Lem's heart of hearts.'. 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. ', Quirk, who acknowledged his own bisexuality, asserted that Billings 'believed that this arrangement 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. Initially, Bobby's dorm room with his first roommate had become a veritable shrine to Bobby's father. Lem was the second person Jack's sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, called after reaching her sister, Pat Lawford. But was reportedly upset that her husband spent so much time with him, and that he often stayed overnight at the White House. The president was famously believed to have affairs during their marriage. Quirk immediately pegged Billings as gay, noting his "high, screechy laugh," and "high nasal whine of a voice.". As one source told me, "Young Bobby replaced Jack in Lem's heart of hearts.". he's stoned." Her knees are drawn protectively to her chest, and there's something quite exposed about her. "He also reveals that there was this crucial moment," says Bayard. I understand he's not worth it.". Jerry Oppenheimer For Dailymail.com But the man married to Jackie Kennedy was quietly chided for his compulsive philandering. for inventing '50s fad drink Fizzies for the Emerson Drug Company. The president is seen teeing off, among his guests joining him being Press Secretary Pierre Salinger, lifelong friends Lem Billings and Charles Spalding, and British Ambassador Sir David Ormsby-Gore.