OTHER VOICES, OTHER LIVES
Pam Courson (22nd December 1946 – 25th April 1974):
Pamela Susan Courson Morrison was an American boutique owner, fashion designer and model, and editor. According to her friends, she was wild and had a sense for adventure, a very exciting and fun person, but also very smart, mysterious and sweet.
She was the daughter of Columbus “Corky” Brimer Courson, a WWI veteran, and interior designer Pearl “Penny” Courson. She had an elder sister, Judy.
As a teenager she was ahead of her time, dressing as a beatnik in her natal Orange County when no one did. That made her an outcast. She took art classes at Los Angeles City College and she loved travelling.
From 1966, when she was 20, she had a toxic relationship with The Door’s frontman Jim Morrison, but also both maintained ongoing relationships with others, while also being strongly committed to each other in their own way. At the same time, he bought a fashion boutique for her, Themis, and she encouraged him to write poetry.
They lived for a while at Laurel Canyon, LA, where other artists and musicians lived, so there was a feeling of community and creativity that flowed through the area. Pam’s boutique was filled with fanciful clothes, jewelry, and decor picked out especially by Pamela on her travels. Despite it’s exclusivity, it was more of a hangout for the beautiful people.
Pam was a heroin addict, and Jim hated heroin and would become angry at her for using. In 1971 she found Jim Morrison dead in the bathtub of their apartment in Paris, France*. He was 27 and she was only 25. Under Jim’s will, which stated that he was “an unmarried person”, she was named his heir, and therefore in line to inherit his entire fortune. Lawsuits against the estate would tie up her quest for inheritance for the next two years.
Pam was very distressed at his death and resorted to heroin and also started developing mental problems, for which she sought help. She moved back to Los Angeles. She died on 25th April 1974 of a heroin overdose on the living room couch at the Los Angeles apartment she shared with two male friends. It was just found one single needle mark on her arm, and she had been clean for at least two years. She was only 27. ** The exact same age as Jim was when he died
*it was thought by some and I agree with the notion that Jim after a night of drinking with pals in the Parisian bars he found a bag of Pam's white powder and snorted what he took to be cocaine to wake himself up or add to his energy levels not believing it was in fact Pam's China White heroin as she had promised Jim she would get clean. The combination of alcohol and heroin is deadly and causes respiratory problems amongst others and a often used remedy to bring people round from a heroin overdose then was to put them in the bath Jim either made his own way there or was put there and didn't not come round. An all too frequent death I have witnessed many time now working in the field as I did (A.S.)
Source: Little Queenies
