Gary James' Interview With Director/Writer/Researcher of Before The End: Searching For Jim Morrison
Jeff Finn



A new film has been completed that addresses the topic of Jim Morrison's early years as well as "Did Jim Morrison fake his death?" Titled Before The End: Searching For Jim Morrison, Director Jeff Finn reached out to over nine hundred people connected with Jim and interviewed over one hundred on camera. Before The End has taken years of intensive, comprehensive and exhaustive research to put together. Jeff Finn spoke with us about his film on Jim Morrison.

Q - Jeff, this subject matter of yours delves into an area that I've always wondered about. That is to say, how did Jim Morrison become Jim Morrison? You've heard of Albert Goldman, haven't you?

A - Sure.

Q - His first biography was on Elvis. Then he wrote a book on John Lennon. And then he tried to write a book on Jim Morrison, but ran up against a brick wall. No one associated with Jim Morrison would talk to him. How were you able to get people to talk to you?

A - Well, as I've joked with a couple of my good friends, the running gag is, give me thirty-five years and I can solve any mystery. (laughs) I've been studying Morrison periodically, going back to 1985, specifically the Fall of '85. I brought all those years of information and knowledge and theory to the table when I broke ground on Before The End: Searching For Jim Morrison in July, 2012 and I knew, I'd made a previous documentary, that patience was the key of course. You have to really get in there and have faith and dig and know that your patience will likely pay off. So, one of the first persons I contacted was Jim's brother, Andy Morrison, who had been interviewed numerous times through the years in print. Always in print, going back to the Jerry Hopkins, Danny Sugerman, the infamous biography No One Here Gets Out Alive in 1980. I wanted to give a real platform to Andy Morrison and the other people in Jim' orbit that had only been names quoted in print. Nothing against those interviews through the years, but they were always just a name in a book or a quote in a magazine. I wanted to see this person. Who is Andy Morrison? I want to see his face. I want to see him speaking and the same for countless others who knew Jim through the years. I just battened down the hatches and went at it. It took me months. Andy is just one case. It took me months to get to him where I could communicate with him and earn his trust and let him know who I was and where I was coming from and what I was doing. So, it was like that across the board. In the end, no pun intended, it'll be eight years this July (2020) of work on the film. I communicated with nearly a thousand people who knew Jim or were connected with him in some way, in terms of e-mails, texts, phone calls, even letters. I was ready to break out the old fashioned telegram at one point. Of those nearly one thousand people I interviewed, one hundred and thirty of them were on camera for the documentary.

Q - Well now, I tried many years ago to interview Andy Morrison. The fact that you got to talk to him is a real achievement.

A - Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Honestly, I think a large part of that was my diligence and also perhaps it was down to timing. Many of the people I interviewed told me the timing is right, they're getting older and they're ready to talk, that kind of thing. And the same thing proved true with Andy. He told me, and I'll never forget this, he was such a nice guy. He even insisted on driving me to the airport. (laughs)

Q - That was nice of him.

A - He's just a really good guy. He said, "Your interview is the first one I've done on camera and it will be the last one." It sort of floored me. I said, "Oh, thank you." I'm not sure if he just wanted to get it all out in one shot or what, but he did that and it was wonderful! It was a real insight into not only Jim, but Andy because this story is about everyone who knew him. It's not just about Jim. I continually refer to Jim's Feast Of Friends imagery and this is about Jim Morrison and who he is as a human being and real person, not just a Rock star, and also about those who knew him.

Q - Someone in the film said Jim changed in the 7th, 8th, or 9th grade. At least that was what was said in the film's preview. Are you going to tell in the film what that change was?

A - The film tries to cut through the rhetoric and the P.R. spin and the mythology that has surrounded Jim in the last fifty years. I've used the analogy trying to break through the marble statue to get to the humanity within and that entails going deep from the day he was born up until the would be end. And so certainly the change in his personality could be attributed, as it is to pretty much everyone in terms of your adolescence, your puberty, hormonal changes. That affects everyone naturally, but I think it was an extreme case with Jim. I can't go into to many details now at the risk of spoiler alerts as they say. But suffice to say, yes, I delve into that deeply because Jim's formative years, his adolescence, is often just glossed over. Invariably it just seems to be a footnote in a rush to let's get to the sex, drugs and Rock 'n' Roll. Let's get to The Doors' era.

Q - It's not that it was glossed over. It's just that you're the first person to quote a Doors song to "Break On Through (To The Other Side)". I've wondered forever and a day what Jim Morrison's early life was like and you seem to be the first person to document that.

A - Oh, I appreciate it. Eight years of work on the film and going back to 1985 when I began to study his life and alleged death, I've certainly put in the time. But, I want to say that others, including (Jerry) Hopkins and whether you love or hate No One Here Gets Out Alive, for better or worse it laid the blueprint not just for Morrison's life, but for Rock biographies in general. It seems like Rock biographies in general just sprang up out of nowhere after that book was released and again, for better or worse.

Q - For better. You'd go into a book store in 1980, 1981 and there was no Rock book section. Now there is.

A - Oh, it's incredible. I'm old enough. I'm 53 years old now, so I remember that time as well. I remember back in the early days of my research, back in the '80s you had to dig and claw your way through fine book sellers and used book researchers to unearth some of these works that had been written about Jim. There was no E-Bay and there was no Amazon.

Q - To put this amount of time into Before The End, you were a Jim Morrison/Doors fan, correct?

A - Absolutely, and that's in the film because I narrate the project. I was in contact with Henry Rollins actually for quite awhile and thought of him as the narrator. I'd also considered Grace Slick, Patti Smith, the poets and musicians and a number of people, but the project became so personal and it really always was from the beginning and it made sense for me beyond ego to tell the story from my gut, from my heart. And so, I did that. But as I note in the documentary, The Doors' songs are some of the earliest I remember hearing and I have distinct, vivid, visceral memories of hearing them. They really spooked me as a very small kid. I remember thinking of it as Halloween music.

Q - The Doors' music is unique.

A - Oh, it's incredible. To think that they came along in the era when The Beatles were at their artistic peak and they still stood out from The Beatles, nothing against The Beatles. I love them as well. But they just had their own imprint clearly. They were mining territory that no one had done. It's interesting, a friend of Jim's from high school, who I interviewed for the film, he was actually good friends with Jim back in the early '60s of high school. He said to me as an aside, "I get that Jim was talented and good looking and all that stuff like a Rock star should be, but why Morrison? Why him?" I remember it just hit me and I said, "You really want to know? Are you really asking me or is that a rhetorical question?" He said, "No, I really want to know in your opinion." I said, "Well, if Dylan was the brain and Elvis was the groin, then Morrison was the grain. You get it? And the brain and groin together equals the grain." And we both laughed and it was off the cuff and he said, "I get it. It makes sense."

Q - See, I would have had a different answer if the guy had asked me that, "Why Morrison?" I would've said, "Because he wanted it. He had the drive."

A - Absolutely. I explore this in the docu-series. I should point out it's a true docu-series now. It began as a traditional, two hour documentary, but is now a four plus hour docu-series. It's just grown and evolved over the years. So, that's where we're at.

Q - Are you also calling it a docu-mystery?

A - Yeah. That's what I call it in the poster, The Unauthorized Docu-Mystery, 'cause it is. It's almost like (Alfred) Hitchcock or David Lynch, but real life. I thing is, every human being is a mystery. My favorite life quote is a David Lynch quote where he says, "Everything is a mystery and we're all detectives." And so it's my hope that with Before The End, the viewers will function as my fellow detectives and I with them, a shared empathy there, in terms of trying to make sense of, "Who was Jim Morrison?" And as you said earlier, "How did he become Jim Morrison as we knew him?"

Q - And what happened to Jim Morrison? And I'm going to get into that. How is this film of yours going to be released? On DVD?

A - At this point I'm not certain if it will be in a DVD format. That's certainly my hope. The film is done. Ideally it will be released on a major network in terms of what they are streaming, digital release for television. But it's also my hope that it will be in a DVD format.

Q - Two people you wanted to interview for your film, John Densmore and Robby Krieger would not talk to you. Did Ray Manzarek talk to you?

A - It's interesting. I was in the early stages of reaching out to Ray through a fellow UCLA film student who had been there at UCLA with Jim and Ray back in the day. This person tried to put me in touch with Ray. So, I got as far as a couple of e-mails to him and I never heard back. Then I think it was within a year that he passed on. Obviously I, like everyone else, had no idea that he was ill and I was sorry to hear that. As far as John and Robby, I've noted this on my Facebook page publicly for the pitch of the film. Jeff Jampol, who now has Bill Siddon's position in terms of managing The Doors post-band entity, served as a roadblock to John and Robby. He did not want me to contact them, and there you have it.

Q - I interviewed John Densore, Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek. I asked John Densmore about Jim and he told me, "I'm not quite sure he's dead." That startled me. I was looking for more of a definitive answer. Then I thought, why would he say that? Maybe the mystery helps sell CDs, books and merchandise, or maybe he genuinely does not know.

A - Or, there's a third option, a potential combination of both scenarios. And again, I'm already on the public record with this going back a number of years and this is in the film; there were two gentlemen who attended high school in Virginia with Jim in the late '50s, early '60s, and thanks to a guy named Mark Opsasnick, who had written a self published book about Jim's days in Alexandria, Virginia, a wonderful book, and this guy's a fantastic researcher, I highly recommend his book. He's a writer and cultural historian based in Washington, D.C. And it's available on Amazon. It's called The Lizard King Was Here: The Life And Times Of Jim Morrison In Alexandria, Virginia. Morrison had what I consider his most lasting formative period, most impactful, formative period there in Alexandria. He was there for the second half of his sophomore year of high school through his senior year. He graduated from George Washington High School in Alexandria, Virginia. During this period according to those two gentlemen, one of whom is a retired judge and the other is a retired attorney and they're life long friends in the Virginia, D.C. area and they had been interviewed by Mark for his book and so I'm grateful to him for putting me in touch with them. They had never been interviewed on camera and so it took some doing. I reached out to them. They didn't come to me. I said, "Can I interview you for my documentary about Jim Morrison?" And eventually we were able to set that up. I flew to Virginia and interviewed both of these guys along with a number of Jim's former high school classmates. The two of these gentlemen stated on the record, in the film, and this is a no spoiler 'cause they stated the same in Mark's book: they said when Jim was in high school and friends with them, he told them at one point that he was going to eventually disappear and lead an anonymous life. Now, this is when he's 16, 17 years old. (laughs) So, you can take it any myriad of ways obviously, the over active imagination of a high school kid. But, we're talking about Jim Morrison. He was not your garden variety teenager. He was a brilliant intellect. This is a guy who was reading Rimbaud in high school. Rimbaud had in fact disappeared and eventually led an entirely new life. Instead of poetry he morphed into a coffee trader. (laughs) And there are some who point to Ribbaud as the Godfather of what we now know as Starbucks coffee, but that's neither here nor there. So again, I believe Morrison had a time line in mind. I believe he had a play of his own creation with him in the starring role, let's put it that way.

Q - Go back to John Densmore and Robby Krieger for a minute. Maybe they didn't want to talk to you because they had nothing to say. They're all talked out.

A - I'll be explicit in the spirit of Jim. When I spoke to Robby's wife Lynn on the phone, and this was a number of years ago, she said, "Oh, we've heard about you and Robby would love to speak with you." So, I was thrilled, just from a fan's perspective alone. This is gonna be fantastic! Unfortunately Jampol threw a wrench into into that, just as had done when Rolling Stone Deadline and Hollywood Reporter had released a story about my film and he tried to throw a wrench in there. So, it is what it is. And no sour grapes. All due respect to John and Robby, but I didn't want canned answers. I didn't want the same responses that have been regurgitated for forty-some years by these two guys. I think they're both brilliant musicians. I'm sure they're good people. But if you look at their interviews through time, the answers are largely echoing one another and I didn't want that. I wanted real, visceral responses and I said the same thing to Jac Holzman (Elektra Records founder who signed The Doors) I said, "Listen, I want you to go off script. I want real answers." And I said that right before the camera rolled. I think that threw him, but I also think he respected it. I could be wrong. There's no point in regurgitating the same sampled replies. We want new information.

Q - Jac Holzman is another guy I tried to interview when he released his autobiography. He told me unless I had different questions that he had not been asked before, he wasn't interested. I couldn't guarantee that. So, the interview never happened. But I would think when you're trying to promote a book, you rise to the occasion and talk.

A - I agree. There's a strange kind of insulation that is built up around Jim. It could be argued that could apply to any mythic figure, but there's something different with Jim, not that I've studied any supposedly dead Rock stars the way I have Jim. I haven't. But there's a strange proprietary grip, a collective grip on Jim by those who knew him by and large and I find it surreal and unsettling. And again, to each their own. We all have our subjective opinions and our take on what Jim represented, who is was and why. But it's fascinating that so many of those thousand people I communicated with, the irony is they each came away with a different Jim. So, they all seem to have this fierce proprietary hold on him in terms of what he meant to them and symbolized to them regarding their friendship or their acquaintance. But ironically, when I look at my notes from the countless interviews, I see a different Jim walking away from each experience with each person.

Q - Did you talk to Bill Siddons?

A - (laughs) Yes and no. How do I say this tactfully and being explicit as I said earlier? I was in touch with Siddons for a number of months, e-mails and phone calls. I even met with him in person at one point, attempting to schedule an interview. I had an interview nearly set to go with Bill through his representative and Bruce Botnick and on and on down the line, a number of Doors insiders. It was shocking to me that one by one, like a domino effect, they all pulled out on me within a cluster of weeks. I thought to myself clearly something is awry here. (laughs) It was a good year and a half, two years later that I was told by someone, let's just say who was hugely dialed into the situation, and this person told me, you didn't hear this from me, but Jeff Jampol had instructed those individuals not to work with me, not to be interviewed by me. At the risk of sounding dramatic, it was later confirmed when Ronnie Haron, the woman who booked The Doors infamously, gave The Doors their huge break at the Whiskey A Go Go in 1966, I was set to interview her. We were working on scheduling an interview. I was going to interview her on a bar stool on the Whiskey stage under a single spotlight. I thought it would have been wonderful and fitting. She said to me, "Jeff Jampol told me not to work with you. So, I'm not going to." This was on the phone and I remember saying, "If Jampol told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?" (laughs) She said, "Goodbye," and hung up on me. These are the kinds of roadblocks I've gone up against countless times.

Q - You of course know that The Doors asked Bill Siddons to go over to Paris to investigate rumors of Jim Morrison's death. Bill Siddons walks into a room, at least that's what we've been told, where there is a closed coffin. Why didn't one of the guys in The Doors go to Paris? And people wonder why there is all this mystery surrounding Jim Morrison.

A - Believe me, I'm right there with you and I've thought about this hundreds of times. I've stayed up nights, staring at the ceiling about it. Every scenario you could throw at me I'm sure I've stared at the ceiling in the dead of night, contemplating. It could be argued that Siddons was the manager, so that should be the representative to fly to Paris. There have been countless rumors through the years that I'm sure you know, "Oh, Jim's dead," or "Jim is dying somewhere." The rumors through the rumor mill had been pretty consistent throughout the Doors' career. So, I think at that point, Manzarek, Densmore and Kreiger all thought, "Oh, here we go again." I can't blame them for not physically jumping on a plane and going over there. But, what is fascinating to me, and I explore this in Before The End: Searching For Jim Morrison, the way I could put it at this point, again not wanting to risk a spoiler alert, I through my research have discovered that there was another entity involved, another person was sent to Paris in advance of Siddons, a full twenty-four hours before Siddons. That's as much as I can say about that right now, but it's in the film.

Q - Did any of Jim's family go to France? And I'm not talking 1971, but after 1971 to find out what happened?

A - That's another facet to this diamond, this black diamond that is Morrison's life and alleged death. Again, it could be argued that we don't have a chronology of every movement that was made by every member of the Morrison family through the years. So, as far as you and I know and when Anne (Jim's sister) was married to Alan Graham, they're no longer married, let's say in 1972 perhaps they flew to Paris to pay respects at the grave. We don't know. It has not been documented. I have no record of Andy or Anne Morrison having visited the grave. I'm trying to recall my notes of Andy which was October of 2012. I can't recall if we went there, but I do know that the mother and father did visit at one point. I can't recall (when). I want to say it was the 1980s and there's a picture you can find floating online of Jim's parents. They're both wearing raincoats and the mother has a hat on and the father might as well. So, they did in fact visit the grave.

Q - Jim's parents could have asked for Jim to be exhumed to see if he's really buried, but they didn't. Why they didn't is another mystery on top of a mystery.

A - It's fascinating. July 3rd of 2001 marked the 30 year expiration date if you will of the lease on the crypt. The lease was up. The rumors had been out there for quite awhile, are they going to exhume Jim's would-be remains and have them what? Transferred to California? The mind boggled. I remember at that time walking on pins and needles, wondering what move were they going to make? Sure enough, July 3rd, 2001 came and went and nothing was done. As I later learned from Andy, the Morrison family worked out a new deal with the powers that be at Pere Lachaise Cemetery. And not to sound cynical, Jim's grave, as I last heard reported, is the 3rd largest tourist attraction in France, behind the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. So, let's face it, it's a moneymaker. It generates revenue and I don't know how that transfers down to the Morrison estate, but the grave remains in place.

Q - You're not charged to go into the cemetery, are you? We're talking tourism, correct?

A - Sure. Tourism in general. Obviously Jim's grave is a huge destination for fans and curious onlookers and has been from day one.

Q - Do we know if anyone from the Rock press at the time went over to Paris to investigate Jim's death?

A - It's really amazing. There's a woman who was interviewed in No One Here Gets Out Alive, Rosanna Norton, who was known as Rosanna White at that time, and she was a lover of Jim's in the early, early Doors days, post UCLA, in that gap. And she says on the record in the film, "It's really strange. When he died, I remember there being next to no press about it or television about it. What is this?" And she wondered if there was some kind of black-out, a media black-out put in place because clearly six days transpired between when Jim was allegedly buried and the news was made public. So, that could be interpreted as a media black-out right there. Siddons of course famously is on the record with that, saying they needed to take their time to help Pamela Courson (Jim's girlfriend at the time of his Paris stay) to grieve and get everything in order and get her back to the States. They didn't want Jim's death to be, I believe Siddons used the term, "circus." They didn't want it to be the media circus that had enveloped the deaths of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin. So, out of respect to Jim, they wanted to do it in a quieter, more controlled way.

Q - Danny Sugerman told me he never wrote No One Here Gets Out Alive to lead people to believe Jim Morrison was alive.

A - I find that ironic. (laughs) And maybe he did. I don't know. I bought No One Here Gets Out Alive when I was 18 years old. It was on my periphery for years. I'd seen fellow classmates reading it. I'd heard people talking about it. I remember one girl in the study hall literally telling me, "You need to read this book!" and pointing to it. It took me a long time, but I finally came around to it. I read it in one night. I remember closing the book and saying in my mind, there's no way in Hell that guy died when they said he died. I didn't believe it for a minute.

Q - You were in touch with Jerry Hopkins, who interviewed Jim for Rolling Stone.

A - It was all through e-mail. He was one of the first people I reached out to because I have my uneven response to his book. Parts of it were brilliant, honestly, and parts of it were bullshit. It's much like life itself. It seems to reflect the absurd dynamics of life itself. But anyway, he and I were in e-mail contact and I always took that as a benediction that he said "I heard about your project. I really respect what you're doing. You're going for the real truth, 'cause there's the truth and there's the real truth, or as I say, the truest truth."

Q - Jerry Hopkins told you, "There's the truth and there's the real truth."?

A - Yes. I remember him saying "You're going for the real truth," and we sort of riffed on that, on how there's those public relations generated truths. As I say in the film, Jim's life at this point has become like a series of campfire stories that have been passed down through the generations. Of course, like any campfire story, versions evolve and morph and change. So you really have to ask, who knows what the truth is at this point? That's why I'm trying to get to the truest truth. But, Hopkins said he was happy for me and wished me the best with the project and said he applauded what I was doing. That meant a lot to me. I was so hoping to interview him as you did. He said, "Well, you know I live in Thailand now." And I said, "Oh! That's going to be a little tricky," because I wanted an in-person interview, not a Skype or Facetime interview or video interview. I really wanted to be in the room with the person if possible. He told me at that point his daughter lived in Southern California and he visited her from time to time and maybe we could meet at Barney's Beanery, Jim's old haunt, and do a meet up there. But, it never came to pass and then he sadly left the planet a few years ago.

Q - But really Jeff, what could Jerry Hopkins tell you about Jim Morrison?

A - What's fascinating, and this is documented and it's out there and has been for a few decades already; The original manuscript for No One Here Gets Out Alive was like as thick as a phone book, I believe was the quote. It had been rejected by Warner Books and countless other publishers until Warner ironically published it after Sugarman came onboard. And so I joked with Jerry in the e-mails, something to the effect that, "I would give anything to see your original manuscript and your research notes." He said, "Oh, they're voluminous." I said, "I hear that," because I'd already been however long in my own research. So, that's what always struck me. I would love to see No One Here Gets Out Alive released in some semblance of an anniversary edition, akin to the director's cut, an unedited, uncensored director's cut of a film. I would like to see that in the form of Hopkins' book with all his original research notes intact. It would be a fascinating read.

Q - What do we know about Pamela Courson (Jim's common-law wife)?

A - In No One Here Gets Out Alive they discuss how Jim wrote to Bob Greene, The Doors' accountant, and requested credit cards be made out separately in his name and Pam's name. I unearthed a manuscript that was written by Max Fink (Jim's Attorney) before he died. He was writing a book about his time as a Celebrity Attorney in general and his time with Jim and The Doors in particular. In his manuscript I learned that part of Jim's whole MO (Modus Operandi) for going to Paris beyond the obvious to escape Hollywood, fame and The Doors, was to break up with Pam. They'd already been platonic for two years. He wanted to make a clean break. But as Fink noted in the transcript, Jim had a hard time with separation anxiety and letting go. So, it was his belief that he was ending it with Pam, but would still probably support her which totally fits the profile of why Jim wanted these credit cards made out separately. So, in other words, I think he ended it with her officially, but he still supported her. I interviewed Salli Stevenson, who did one of the last famous interviews for Circus (magazine). She said that Jim told her himself, because they'd become lovers, "I know it's wrong, but I feel responsible for Pam because she was so young when we met and I brought her into this life." So, the puzzle pieces fit.

Q - I read somewhere that six weeks after Jim's reported death, Jim walks into a bank in Louisiana and withdraws money. He signs his name James Morrison and no one raised an eyebrow. How does Jim Morrison get from Paris to Louisiana? What did he use for identification? What did he use for a passport?

A - At one point I went as far as to hire a private investigator. This guy was right out of Central Casting. He was a grizzled, old, hard-boiled, private investigator. He had a grizzly voice. I even do an impression of him in the film endearingly. He was a really good guy. We talked on the phone a number of times. This was way back early on in the process. I said, "I know you're gonna laugh and think this sounds crazy, but, can I hire you to find Jim Morrison?" (laughs) Then we got into it. I think he said he'd been doing this for forty-five years at this point and he knew who Jim Morrison was. He said, "I want you to think about this. We're talking 1971. It's easy to fake your death now," meaning 2013 I believe. Imagine 1971 when there was no Internet. There was no digital paper trail. This is back before States and countries were using the holographic process, your driver's license and your passport to do away with fraud. This is 1971. All you needed was money. You got a new driver's license, new passport and new identity. You're gone. If he's alive you'll never find him especially if he doesn't want to be found." It just chilled me to the bone to think of it. And that always stayed with me. Eventually I did hire another private investigator who helped me dig deep and that's in the film and that investigator is part of the film. A lot of what I put in Before The End is available information. I just feel like I'm the one who came along and collated and honed it into a razor sharp edge. A lot of these people sort of danced around passively-aggressively about Jim and hinted at this and that over the years. I said, "Enough! We're all adults here. Let's cut to the chase. Let's break on through, as it were, and get to the truth!"

Q - Have you left anything on the cutting room floor?

A - Oh, my gosh Gary. The running joke is; one of Jim's real good friends told me at one point that I think you now know more about Jim's life than Jim knew himself. We laughed. I said, "I highly doubt that, but thanks for the compliment." But yeah, that translates into just hundreds of hours of interviews and footage. The film has been cut down to a four hour docu-series, but I could have gone three times as long. I crisscrossed the U.S. six times in the last eight years to interview those who knew him from Florida to Alexandria, Virginia to Northern California to Chicago. Back and forth, crisscrossing the states. It's my hope that some day I would love to have the full, uncensored compendium out there for the fans to absorb.

Q - I would think HBO would be a good outlet for your project.

A - I can't say names right now, but let's just say I am in talks with a number of the major networks where we're finalizing a number of items. The legal process alone was mind boggling. I learned more about the U.S. legal process than I ever fathomed in all my days. You have what's referred to as a clearance log when you make a film like this and there were thousands and thousands of, they use the term "elements", thousands of elements that needed to be cleared before the film could be finalized.

Q - What did you think of Oliver Stone's movie on The Doors? At the very end of the film he never gave us a definitive answer on what happened to Jim. I was disappointed.

A - I was too. Initially I was thrilled that the film was just finally made after all the years in development hell, as they say. All due respect to Oliver Stone, he was making a biopic, a subjective it could be argued, fictional account of Jim's life. It wasn't a documentary. At the same time Stone is a brilliant guy and an extremely talented film maker. He of all people knew that many people, especially young people, would take that at face value. In the ensuing years, and the work on my documentary I've had to do a lot of reverse engineering in terms of trying to resurrect Jim's legacy, damage control if you will. It's really sad. A guy who was very close to Jim was hired as a consultant on Stone's film. He said that he marched up to Stone with the scripts and said, "Why aren't' you telling the truth about Jim?" And according to this individual, Stone said, "Because the truth doesn't sell." And Stone apparently smiled. The guy dropped the script right in front of him and said, "I quit. I don't want to be a part of this." I don't know if that's true, but that's what was imparted to me.

Q - Jeff, now we come to the all important question: Did Jim Morrison die on July 3rd, 1971?

A - In my research for my film I can tell you with absolution that I do not believe, just as I did not believe in 1985, that Jim died on July 3rd, 1971 or anywhere near it, and I explore that deeply in Before The End: Searching For Jim Morrison.

Official Website: www.BeforeTheEndMovie.com

© Gary James. All rights reserved.


Jim Morrison's Grave at Pere Lachaise Cemetery
Photo courtesy of Kristy Bard

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