Gary James' Interview With
Jim Morrison's brother-in-law
Alan Graham



Alan Graham was part of the inner circle of the Morrison family. He was married to Jim Morrison's sister, Ann. As a member of the Morrison family, Alan was privy to information that the outside world could only guess about. Alan served as a consultant to Oliver Stone's film The Doors. I talked with Alan Graham about one of Rock's enduring legends, Jim Morrison.

Q - Oliver Stone would have us believe that Jim Morrison was always drunk or stoned. How true is that?

A - Let's face it; he drank like a miner, somebody who works hard all day. But there were times when he just had one or two drinks. If he didn't have a little buzz on, he was very, very insecure. In fact, he never performed straight. He was drunk a lot. And, he was drunk from morning 'til night quite a bit. But there were other times when he was quite lucid and just went to bed normally like everybody else. But he had a serious alcohol problem. Not drugs as much as constant Bourbon or Jack Daniels. He drank religiously. He always had a little hip flask somewhere. In the winter, he'd have a big, black pea coat with a bottle of Jack Daniels in one of the pockets and a book and pen. He'd write and drink all day. He died I believe of that and something else. He was a very, very sad person in the end, because he was abandoned. He never had the right tools anyway to live in L.A., which is a city that eats you. Morrison came from a very middle class family. He was not a rebel. (Laughs.) He only did that for four or five years. But, what a change! He was Clark Kent. That was what Morrison was. He lived in a big room, in Florida, in his grandmother's house and the whole floor was books, four feet high around him, like a fort. He was Clark Kent most of his life, then he was a Rock star! A super Rock star! A total contradiction you know.

Q - Where did you meet Ann Morrison?

A - I met Ann Morrison in London, in 1966, when she was on a sabbatical from the University of Florida and she was working in London for three months. Her father had just made Admiral and was stationed at the Naval Building in London. I met my wife just through another American girl.

Q - You didn't know she was Jim Morrison's sister?

A - No, didn't know, and didn't find out 'til she told me, "I have two brothers, one is Andy, he's here in London, with me and the other one, my brother Jim, he disappeared some time ago and we don't know where he is. My dad was gonna try to get him to go into the military, but he didn't want to do that. Then, he had a problem with the draft board. We don't know where he is. The F.B.I. is looking for him."

Q - She told you that in 1966?

A - Yeah. Late 1966.

Q - "Light My Fire" hadn't even been released yet.

A - Well, in England it hadn't. Then, her father, the Admiral, got stationed back to Washington, D.C. to the Pentagon. And when they came back to America, Morrison was famous. They sent an album in the mail to us, just as a complete surprise to us. They didn't tell us either. Ann saw for the first time, her brother on the first album, with "Light My Fire" on it. I came from work and she started playing it for me. She said, "Do you like this music?" I said, "Yeah. It's Rock 'n' Roll." We were just completely blown away. Then she said, "It's my brother," and was crying big tears. So that's how we found out.

Q - Prior to that, had you ever heard of Jim Morrison?

A - Never heard of him.

Q - Did Ann ever talk about growing up in the Morrison household?

A - Yeah, she did.

Q - We never hear anything about Morrison's early days.

A - And you never will, because the Morrisons had a pact. Ann, Andy, and myself, never to talk to the press about that kind of thing because Morrison would have wished that. However, now he's dead, and nobody knows, and I think there's a couple of juicy things people should know.

Q - Why wouldn't Ann or Andy at least write a book? Janis Joplin's sister wrote a book and said that by holding back information, you actually allow others to come along and distort the truth.

A - Well, that was my argument with the Admiral the whole twenty-five years I was inside the Morrison family. Why don't we write a book? He'd say, "Well, we don't want to." Danny Sugarman, who was fifteen when Jim died, makes all of this stuff up, lies about Jim, and (Ray) Manzarek helps him. There's not one book that has told the truth or anything about the inside of Morrison's family because this grip of secrecy that went on. It was a pact. Ann Morrison will go to the grave with that same pact. So will Andy Morrison. Although once in a while, he gets drunk and says something. Over the years he's made a few comments to the press, but not very much. Once again, they consider any input into the already snake pit, the quagmire of Morrison B.S. Books and everything else would only be to contribute to it. I said, if you come out and tell the truth and talk about the reality of it, then people will know the real truth. Then, you won't have to live with all this fake B.S. But they still choose not to speak. And in a way, I must admire them for that. In the end, they don't want millions of dollars. They've got enough and they've got a lot of class. You've got to admire that. I think it takes a great deal not to talk to the press. I love to talk to the press. But they have this thing. They're too broken up about Jim's death, still. They're too disgusted with the Oliver Stone movie and they're absolutely appalled at the way the media handles dead Rock stars and he's one of them. Everyday that mother has to live with it, that father has to live with it, that sister, and that brother. They have to live with this constant raking over of B.S. lies. A lot of it is true, don't get me wrong, but a lot of it is not Jim Morrison. There's another Jim Morrison.

Q - Is the family ashamed in any way of Jim?

A - I think to this day the Admiral is still very angry with him for not becoming what he could've been. He was smarter than his dad and his dad is a genius you know, has a very high 1.Q. Jim had the capabilities of becoming one of the first nuclear admirals, like Zumwalt and Morrison had the stuff to do that. The Admiral knew it and was very, very angry about that. I don't think he ever got over that. To some degree, he ruined the Admiral's career, because you've got this Rock star doing all this anarchy stuff and this guy whose just made Admiral and he's an unusual Admiral, because he's one of the youngest in the history of the United States Navy. He's got a brain on him for nuclear and he's got a brain on him for math. He's a very valuable Admiral. He got passed over after ten years and I think it was directly the result of Jim Morrison's behavior and standing in the world as an anarchist, revolutionary, hippie. I think the Admiral is a bit ashamed of that, yeah. Ann is not. She loves him, no matter what. Unconditional love. Andy I think resents Jim, because every time somebody talks to him, it's "Hey, your brother, man. You're good, but your brother..." You get what is like considered the second place syndrome, where you're always second. He lives that a bit, because that's the way he's known even though he's an individual. He's very funny. He's very talented. He's very bright. He doesn't act very bright. He acts stupid. He drinks a lot. He acts angry. But he's a very, very bright person. I think he resents Jim's fame. He's kind of jealous I think.

Q - Surely by now the Admiral must realize the contribution Jim made to the world of music. Jim Morrison was an original.

A - No, not at all. Listen, that's a very good question. I'll tell you why I say that too. There's millions of people adoring Morrison from one corner of the world to another. The Admiral can't see the value of that, because he thinks the value of Jim Morrison should have been that young Admiral, Admiral Jim Morrison. The hippie B.S., the free love, and Rock 'n' Roll is just temporary. It'll go away after the summer. As far as poetry, the Admiral doesn't consider art, like painting or poetry or anything like that. It's okay. It's tolerable. But it does not contribute to somebody's work. He suffers from the work ethic. If you didn't work hard and it didn't take you fifty years to get it, then it ain't worth it. In one way, it's right. But in a lot of ways, it's wrong. The new generation always proves different to the old. I don't think he could ever buy that.

Q - When did you fist meet Jim?

A - I met him when we flew into Los Angeles in June, 1968. We stayed at an uncle's place in San Diego for a day or two. Uncle Andy Richards. He was a Commander. He was a long-time friend of the Morrisons. That's where our base was for all the Morrison family. We stayed with him for a few days, then we drove up to Los Angeles. Jim didn't know we were driving up. He didn't know his sister was in America. We called up The Doors' office and said, "Where's Morrison? This is his sister and brother-in-law. We've just come in and we're gonna surprise him." They said he's flying in from Dallas on this plane. He's doing some shows and was doing something on the radio down there. That's where "I want to tell you about Texas radio and the Big Beat" came. When he got off the plane, that's what he was talking to us about. "Man, I was on the radio, and I was doing this thing." That's where the inspiration from that song came. So we met him at the airport and we walked up alongside him. We recognized him coming off the plane. I didn't. She did from his picture. The only picture we had was that big face from his first album. He was in a 1940s World War II bomber jacket with black leather and sheepskin fur. It was like Mae West in the heat. It was kind of incongruous. I said, "What about this coat?" He said, "It's so hot man, but I just love this coat. A fan gave it to me." So that's the way I met Jim Morrison.

Q - What was your first impression of him?

A - That he was an arrogant punk, but very bright. He was the first punk. His attitude offstage was that of an angry Hamlet, but it was punk. He asked me what I thought of America. I said I thought it was boring and too big. I couldn't find anything. Everything was big. I couldn't eat anything 'cause it was four times bigger than I was used to. Cars were bigger, and we laughed about that. He said as we drove over to Hollywood on the Santa Monica Freeway and looked down, "This is where the revolution is gonna start. Right here." (Laughs.) It was a wild thing. The revolution never did come.

Q - Not yet anyway.

A - Not then anyway. Even though I thought he was an arrogant punk, I loved him. He was my age. He was doing all this wild stuff. He was very, very hot, but he wasn't big yet. He was just getting big in America.

Q - And probably bigger on the West Coast then the East Coast.

A - He was big in London. It's the weirdest thing. Before we even left for America to see him, we knew he was famous. We went to see The Byrds in London. A couple of them had seen him at a concert. I said, "Look, this is his sister" to the guy. The Byrds looked at me, and (Roger) McGuinn went, "What, that's Jim Morrison's sister? You're kidding me?" We were just stoked because in the in-crowd like The Byrds and all of those other people, he was famous. He was the L.A. Stones. Do you know what I mean? He hadn't been to England yet. But I was impressed. Very impressed. He could have a conversation with three people at the same time. That's how bright he was. He was a good energy to be around. You knew that his was not an ordinary cat. This was a very different, very bright person. Very generous, very open. Made sure everybody in the crowd had a beer. He wouldn't go on until everybody did have one. Very democratic. Gave everything to everybody, until Miami.

Q - Did Jim expose himself in Miami?

A - No. He never did. He zipped his zipper down. But before he zipped his zipper down, he put the microphone down the front of his belt and he pulled the microphone out of his zipper and he was going back and forth, like we used to do in the shower with a towel, jokingly. That's what he was doing. Some religious bouncer thought it was obscene and pushed him into the crowd. The crowd threw him back up on the stage. The concert was canceled and he went home and thought that was the end of it. Three days later they indicted him on a misdemeanor. It was a religious group that decided to do something about it. A politician and a judge picked up on it. There was gonna be a barbecue. Morrison was the meat. Jackie Gleason got in on it. Anita Bryant got in on it. A Decency Rally came about. That whole hysteria was whipped up. Morrison was the sacrificial lamb. He knew it. He never thought he would get convicted. Nobody did. Max Fink (Morrison's attorney) was arrogant at the trial. He didn't think he would get convicted.

Q - Why haven't the parents of Pamela Courson (Jim's girlfriend) ever spoken to the press?

A - Well, they were devastated too by the Oliver Stone movie. It made her look worse than she was. I'll tell you the honest truth, I didn't like the woman, at all, and I don't like her parents to this day. I think they're arrogant and living in denial. But that movie tore that little girl to shreds and made her worse than she was. In the end, I can say one good thing about Pamela Courson; she was the first person to encourage Morrison to write poetry, long before he was finalized with The Doors. She said, "You should work on your poetry", and he loved her for that. Of course she got an undying love for that. But she was a little gold digger. She was paranoid. She was a heroin addict. She was a user. She was a loser. And she was absolutely jealous of him. In a way, I can understand because he gave everything away. She was not like that. She was very selfish. Certain people are giving away types. Other people are cheap and penny-pinching. I did not like the girl at all. I felt very bad. I think she had something to do with his death.

Q - What did Jim Morrison see in Pamela?

A - He saw his mother. She was a nagger. She nagged and nagged and nagged, from the time the sun came up 'til the time the sun went down. Always nagging. She was always saying "Jim, Jim you've got to do this. You've got to change your clothes." That's what his mother did. She was always concerned that he walked around with a dirty leather coat on. That was his look. (Laughs.) She was trying to clean him up. His mother tried to do that all his life and never did. He never had a job in his life either, 'til that Rock band.

Q - You say that Lou Adler (Promoter of the Monterey '67 Festival) ripped off Jim Morrison?

A - After Jim died, the estate was doing better. All the record sales started getting bigger. Lou Adler and his brother were remodeling The Roxy (an L.A. nightclub) and they borrowed $850,000 from Jim Morrison's estate. The accountant, Bob Greene, just happened to say, "I can lend you the money. When you fix up the Roxy, you can pay it back to the estate." He didn't get the permission of The Doors. He didn't get permission of the Admiral or the Coursons. Of course it was settled out of court. Lou Adler claims he lost a lot of money, and spent that money remodeling The Roxy. He didn't remodel The Roxy with that. He took it for whatever reasons. The Roxy had a coat of paint and a few lights here and there and they never paid that loan back. It was lost.

Q - When did this happen?

A - That would be like 1981 or 1982. We found out about it in '83. I picketed the Roxy with a bunch of people. A lot of people are scared to say anything about this stuff. But you know I'm not scared, because I don't have anything to lose. They've got all the money and all the big lawyers and all the worries. I'm just being happy with a small mentality that says just live everyday and have a good time with your kids and your life. I'm telling the honest truth about what happened to Jim Morrison. That's just one example of how the estate has been looted by greedy people.

Q - Was Jim burned out at the end of his life?

A - Absolutely.

Q - His body and health was gone?

A - No. I think he was burned out. I don't think his body was gone. I think he was recuperating. He had asthma, you know, as a young man.

Q - How bad was it?

A - Pretty bad, but it cleared up. They moved out to California and New Mexico for it, and he was fine. But I think that was also a contributing factor to his death.

Q - For those few months that Jim lived in Paris, what was his daily routine like?

A - It would be the same as everywhere. He'd get up and eat breakfast and have a double cognac with it. These professional drinkers, they can go all day and not even look drunk. Essentially it would be drinking beer in the early day, or wine, and at some point in the evening, alcohol. The last time I saw him, he would black out of course, and always be disgustingly like everybody who drinks, a mess. It was a sorry state to see. He was in a degenerative state, a lot brought on by his drinking, but mostly brought on by the friends he thought were friends, melting down around him. That was very heavy for him to watch. He watched a lot of angry people, angry at him. He showed up late. He trashed things. He did this wild stuff and it was a problem to them. I think they finally got sick of it like Pamela got sick of it. He was a bad drunk. I get mad when I see kids thinking 'Woke up this morning and I got myself a beer.' Yeah Morrison, right on. I hate that. I don't think Morrison realized the full extent of what that means, what that signal says to young minds to go out and get polluted, like there's no future. That's not a very good ethic. It's not a very good way to live your life. I don't think that anybody should put that message out.

Q - Alan, it's just a song. It shouldn't be taken so seriously.

A - Yeah, but that's the whole point of it, don't you see? Serious people don't. But minds that aren't formed or don't have any father influence, or have a gang mentality, they just come to it, like moths to a light. They don't have any function that says, "This is not good." They don't have any software that says, "I have my own rules. I have my own policeman. I have these set of criteria I live by." They don't have that data. They have nothing. The only thing they have is some Rock star telling them to do this. It's a joke.

Q - How did you get the news that Jim died?

A - Sitting in my house. I got a call from Commander Richards. He was the family friend. He said, "Alan, I just heard something on the L.A. news saying Morrison is dead." I called up the news station and they said, "Yeah, a bulletin is coming on right now." It was on the radio. My wife didn't hear it. She was outside talking to a neighbor. Andy Morrison, just five minutes earlier, had been playing around in my front yard with his car. We'd have this game where we'd just drive on the front lawn and just leave the engine running. He'd done that a few minutes earlier. I'm on the phone and now I gotta tell him and my wife that Jim's dead. I said to my wife, "I gotta talk to you." I had this look on my face. I didn't cry, but she was looking at me like, "What?" I couldn't tell her. And she said in the end, "What is it?" I said, "It's Jim." And, she knew right away. Her eyes, it wasn't just like one tear, it was like a waterfall. It was a very emotional time. She still asked, "What?" I said, "Jim's dead." As I said that, the radio came on and said, "Jim Morrison has been found dead." That's how we found out. Then, I had to go downtown and look all over for Andy. I said. "C'mon home," and he was joking and sparring with me. I said, "I gotta talk to you seriously," and he didn't believe me. He looked at me, and I said, "It's Jim. He's gone." He just jumped in his car, and he was only eighteen or nineteem at the time, and tore down to the beach. I saw him in the liquor store later getting a bottle of liquor. Then he was driving around town kind of crazy. About two hours later I saw the police dragging him off the beach, drunk. He flipped the cop off something as he went by him. So he spent the night in jail the day his brother died. All of us were totally devastated.

Q - Did the press descend on your house when the news broke?

A - No. They were very, very conservative. We didn't get one call from the press. The media thought Morrison's parents were dead. It was only a few underground people who knew he was the son of an Admiral really. Most people thought he was an L.A. street gang member. They didn't know he came from a good family. They knew nothing about him.

Q - If Jim died on July 3rd, 1971, why did we hear about it six days later, on July 9th?

A - Jim Morrison died on July 3rd and the next day was July 4th. We only heard about it ourselves on July 6th. It wasn't reported to the press until the third day, because Pamela had kept it a secret for those three days so she could get her stuff in order, so she could get back to America. The day she left from Paris to America was July 6th. That's when it was reported to the press. And only at the burial.

Q - Did any of the family members travel to Paris?

A - No. The Admiral and his wife were stationed in Guam and we found out about it three days after he was buried. So, how could anybody go there? The only person who knew of course, was Bill Siddons (Doors Road Manager), The Doors, and Pamela's parents. The only two people who were at the scene of the burial were Marianne Faithfull, the Rock star junkie, and Agnes Varda, the screenwriter and director from France. She was this avant-garde film director. Bill Siddons wasn't there. I don't know what went on there, but I think if the Marianne Faithfull and Pamela Courson syndrome prevailed, it would be the use of heroin.

Q - Did Ann or Andy want to go to Paris?

A - No. Well, we didn't know, because he was three days in the grave before we found out. For a long time Clara Morrison (Jim's mother), believed like I did, that Pamela let him have the heroin and let him die. She was very angry with that. There was always friction between Pamela's parents and the Morrison's. The Admiral always had to bite his lip when he was in a meeting. It was kind of embarrassing. The point is nobody knew that Jim died. So, how could anybody go there?

Q - How about having him exhumed after that three-day period?

A - Well, the funny thing about French law is, the only person who could have exhumed him is Pamela.

Q - I suppose that still holds true for today?

A - Well, no. What's happened is, there's been a new uprising. There's been a bunch of drunk people who go there every July 3rd and wreck the cemetery and deface the grave. So they've put in cameras and the Morrisons spent all this money on the special machine to keep off graffiti from other gravestones. But soon, he's moving out. They're moving him out of there.

Q - So, we will find out if it's really Jim Morrison in that grave?

A - Yeah.

Q - Despite all of the references you've made to Jim being dead in this interview, there's still some doubt isn't there?

A - There's a doubt with me. There's a doubt that it may not be him. 'Til I die, until I see something different, just because of the circumstances.

Q - What does Ann think?

A - I think she doesn't think about it anymore.

Q - Was there a death certificate?

A - Yes there was.

Q - Was there an autopsy?

A - No autopsy. Pamela said he didn't have any relatives in America. He was just another drunk hippie with long hair. She said, "He was my boyfriend. I knew him for three years," or whatever. She gave the statement to the cops. Then she went to the American Embassy and said, "Here's his passport." Then the Navy found out and said, "What's going on here! He's the son of Admiral Morrison. You told us he was nobody and he wasn't anybody famous. You bring all his papers, his passport, his birth certificate, his death certificate, into the office. We have to write to the Admiral." Well, she sent it into the office. Didn't show up. Then, she disappeared back to America. So we knew something was up just by her hysterical behavior,

Q - You maintain that when Pam found the body, she did not recognize it as being Jim.

A - Right. It was bloated. Evidently he'd been in the bathtub a long time, several hours. The bath was warm, and it made his body blue.

Q - What did the police say?

A - All the police ever said was, "Who is this?" in French. And she had Agnes Varda say, "It's Jim Morrison. Here's his passport." It's a bearded guy and there's a dead bearded guy in the bathtub. That was the only identification that was ever done. It was appalling when you think about it.

Q - So, we really don't know if that was Jim Morrison in the bathtub?

A - Nobody knows.

Q - You say there was a Morrison look-a-like in Paris?

A - Yeah. There was a guy who was always arguing with him in Paris, a German guy called Dieter something. A lot of people will deny this fact, but he was at one time thrown out of a restaurant because they thought he was Morrison. He borrowed Morrison's jacket or shirt and was always hangin' around, sponging off Morrison. For awhile they said it was his twin. See, nobody knows. It could've been that guy.

Q - Alan, again, do you think Jim Morrison is alive?

A - Well, in this day and age, I don't know. As far as I'm concerned, it's possible. The only person who knows is Pamela Courson (who died of a drug overdose in 1974). Don't forget the body was put on ice overnight. The morgues were closed. It was left on Saturday and Sunday night 'til Monday morning and his body was really blue. She never saw it. Nobody saw that body 'til it came from the morgue in the coffin, ready for the funeral. Pamela wouldn't look at it. Nobody looked at it. The likelihood that it could've been somebody else is extremely high and Morrison could've seen it and went into hiding and said this is my chance to get away from all this.

Q - Get away from all of what?

A - His life and the people around him. I don't want to be the person who says he's alive in Africa somewhere. As sure as the Admiral is not at peace with himself, neither am I. I don't know. I can't say he's dead. Nobody knows anything except the girl that put him in that coffin and that was Pamela and she's dead. The others were junkies. It could've been anybody in that coffin. Nobody knew where they were, 'cause they were all on heroin, including Pamela, smacked up at the funeral. It could have been a perfect road for escape for Morrison.

© Gary James. All rights reserved.

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