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Pamela Susan Courson (December 22 1946 - April 25 1974) was best known as the long-term companion of late Doors' vocalist Jim Morrison. After the deaths of Morrison and Courson, her parents petitioned an out-of-state court to declare that the couple had a common law marriage, despite the fact that theirs was an open relationship, and that Morrison's will described him as "an unmarried person."

Biography

Early life and involvement with Morrison

Courson was born in Weed, California. People who knew Pamela as a child remember her as a reclusive young girl from a family that didn't mix with the neighbors very much. She did well in school until junior high, when records show that her family was contacted about truancy. Pamela hated high school. Her grades went downhill when she was sixteen, and she didn't go back to Orange High for her senior year - she instead went to Capistrano High. That spring she left for Los Angeles, where Pamela and a friend got an apartment. She already had a reputation on the Strip when she met Jim. It has been rumored (and denied) that Neil Young wrote the song "Cinnamon Girl" about her.

One biography states that she and Morrison met at a nightclub on the Sunset Strip in 1965, while Courson was an art student at Los Angeles City College. In his 1998 memoir, Light My Fire: My Life with the Doors, former keyboardist Ray Manzarek stated that Courson and a friend saw the band during their stint at the London Fog, a lesser-known nightclub, and that she was initially courted by Arthur Lee of the Californian band Love, who brought The Doors to the attention of Elektra Records boss Jac Holzman.

In any event, Morrison called Courson his "cosmic mate" and dedicated his self-published books of poetry to her, as well as songs such as "Love Street". Their relationship was tumultuous, with repeated sexual excursions by both partners. In an interview for the book Rock Wives, Patricia Kennealy said of Courson: "I really did like her. She was nice. She wasn't an incredibly towering intellect, but she seemed very sweet and very pretty, very California."

Eve Babitz, a writer whose earlier career of designing rock album covers led to her knowing both Morrison and Courson, said the following about Courson in the March 1991 issue of Esquire: "She was so sweet and sunny and cute that it was hard to believe her purse was stuffed with Thorazine... ." Babitz also claimed that Courson was interested in handguns. During Morrison's 1970 criminal trial in Miami, Courson, remaining in Los Angeles, used so much heroin that, according to Babitz, she was admitted to UCLA Medical Center "dying of malnutrition."

Courson had no job or career of her own while she was with Morrison, other than a brief attempt at running Themis, a fashion boutique that Morrison bought for her. Her death certificate lists her occupation as “women’s apparel.”

Deaths of Morrison and Courson

On July 3, 1971 Morrison was found dead by Courson in the bathtub of an apartment they were sharing in Paris. He was 27 years old. The official coroner's report listed his cause of death as heart failure. However, despite Morrison's age and apparent good health, and the presence of blood in the water, no autopsy was performed. Questions persist over the actual cause of death. As per the stipulation in his will, which stated that he was "an unmarried person", Courson inherited his entire fortune, yet lawsuits against the estate would tie up her quest for inheritance for the next two years. After Courson received her share of Morrison's royalties, she never renewed contact with the remaining Doors members.

After Morrison's death, Courson became a recluse, using heroin and showing signs of mental instability. On April 25 1974, Courson died of a heroin overdose, on the living room couch at the Los Angeles apartment she shared with two male friends. A neighbor said she had talked about looking forward to seeing Jim again soon. Like Morrison, she was 27 at the time of her death. Her parents intended that she be buried next to Morrison at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, and listed this location as the place of burial on her death certificate, but due to legal complications with transporting the body to France, her parents had her remains buried at Fairhaven Memorial Park in Santa Ana, California, under the name "Pamela Susan Morrison." After her death, her parents, Columbus and Penny, inherited Morrison's entire fortune, but their executorship of the estate was later contested by Morrison's parents.

Estate controversy

In his will, made in Los Angeles County on February 12, 1969, Morrison left his entire estate to Courson, also naming her co-executor with his attorney, Max Fink. She thus inherited everything upon Morrison’s death in 1971.

When Courson died, a battle ensued between Morrison’s and Courson’s parents over who had legal claim to Morrison’s estate. Since Morrison left a will, the question was effectively moot. On his death, his property became Courson’s; on her death, her property passed to her next heirs at law, her parents. Morrison's parents contested the will under which Courson and now her parents had inherited their son’s property.

To bolster their positions, Courson’s parents presented a document they claimed she had acquired in Colorado, apparently an application for a declaration that she and Morrison had contracted a common-law marriage under the laws of that state. The ability to contract a common-law marriage was abolished in California in 1896, but the state's conflict of laws rules provided for recognition of common-law marriages lawfully contracted in foreign jurisdictions - and Colorado was one of the 11 U.S. jurisdictions that still recognized common-law marriage. So, as long as a common-law marriage was lawfully contracted under Colorado law, it was recognised as a marriage under California law.

It is not known whether Courson acquired the application before or after Morrison’s death, or indeed whether it was she or her parents who acquired it. In either case, Morrison, who did not fill it out or sign it, may have never known about the document, and neither Morrison nor Courson appear to have ever been residents of Colorado. But those facts would not necessarily be relevant to the court’s deliberation on the validity of a common-law marriage, since the determination would be made according to Colorado law. Many of the jurisdictions which still permitted the common law contract of a marriage provide that either party may demand a declaration that a common law marriage was contracted between them, whether the other party (if living) agrees or not. The burden of proof is on the applicant, in any case, to prove that a marriage existed. What is ironic in this case is that both of the alleged applicants were dead, and it was their parents who were trying to prove or disprove that there had been a common-law marriage.

Whatever the circumstances of the unsigned document and the court case, and the controversy surrounding it, the California probate court decided that Courson and Morrison had a common-law marriage under the laws of Colorado. The effect of the court's ruling was to close probate of Morrison's and Courson's estates, and reinforce the Courson family's hold on inheritance. However, in 1980, the Courson's decided to split Jim Morrison's estate 50%/50% with Jim Morrison's Parents because The Judge and both parties lawyers had noted on James Douglas Morrison's Will, dated February 12, 1969, that after his girlfriend, Pamela Susan Courson, Jim Morrison had named his still beloved Brother, Andy and Sister, Anne; (and thereby his pleasant parents) as secondary beneficiaries. One Half the estate of Jim Morrison went to his family in a "Watershed Case".

Fictional portrayals

Courson was portrayed by Meg Ryan in Oliver Stone's 1991 film, The Doors.

Further reading

• Butler, Patricia, Angels Dance and Angels Die: The Tragic Romance of Pamela and Jim Morrison (2002). Music Sales Corporation.

External links

• Pamela Courson site
• Investigative Findings on the Death of Jim Morrison
• Pamela Courson at Find-a-Grave

1. Esquire, March 1991 cover story
2. Esquire, March 1991 cover story
3. Esquire, March 1991 cover story

• 1946 births
• 1974 deaths
• Deaths by heroin overdose in the United States
• American expatriates in France
• People from California