Jim Morrison bust stolen from his Paris grave in 1988 has been found
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PARIS — Police have found a bust of Jim Morrison that was stolen nearly four decades ago from the Paris grave that has long been a place of pilgrimage for fans of the legendary Doors singer and poet.
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The bust taken in 1988 from Pere-Lachaise cemetery was found during an unrelated investigation conducted by a financial anti-corruption unit, Paris police said in an Instagram post Monday.
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There was no immediate word on whether the bust would be returned to the grave or what other investigation might take place.
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Morrison, the singer of Doors classics including Light My Fire, Break on Through and The End, was found dead in a Paris bathtub at age 27 in 1971.
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He was buried at Pere-Lachaise, the city's cemetery that is the final resting place of scores of artists, writers and other cultural luminaries including Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein and Edith Piaf.
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The 135-kilogram bust made by Croatian sculptor Mladen Mikulin was added to the grave in 1981 for the 10th anniversary of the singer's death.
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'I think it would be incredible if they put the bust back onto where it was and it would attract so many more people, but the cemetery wouldn't even be able to hold that many people,' Paris tour guide Jade Jezzini told The Associated Press. 'The amount of people who would rush in here just to see the bust to take pictures of it, it would be incredible.'
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Known for his dark lyrics, wavy locks, leather pants, theatrical stage presence and mystical manner, Morrison has inspired generations of acolytes who congregate at his grave to reflect and sometimes to party, including a major gathering for the 50th anniversary of his death. The site has often been covered with flowers, poetic graffiti and liquor bottles left in tribute.
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He was undergoing a cultural renaissance when the bust was stolen in the late 1980s, which peaked with the 1991 Oliver Stone film The Doors, in which Val Kilmer, who died in April, played Morrison.
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London artist Sam Burcher recently returned to the now more subdued grave site that she first visited 40 years ago when the sculpture of Morrison was still in place.
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'The bust was much smaller than all of these grand tombs. It was very modest, so I was quite surprised by that,' she told the AP. 'But the other thing was the atmosphere, it was buzzing. There were people partying, smoking, music, dancing, and then I brought strawberries and kind of gave them out to everyone … it was just such an amazing experience.'
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CTV News
5 hours ago
- CTV News
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A 'lovechild between OnlyFans and OpenAI' OhChat CEO Nic Young described the platform as the 'lovechild between OnlyFans and OpenAI,' in an exclusive interview with CNN. Once activated, the avatars run autonomously, offering 'infinite personalized content' for subscribers. Jordan, for example, is marketed on the platform as 'the ultimate British bombshell.' The tiered subscription model allows users to pay US$4.99 per month for unlimited texts on demand, $9.99 for capped access to voice notes and images, or $29.99 for unlimited VIP interaction. Price, like other creators on the platform, receives an 80 per cent cut from the revenue her AI avatar generates, according to Young. OhChat will keep the remaining 20 per cent. 'You have literally unlimited passive income without having to do anything again,' Young told CNN. The platform 'is an incredibly powerful tool, and tools can be used however the human behind it wants to be used,' he added. 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Globe and Mail
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- Globe and Mail
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Globe and Mail
a day ago
- Globe and Mail
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But at its heart, 28 Years Later is a Stephen King-esque coming-of-age story where death becomes a rite of passage for a child who is surrounded by the undead, anchored by young star Alfie Williams's tender and revelatory performance. His Spike, a 12-year-old boy whose fierce determination is at war with his intense vulnerability, is raised on a quarantined island. The only connection to the British mainland is a well-guarded bridge that can only be crossed at low tide. Negating the international viral spread promised at the end of its predecessor, 28 Years Later depicts a world that has successfully quarantined the pandemic to the U.K. Modern tech such as iPhones and social media have never touched Spike's island, a disconnect that sets up some of the funniest exchanges at the movie's halfway point. Instead, Spike's tight-knit community has reverted back to bows and arrows and working the land – and making raucous pub nights a tribal custom whenever a young lad becomes a man by venturing to the mainland to kill his first infected. What to watch this weekend: The Gilded Age on Crave has costume drama competition on Apple TV+ and BritBox We meet Spike and his father, Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), when they take part in that ritual, navigating the mainland where the infected come in various states of deterioration. There are the slow crawlers, who slurp worms from the ground like appetizers before approaching human prey, alongside the more traditional fast runners. And then there's an Alpha, an evolved leader of the pack who is quicker, stronger and more tactical. Spike and Jamie's tour, scouring for the infected, is rather light on emotional stakes. But Boyle, forever a kinetic filmmaker and stylist, keeps things interesting with a jarring and haunting soundscape scraping together rhythmic radio transmissions from the past and accompanied by scattered archival images from British history – mostly past wars and war movies – disrupting the relative calm and keeping our nerves in a frenzy. When the infected do attack, and Spike and Jamie respond with their arrows, every kill shot is suddenly frozen, the camera rapidly swivelling around to a new position to absorb the violence. It's the visual equivalent of a record scratch Boyle hits maybe one too many times. Just when a sense of familiarity begins to kick in, 28 Years Later really gets going. After narrowly surviving his virgin expedition, Spike leaves the island once again, this time on a mission to save his mother (a brilliant Jodie Comer). The best summer movies of all time, according to our readers She's deteriorating, not from the infection but a different illness ravaging her body and mental state. He's escorting her to find a doctor known to be living in the deadly terrain, whom the islanders speak of in Colonel Kurtz terms. That doctor is played by Ralph Fiennes (crafty as ever), who we find covered head to toe in phosphorescent orange paste, surrounding himself with towers built from skulls and bones, underlining the playful Apocalypse Now references. 28 Years Later patiently builds up to these moments, during which the apocalyptic stakes are eclipsed by the warmth between the characters – their nurturing and protective instincts desperately clinging to joy, levity and the most comforting way to approach death. Boyle, who won the Best Director Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire, has often let his sentimental side get the best of him. 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