Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings was an American businessman known for his close and long-time friendship with John F Kennedy and the Kennedy family.
34 Facts About Lem Billings
2.
Lem Billings served with Sargent Shriver as a trustee for the Kennedy family trusts.
3.
Lem Billings's father was a prominent physician and a graduate of the US Naval Academy.
4.
Lem Billings' first visit with the Kennedy family was for Christmas in Palm Beach in 1933; after that, he joined them for holidays, participated in family events, and was treated like a member of the family.
5.
The Depression had hurt the Billings family financially, and Lem Billings was at Choate on scholarship.
6.
Lem Billings repeated his senior year so that he and Kennedy could graduate from Choate together in 1935.
7.
In 1939, Lem Billings graduated from Princeton where he majored in art and architecture and wrote his senior thesis on Tintoretto.
8.
In 1941, Lem Billings failed medical tests required by the military.
9.
From 1946 to 1948, Lem Billings attended Harvard Business School and earned an MBA.
10.
Lem Billings later had several jobs, including selling Coca-Cola dispensers to drugstores and working at a General Shoe store.
11.
On September 12,1953, Lem Billings was an usher at the wedding of Kennedy and Jacqueline Lee Bouvier.
12.
Lem Billings managed the campaign in the Third Congressional District in the Wisconsin primary and then served as general troubleshooter and coordinator of television in the West Virginia primary.
13.
In 1961, Lem Billings declined Kennedy's offer to appoint him the first head of the Peace Corps, director of a new agency to promote tourism, the US Travel Service, or ambassador to Denmark.
14.
Lem Billings represented the President when the alumni association unveiled Kennedy's portrait at Choate in May 1963.
15.
Lem Billings visited the White House for most weekends during the Kennedy Administration.
16.
Lem Billings sat with the President's family at the Kennedy inauguration and walked not far behind his widow at the Kennedy funeral.
17.
Lem Billings accompanied the President to church, launched a kite for the President's daughter Caroline, and delivered pet hamsters to the Kennedy children.
18.
Lem Billings joined the President's entourage for his tours of Europe in both 1961 and 1963.
19.
Lem Billings needed Billings to keep the President company while she went horseback riding.
20.
Lem Billings didn't want to share his friendship with Jack.
21.
Lem Billings spent less time with the President in the fall of 1963.
22.
Lem Billings saw the President for the last time when they dined at the White House with Greta Garbo on November 13,1963, nine days before the President's assassination in Dallas.
23.
Friends from the 1970s confirmed that Lem Billings was homosexual, but not open to discussing it.
24.
Kennedy knew that homosexual behavior on the part of Lem Billings had been revealed by a fellow Choate student during their years there.
25.
Lem Billings had interests of his own that Jack didn't necessarily share.
26.
In 1964, Lem Billings was named to select a memorial to Kennedy to be placed in the Kennedy Center.
27.
Lem Billings escorted Jean Kennedy Smith, sister of the President, to a gala ballet performance in 1966 and Ethel Kennedy, the president's sister-in-law, to the 1971 opening of the Kennedy Center.
28.
Lem Billings maintained close ties to the Kennedys and their children for the rest of his life, frequently socializing with Bobby Kennedy Jr.
29.
Lem Billings served for many years along with Sargent Shriver as a trustee for the Kennedy family trusts, working from an office in the Pan Am Building.
30.
In 1987, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin described how Lem Billings structured her interviews with him.
31.
Lem Billings then prepared responses and read them aloud to her.
32.
On May 28,1981, Lem Billings died in his sleep following a heart attack in his Manhattan apartment.
33.
Lem Billings's dying wish was for the young Kennedy men to carry his casket to its final resting place.
34.
Lem Billings is buried in Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.