The Drug-addled First Meeting of Nico and Jim Morrison
- by Sam Kemp
The relationship between Jim Morrison and Nico was not what you would call Kosher. Opening up about her time with The Doors frontman, Nico once said: “I like my relations to be physical and of the psyche. We hit each other because we were drunk and we enjoyed the sensation.”
The intensity of Nico and Morrison’s relationship is the stuff of rock ‘n’ roll titillation, but I doubt many of us would have actually liked to have been around them when they were on one of their downward, drug-induced spirals.
Danny Fields, a publicist who worked with some of the biggest acts of the 1960s and ’70s didn’t have much choice. In 1967, Fields decided he wanted to set Morrison on the straight and narrow, so he decided to introduce him to the actress, model and the Velvet Underground member at his home in the Hollywood hills. Recalling that tempestuous first meeting, Fields explained: “I thought I’d bring him up there and then he’d fall in love with Nico, and then he’d see the error of his ways and stop seeing all these slimy little groupies and never settle for a woman less beautiful or mystical or exotic than Nico”.
