21 Celebrities Who Have Killed Someone | Criminal Justice 21 Celebrities Who Have Killed Someone Celebrities who have either admitted to or have been convicted of killing someone…outside of military service or as political leaders, that is. Some have paid the price; others, not so much. Robert Blake On May 4, 2001, actor Robert Blake’s wife Bonnie Lee Bakley was shot and killed while sitting in a car outside a Studio City, California restaurant. Blake claimed to be inside the restaurant at the time, retrieving a gun that he’d left at his table. Almost a year later, Blake was arrested and charged with murder, but despite the testimony of two men who claimed that he tried to recruit them to kill Bakley, Blake was found not guilty by the jury. However, when Bakley’s three children filed a civil suit against Blake in 2005, he was found liable for the wrongful death of his wife and was ordered to pay them $30 million. In April 2008, an appeals court upheld the civil case verdict but cut Blake’s penalty in half.

John Wilkes Booth John Wilkes Booth is known today as the person who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, but before then, he was already a celebrity, nationally known as a theatrical actor. His family was already known on the theater circuit through Booth’s father Junius and older brother Edwin, the latter perhaps the foremost American Shakespearean actor of his day. John Wilkes Booth meanwhile made a name for himself with his energetic performances in roles that were lighter in tone than Edwin’s, and he came to headline plays around the country. He was so well-known and trusted that he had easy access to all parts of Ford Theater in Washington, DC, on April 14, 1865, during a performance of My American Cousin, even though he was not in the play. That evening, at around 10 PM, he slipped into Lincoln’s box and shot the President in the back of the head during the play. He fled to rural Virginia, where he was killed by federal troops 12 days later.

Matthew Brodderick On August 5, 1987, actor Matthew Broderick was driving on a country road in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland with then-girlfriend (and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off co-star) Jennifer Grey when his car veered into the wrong lane, colliding with an oncoming vehicle. The two passengers of the other car — 30-year-old Anna Gallagher and her 63-year-old mother Margaret Doherty — were killed instantly. Broderick spent a month in the hospital but because of memory loss, he was unable to explain what happened. It was determined that the actor wasn’t drunk at the time of the accident, and he was charged with causing death by dangerous driving, although he was eventually convicted only of careless driving, escaping with a $175 fine. Initially upset at the ruling, the victims’ family has since come to terms with it and met with Brodderick in 2003 to gain a sense of closure.

Aaron Burr On the morning of July 11, 1804, Aaron Burr, then the Vice President of the United States, engaged in a duel with former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (and future $10 bill model) in rural Weehawken, New Jersey. The two politicians had a long-standing feud across party lines that came to a head when Hamilton made disparaging remarks about Burr’s qualifications for the governorship of New York, a race that Burr had just lost (having realized that he wouldn’t return for a second term as Vice President). Duels at the time were often just for show, with participants routinely “throwing away their fire” (intentionally missing), but while Hamilton threw away his fire, Burr’s shot found its mark, and Hamilton was mortally wounded. Some historians chalk the death up to miscommunication over the intentions of the duel, with Burr thinking that Hamilton had tried to hit him, while others claim that Burr fully intended on killing Hamilton all along. Because dueling was illegal, Burr was charged with murder, but those charges were later dropped. However, the duel signaled an end to his political career, ironically damaging Burr’s reputation more than anything Hamilton may have said about him. William S.

Burroughs One of the most influential writers of the 20th century, William S. Burroughs shot and killed his common-law wife, Joan Vollmer, on September 6, 1951, in Mexico City. Initially, he claimed that the two had been playing a drunken game of William Tell, with Burroughs attempting to shoot a water glass on Vollmer’s head, but he’d missed and struck her in the head. However, after consulting with an attorney, he changed his story to state that he’d simply mishandled the gun, which accidentally discharged. He was jailed briefly and after a year of legal maneuvering — including, by many accounts, bribery from Burroughs’ brother — the writer was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to two years in jail, suspended. In total, he spent about two weeks in prison. Burroughs later stated that Vollmer’s death spurred him to become a full-time writer. Laura Bush On the evening of November 6, 1963, future First Lady of the United States Laura Bush née Welch was driving with a friend on a rural highway in Midland, Texas when she ran a stop sign and broadsided another car.

The driver of the other vehicle, 17-year-old Michael Dutton Douglas, a classmate and friend of Welch’s, was killed. Welch, who wasn’t reported to be drinking or speeding, wasn’t charged and received only minor injuries. C-Murder On January 12, 2002, rapper Corey “C-Murder” Miller was at the Platinum Club in Harvey, Louisiana when an altercation erupted in which 16-year-old Steve Thomas was beaten and shot to death. Miller was identified and arrested as the trigger man and was convicted in 2003 of second-degree murder. However, that verdict was overturned by the Louisiana Supreme Court in 2006, and Miller, the brother of rap mogul Percy “Master P” Miller, was re-tried in 2009 and once again found guilty of second-degree murder, earning a mandatory life sentence in jail. The reason for the attack is still a mystery to this day, although some say that Thomas embarrassed C-Murder during a rap battle that the club was hosting that evening.

Rebecca Gayheart On June 13, 2001, actress Rebecca Gayheart was driving on a Los Angeles street when shestruck and killed nine-year-old Jorge Cruz, Jr. Although Cruz wasn’t using the crosswalk, the cars in front of Gayheart had stopped to allow him to cross the street. However, the actress, not seeing the boy, veered around the cars in an effort to avoid stopping and struck Cruz in the left-turn lane. Gayheart was also talking on a cell phone at the time. She pleaded no contest to vehicular manslaughter and was sentenced to three years’ probation, a one-year suspension of her license, a $2,800 fine and 750 hours of community service. A civil lawsuit from the Cruz family was settled out of court. Howard Hughes On July 11, 1936, eccentric billionaire-to-be Howard Hughes — then a successful movie producer — struck and killed a pedestrian named Gabriel Meyer at an intersection in Los Angeles. Although Hughes had been drinking earlier that evening, he wasn’t reported to be drunk at the time and claimed that the man stepped in front of his car.

While a witness initially refuted that story, the witness eventually corroborated Hughes’ version of things (some claim he was bribed), and negligent homicide charges were dropped. Nevertheless, Hughes paid the Meyer family $20,000 “in this their time of need.” John Huston On September 25, 1933, before starting a career as an Academy-Award winning film director, 27-year-old John Huston struck and killed a female pedestrian at a Los Angeles intersection. After an investigation, charges weren’t filed against Huston, who was at the time a screenwriter. Ted Kennedy On the night of July 18, 1969, Senator Ted Kennedy left a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts with 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne. During the drive, Kennedy took a wrong turn down a dirt road and drove off the Dike Bridge, his car coming to rest upside-down in the water. While Kennedy swam to safety, Kopechne never emerged from the car. The senator, however, didn’t notify police, and when the body was found the next morning, he turned himself in, claiming that he’d been in shock.

Kennedy later pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, but no other charges were filed. He received a two-month suspended jail sentence, and his driver’s license was suspended for over a year. The scandal surrounding not only the accident but also the fact that the married Kennedy was alone at night with a young woman effectively ended his aspirations of running for President. Don King Flamboyant future boxing promoter Don King killed not one, but two men early in his life while running an illegal gambling operation in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1954, at the age of 23, he shot and killed a man named Hillary Brown, a death that was ruled justifiable because Brown was trying to rob one of King’s gambling stations. Later, in 1966, he was involved in a fight with an employee of his named Sam Garrett, whom King claimed owed him money. During the scuffle, Garrett’s head hit the pavement — although some say King repeatedly stomped him to death. He was convicted of manslaughter and spent four years in jail before being paroled in 1971, at which point he moved from gambling to boxing. King was eventually granted a full pardon by Ohio Governor James Rhodes in 1983.

Lead Belly Blues/folk musician and future Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter also had a fiery temper that landed him in jail for four extended stretches of his life. The longest stint stemmed from an incident in January 1918 when he killed a relative of his named Will Stafford over a woman. He received a sentence of seven to 35 years in prison and was released in 1925 — due in part to a song he wrote for Texas Governor Pat Morris Neff pleading for his release. Lead Belly would go on to national notoriety — as well as a couple more jail sentences for fighting. Keith Moon On 4 January, 1970, Keith Moon, the iconic drummer for The Who, accidentally ran over his bodyguard, Neil Boland, outside a pub in Hatfield, England. Although Moon was known for his destructive behavior — in particular, blowing up hotel toilets — Boland’s death was ruled an accident that resulted while the drummer was fleeing from a group of aggressive skinheads. Moon wasn’t charged in the death.

Vince Neil On the evening of December 8, 1984, Mötley Crüe lead singer Vince Neil was driving in Redondo Beach, California with Nicholas Dingley (AKA Razzle), drummer for the Finnish band Hanoi Rocks, when Neil lost control of his vehicle and crashed into an oncoming car. Dingley was killed, and the two occupants of the other car suffered serious injuries. Neil had a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit and was arrested for drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter. In 1986, he was sentenced to 30 days in jail, five years of probation and 200 hours of community service and was ordered to pay the victims of the crash $2.6 million. He served only 15 of the 30 days in jail. O.J. Simpson On the night of on June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson, the ex-wife of actor and ex-football star O.J. Simpson, was stabbed to death outside her Los Angeles home, along with her friend Ronald Goldman.

The former football player was arrested and following one of the most publicized trials in history, during which many of the evidence-collecting techniques of the prosecution were called into question, Simpson was found not guilty of homicide. However, in a civil trial in 1997, he was deemed to be liable for the two deaths. The Goldman family was awarded $8.5 million in compensatory damages, and each family was awarded $12.5 million in punitive damages. J.R. Smith On June 9, 2007, star basketball player J.R. Smith was driving through an intersection in Millstone Township, New Jersey, when his SUV collided with another vehicle, killing Smith’s passenger, Andre Bell. It was determined that Smith had run a stop sign, driving around another vehicle that was stopped in front of him at the sign. His SUV was then struck by an oncoming car that had the right of way, flipping Smith’s vehicle. Neither he nor Bell were wearing seat belts at the time of the crash.

Smith had previously been cited seven times — five for speeding — and had his driver’s license suspended five times in a nine-month span between 2005 and 2006, but his driving record was “in good standing” at the time of the crash. For his role in the accident, Smith was charged with improper passing, failure to stop, speeding (67-plus miles per hour in a 35 MPH zone), reckless driving and failure to wear a seat belt, but he avoided vehicular manslaughter charges. Smith was convicted in 2009 and sentenced to 90 days in jail, but the judge suspended all but 30 days. He ended up spending 24 days in prison and was sentenced to 500 hours of community service. Phil Spector Early in the morning of February 3, 2003, the body of 40-year-old actress Lana Clarkson was found dead in the Alhambra, California home of legendary music producer Phil Spector. Clarkson had been shot in the mouth at close range. She had met Spector that night while she worked at the House of Blues in Hollywood.

They returned to his house and were inside for about an hour before Spector’s driver, who waited outside, heard a gunshot. The driver testified that Spector stated, “I think I just shot her.” Spector was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. The producer claimed that Clarkson shot herself while kissing the gun, but during the trial, several women came forth claiming that Spector had pulled guns on them while drunk. Although the first trial, in 2007, resulted in a hung jury, the second, in 2009, ended with a conviction. Spector received a jail sentence of 19 years to life. Donte Stallworth Early in the morning of March 14, 2009, football player Donte Stallworth struck and killed a pedestrian — 59-year-old Mario Reyes — while driving in Miami Beach, Florida. Stallworth was drunk at the time and was charged with DUI and second-degree manslaughter, which could have carried a 15-year prison sentence.

However, although he pled guilty to both charges, he received only 30 days in jail, plus two years of house arrest, eight years of probation, 1,000 hours of community service and a lifetime suspension of his Florida driver’s license. He was also suspended by the National Football League from playing for a year. His light sentence was due largely to Florida’s DUI laws, which require proof that there was some action on the drunk driver’s part (aside from merely being drunk) that caused the fatal accident. Since Reyes was not in the crosswalk when he was struck, there was reasonable doubt about Stallworth’s liability. Stallworth and the Reyes family settled on a financial agreement out of court. Adlai Stevenson Future governor of Illinois, UN Ambassador and two-time nominee for President, a 12-year-old Adlai Stevenson inadvertently shot and killed 16-year-old Ruth Merwin at his childhood home in Bloomington, Illinois on December 30, 1912. Stevenson was performing a drill technique with a .22 rifle, which he didn’t realize was loaded, when it went off, striking the girl.

The gun had previously been checked to make sure it wasn’t loaded, but the ejecting mechanism had a rusty spring that prevented the bullet from being released upon examination. Charges weren’t filed. Jayson Williams On February 14, 2002, former professional basketball star Jayson Williams shot and killed 55-year-old Costas “Gus” Christofi, a limousine driver hired for the day, at his home in Alexandria Township, New Jersey. Williams claimed that he was showing a group of people the shotgun during a tour of his home, and when he snapped it closed, it discharged, striking Christofi. In 2004, Williams was found not guilty of aggravated manslaughter and aggravated assault, while the jury deadlocked on the charge of reckless manslaughter. He ended up being convicted of four lesser charges involved with trying to cover up the shooting. However, he currently faces the possibility of a retrial on the reckless manslaughter charge. Burroughs and Stones Burroughs and Stones Posted by: smudr () Date: January 24, 2010 01:54 Hello everybody.. I have one little question.

Is there any possibility to that man sitting in the subway in "anybody seen my baby?" video could be mr. W.S.Burroughs? He died the same time when this video was shooting. I´m talking about sitting man at time 3.04 in video on this youtube adress ..That man looks very similar like him. Is it all just in my imagination?? Or it should be him? Thank you for answers... Date: January 24, 2010 02:14 On could ponder over why such a celebrity would figure in a Stones promo video (Mick: "Hey Mr B; can ya just sit over here we give ya 5 fresh US bucks for it!").. ? Anyway, that man is again visible in 3:08-09. [ 17seconds.co.uk ] Pic of Mr B Date: January 24, 2010 02:54 << He died the same time when this video was shooting. >> I think he dropped dead when he realized the Stones had copped the chorus from kd lang.

Date: January 24, 2010 02:55 i think the only shooting he was doing that day was with heroin. Date: January 24, 2010 03:16 Dunno but Angelina looks fine .........................Samuel Bayer. ROCKMAN Date: January 24, 2010 11:01 Could be. He wrote about Brian Jones once in a fit of rage busting up a piranha fish tank at the hotel lobby the piranha ate a little poddle near by. He also wrote that poem about Jagger too remember? Date: January 24, 2010 13:19 Quote Dunno but Angelina looks fine .........................Samuel Bayer. Was this the first testing of those body scanners for airports? Date: January 24, 2010 14:15 Serious themes deserves serious approach! Posted by: Voja () Date: January 24, 2010 14:32 William S.

Burroughs, author of "Naked Lunch", "Junkie" and other underground classics, is an odd yet central literary figure. He has been in every sense an outlaw. He spent time in jail, he shot and killed his wife and he was a drug addict forced to spend much of his life in exile from the United States, often on the run. He flaunted his homosexuality at a time when it was a criminal offence. From his upbringing in a middle-class St Louis suburb, his life has been counter-cultural. This biography details his education at Harvard, his involvement with drugs and petty crime, his authorship of bizarre novels, and even his induction into the staid and august Institute of Arts and Letters. Ted Morgan tells Burroughs' story with a feeling for the times he lived through. He gives mention to the characters who inhabited his world - Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Jean Genet, Mick Jagger, Paul Bowles and Samuel Beckett. The result is an account of an era and a writer's life.

========================================= William Seward Burroughs (February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American novelist, essayist, social critic and spoken word performer. Much of Burroughs' work is semi-autobiographical. He saw all his writing as a single, vast book. Burroughs was born to a prominent family in St. Louis, Missouri. His grandfather, also named William Seward Burroughs, founded the Burroughs Adding Machine company, which evolved into the Burroughs Corporation. Burroughs' mother, Laura Lee Burroughs, was the daughter of a distinguished minister whose family claimed to be descendants of Robert E. Lee. Burroughs’ parents ran an antique and gift shop, first in St. Louis, then in Palm Beach, Florida. Burroughs attended John Burroughs School in St. Louis, and The Los Alamos Ranch School in New Mexico, but was expelled from the latter because staff had found private journals concerning a budding erotic attachment to another boy. He kept his sexual orientation concealed well into adulthood. Burroughs graduated from Harvard University in 1936.

After leaving Harvard, Burroughs traveled to Europe, where he contracted syphilis. In Austria, Burroughs met Ilse Klapper, a Jewish woman fleeing the country’s Nazi government. The two were not romantically attached, but Burroughs married her in Croatia to allow her to gain a United States Visa. She made her way to New York City, and eventually divorced Burroughs, although they remained friends for many years. Burroughs enrolled as a graduate student of Anthropology at Harvard and later enrolled briefly at Medical School in Vienna, Austria. He was enlisted in the U.S Army in 1941 but was discharged for psychological reasons. Burroughs lived on a monthly trust account from his parents, and this provided him little need, or desire, to earn money. In New York, he met Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. In 1944, Burroughs began living with Joan Vollmer Adams in an apartment they shared with Kerouac and Edie Parker, Kerouac's first wife. Vollmer Adams was married to a GI with whom she had a young daughter, Julie Adams. Burroughs and Kerouac got into trouble with the law for failing to report a murder.

Burroughs began using morphine and quickly became addicted. He eventually sold heroin in Greenwich Village to support his habit. Vollmer also became an addict but her drug of choice was the inhaled form of the amphetamine, Benzedrine. Because of her addiction and social circle, her husband immediately divorced her after returning from the war. Vollmer would become Burroughs’ common law wife. Burroughs was arrested for forging a narcotics prescription and was sentenced to return to his parents' care in St. Louis. He returned to New York, released Vollmer from the psychiatric ward of Bellevue Hospital and moved with her and her daughter to Texas. Vollmer soon became pregnant with Burroughs’ child. Their son, William S. Burroughs Jr. was born in 1947. The family moved briefly to New Orleans in 1948. He was arrested after police searched his home and found letters between Burroughs and Ginsberg referring to a possible delivery of marijuana. Burroughs fled to Mexico to escape possible detention in Louisiana's Angola state prison. Vollmer and their children followed him.

Burroughs planned to stay in Mexico for at least five years, the length of his charge's statute of limitations. In 1951, Burroughs accidentally shot and killed Vollmer in a drunken game of 'William Tell' at a party above an American-owned bar in Mexico City. He spent 13 days in jail before the killing was ruled accidental. Vollmer’s daughter, Julie Adams went to live with her grandmother, and William S. Burroughs, Jr. went to St. Louis to live with his grandparents. After Vollmer's death, Burroughs drifted through South America for several months, looking for a drug called Yage, which could supposedly ease opiate addiction. He produced two novels during this time, Junky, exploring his heroin addiction, and Queer exploring his homosexuality. He also compiled correspondence with Allen Ginsberg about his search for and experiences with Yage as The Yage Letters. Ace Paperbacks published his first novel, Junky, in 1953 under the pen name William Lee. The Yage Letters and Queer were not published until 1963 and 1985 respectively. Original Ace Double edition of Junkie (a.k.a.

Junky) from 1953, credited to "William Lee". This was Burroughs' first novel publication.Burroughs went to Rome and then to Tangiers, Morocco, and began to write what would become Naked Lunch. Ginsberg and Kerouac helped Burroughs edit these episodes into Naked Lunch, an amalgam of experimental fiction and science fiction. Burroughs sold Naked Lunch to Olympia Press publisher Maurice Girodias. After the novel was published in 1959, it became infamous across Europe and was popular within countercultures of the 1960s. In countries where the book was banned, copies and even printing plates were smuggled across borders. Published in the United States, Naked Lunch was prosecuted as obscene by the state of Massachusetts, followed by other states. In 1966 the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court declared the work "not obscene" based on criteria developed, largely, to defend the book. The case against Burroughs's novel still stands as the last obscenity trial against a work of literature prosecuted in the United States.

The trunk of manuscripts that produced Naked Lunch also produced The Soft Machine (1961), The Ticket That Exploded (1962), and Nova Express (1963). In the 1970s he moved to New York City where Ginsberg helped him find work teaching writing at New York City College. Burroughs also associated with New York cultural players Andy Warhol, Patti Smith, Susan Sontag, Dennis Hopper, Terry Southern, and Mick Jagger. The 1970s also saw Burroughs join, then leave the Church of Scientology [1]. His subsequent critical writings about the church and his review of a book entitled Inside Scientology by Robert Kaufman led to a battle of letters between Burroughs and Scientology supporters that played out in the pages of Rolling Stone. By late 1980s, Burroughs was a counterculture giant and collaborated with performers ranging from Bill Laswell's Material and Laurie Anderson to Ministry, and in Gus Van Sant's 1989 film Drugstore Cowboy, playing a character largely based on himself.

In 1990, he released the spoken word album Dead City Radio, with musical back-up from producers Hal Willner and Nelson Lyon, and alternative rock band Sonic Youth. He also collaborated with director Robert Wilson and musician Tom Waits to create The Black Rider, a play which opened at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg in 1990, to critical acclaim, and was later performed all over Europe and the U.S. In 1991, with Burroughs’ sanction, director David Cronenberg took on the seemingly impossible task of adapting Naked Lunch into a full-length feature film. The film opened to critical acclaim. Through the 1990s, Burroughs produced spoken word recordings, including collaborations with R.E.M.. Burroughs lived in Lawrence, Kansas through much of his later life. Burroughs died in Lawrence, at 6:50 p.m. on August 2, 1997 from complications of the previous day's heart attack. A few months after his death, a collection of writings spanning his entire career, Word Virus, was published. A collection of journal entries written during the final months of Burrough's life were published as the book Last Words.

Burroughs is often called one of the greatest and most influential writers of the 20th century, most notably by Norman Mailer whose quote on Burroughs, "The only American novelist living today who may be conceivably be possessed by genius", appears on many Burroughs publications. Others, however, consider him overrated. Others still consider his conceptual ideas more influential than his prose. ===================================================== William Seward Burroughs Creem by Jeffrey Morgan INTRODUCTION (2003) The first time I met literary iconoclast William S. Burroughs (1914 – 1997) was on a Saturday afternoon in February 1974 at A Space gallery in Toronto where he was doing a reading. Afterwards, I asked if he would autograph a photo that I had brought of himself standing next to David Bowie. "You oughtta get Booey to sign the other half," Burroughs drawled as he signed the space over his head. As it turns out, Bowie did sign his half of the photo later that July while he was recording the David Live album at the Tower Theatre in Philadelphia. But that’s another story for another time.

After I became the Canadian Editor of CREEM, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Burroughs twice for America’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll Magazine: once in 1978 and again in 1979. Thirty years have passed since that initial meeting but, as we all know, time and space lose all rational meaning when you’re logging an arduous night shift deep in the InterZone… PART ONE: HEROIN (1978) "I was around people who were using it. Then I started, you know, taking an occasional shot. It is, for most people, I think, a very pleasurable experience. After I’d had these experiences as an addict—I guess it was in 1950—I was living in Mexico City and someone suggested to me that I simply write up my experiences with heroin addiction, which I did. And that was my first book, Junkie." Originally published in 1953 under the pseudonym "William Lee," Junkie is a harrowing document of William Burroughs’ 14-year addiction to heroin—a document that still stands today, almost a quarter of a century later, as the definitive statement on the subject.

Whereas the original edition of Junkie contained a number of disclaimers by the publisher ("For the protection of the reader, we have inserted occasional parenthetical notes to indicate where the author clearly departs from accepted medical fact or makes unsubstantiated statements in an effort to justify his actions"), the recently reissued edition of Junkie by Penguin Books is devoid of any such pronouncements. In Toronto recently on a promotional book tour, Burroughs explained why: "The original edition had a number of disclaimers, a number of expurgations—they expurgated all the four letter words, and so on. So we decided to bring out an unexpurgated edition, as it originally was written." In Junkie’s preface, Burroughs writes, "I have never regretted my experience with drugs." Twenty-five years later, does he still hold the same view? "Yes, I’ll go along with that because it gave me... you see, a writer can profit from things that may be just unpleasant or boring to someone else because he uses those things subsequently as material for writing.

And I would say that the experience I had with heroin as described in Junkie later led to my subsequent books like Naked Lunch, so I don’t regret it. "Incidentally, the damage to health from heroin addiction is minimal—no matter what the American Narcotics Department may say. If you read one of the early authorities like DeQuincey—for one thing, he would never have lived to be 72 unless he had taken opium because he had tuberculosis. And I think he would say the same as I say: that he wouldn’t regret his experience with drugs." Isn’t this, however, in direct contradiction with another statement made in Junkie that "Junk causes permanent cellular alteration. Once a junkie, always a junkie. You can stop using junk, but you are never off the first habit"? "I would question that statement now," admits Burroughs. "At that time, I had not taken the apomorphine cure—which was the way I finally got off junk—through Dr. Dent in London. And now, after that cure, I would question the statement whether there is permanent cellular alteration." What about the effects of heroin on the user’s ability to cope with the normal day to day stress of living?

"Nothing. Nothing whatsoever. I’ve been in England where addicts obtained their heroin quite legally through doctors. Many of the addicts were lawyers, doctors, bank tellers, et cetera. So far as creative work goes, I say very definitively it can’t be indicated—and I would never’ve been able to write Naked Lunch, for example, unless I’d been off heroin. But, so far as any kind of routine work goes, you can do it as well as someone who is not addicted. "The context I was talking about when I wrote Junkie was in the 1940s when heroin was extremely illegal and under very heavy pressure from the American narcotics department. So you never knew from one day to the next whether or not you were able to get your necessary dose of drugs or not. And that, of course, creates a tremendous feeling of insecurity and fear. "Addiction is a metabolic illness—a metabolic illness like alcoholism or diabetes, for that matter. It is also an illness that can be cured without too much difficulty." Including William Burroughs? "Absolutely.

I haven’t used or been addicted to opiates for years..." PART TWO: ROCK ’n’ ROLL (1979) With 1980 just a shot away, this seems as good a time as any for a cultural update from William S. Burroughs, the spiritual patriarch of rock ’n’ roll. Despite this honorary title, precious little (if any) information concerning Burroughs’ personal opinions on rock ’n’ roll can be found in print—a situation I decided to remedy when I recently interviewed him. MORGAN: For many contemporary rock critics and musicians, William Burroughs is rock ’n’ roll. Do you feel the same affinity for rock ’n’ roll that rock ’n’ roll obviously feels for you? BURROUGHS: Well, yeah. (laughs) I have given them a lot of titles: The Heavy Metal Kids, The Insect Trust, The Soft Machine. There are a couple of others. I enjoy rock ’n’ roll. It certainly is a unique and incredible phenomenon. Remember that 40 or 50 years ago, musicians didn’t make any money. They played to very small audiences in night clubs and road houses.

Also, they had no protection on their records. I’m always asking rock ’n’ roll people if they know who Petrillo is, and none of them do. Well, they wouldn’t have a dime if it weren’t for Petrillo because he organized the Musicians’ Union way back at the end of the ‘30s. And that is why they make money on their records. There wouldn’t be any white Rolls Royces or anything like that. MORGAN: Can you see the intersection point between your works and rock ’n’ roll? BURROUGHS: Well, I think that, in a way, we’re both—I mean, of course, they’re operating much more in a mass area, but the ideas are similar. Some of the content is similar: the drugs, et cetera. There are a number of places where we overlap. MORGAN: Did you see The Man Who Fell To Earth? BURROUGHS: Yes. I thought it had some very interesting sections. It wasn’t bad, but I didn’t think it was great, either. MORGAN: What did you think of Diamond Dogs? Have you heard it? BURROUGHS: Vaguely, yes.

It’s been a long time since I saw it, actually. Yeah, I think that Bowie did quite a good job there. I just didn’t think that the film overall has much impact. I thought the alien aspect was conveyed very well. MORGAN: No, no. Did you ever hear the record he made after you interviewed him in 1973? The one he made after reading half of Nova Express? BURROUGHS: Oh, yeah, yeah. (dryly) That is fun. MORGAN: What did you think of him when you met him? Did he seem to be the kind of guy who was bullshitting his way through life or did he seem to be walking the straight and narrow? BURROUGHS: (laughs) Well, neither one. He’s not bullshitting, he’s very, very clever and I think very calculating. I think he knows exactly what he’s doing and where he’s going and how to get there. MORGAN: Did Jimmy Page know who Petrillo was when you talked to him? BURROUGHS: (laughs) No. I’ll tell you one who would know is Mick Jagger.

He’s a businessman, he went to the London School of Economics. MORGAN: How’s the film version of Junkie coming along? BURROUGHS: On again, off again. No Hollywood project is on until it’s on screen and it’s never completely dead until the whole film industry is dead. Many scripts have been battered around Hollywood as long as ten years, so I won’t say it’s dead. We have a script and people have expressed interest, so it may work out. We talked an awful lot about whether Junkie should be shot as a contemporary film in a contemporary setting, and I said absolutely not. The reason is very simple because the whole junk scene has changed so unrecognizably since that time that, if you start shooting it in 1970, you might as well throw the book away and do another script. As far as box office is concerned, it’s not very good box office. They don’t want to see people sticking needles in their arms. MORGAN: How did Patti Smith get involved in the project? BURROUGHS: Well, she simply said that she’d like to play a part if the film was produced.

MORGAN: What is there about her poetry that you like—if anything. BURROUGHS: Well, she is good as a performer. It isn’t the poetry itself, it’s the way she puts it across. She’s a terrific performer, a great stage presence. To read the poetry doesn’t mean that much to me, but to see her perform it—the energy that she generates is really something. MORGAN: So you don’t care for her poetry on the printed page then. BURROUGHS: No. It’s something that’s made to be performed, it seems to me. MORGAN: Your long-awaited new book, Cities Of The Red Night, is scheduled for release later this year and, at over 700 pages, it’s going to be your longest book yet. Can you tell us something about it? BURROUGHS: It’s got a very different plot to it. Plots and sub-plots. It’s very much a romantic play with trick endings and so on—so for that reason, I don’t talk too much about it. I don’t want to give away the ending. MORGAN: Is there any advice you’d like to give to young writers?

BURROUGHS: I have an exercise I learned from a Mafia Don in Ohio: see everybody on the street before they see you. It’s quite interesting actually because, if you see everyone before they see you, they won’t see you. And then you’ll find that somebody beat you. ======================================== Mick Jagger's, "Memo from Turner" The Funny Lyrics: You're the great gray man whose daughter licks policemen's buttons clean. You're the man who squats behind the man who works the soft machine. Why They're funny: The man who works the 'soft machine' is Willian Burroughs, who wrote a novel by that title. The whole song is a parody of Burroughs's pet themes: drugs, sodomy, more drugs, crime, more drugs, ad nauseum. 10 Literary Geniuses Who Went To Jail - Listverse 10 Literary Geniuses Who Went To Jail Listverse Staff August 8, 2008 Some of the greatest literary minds in history have also frequently found themselves in trouble with the law. While the majority manage to get away with a slap on the wrist, some have found themselves spending a rather long period of time in jail.

For some, this has ruined their career, for others it has made it. This is a list of 10 of the greatest geniuses in literature who found themselves in the clink! 10 Ken Kesey 1935 – 2001 Kesey was an American author, best known for his debut novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and as a counter-cultural figure who, some consider, was a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950’s and the hippies of the 1960’s. Kesey was arrested for possession of marijuana in 1965. In an attempt to mislead police, he faked his own suicide by having friends leave his truck on a cliffside road near Eureka, along with a suicide note that said, “Ocean, Ocean I’ll beat you in the end.” Kesey fled to Mexico in the back of a friend’s car. When he returned to the United States eight months later, Kesey was arrested and sent to the San Mateo County jail in Redwood City, California, for five months.

On his release, he moved back to the family farm in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, in the Willamette Valley, where he spent the rest of his life. He wrote many articles, books (mostly collections of his articles) and short stories during that time. [ Wikipedia ] 9 William Burroughs 1914 – 1997 Burroughs was an American novelist, essayist, social critic, painter and spoken word performer. Much of Burroughs’s work is semi-autobiographical, drawn from his experiences as an opiate addict, a condition that marked the last fifty years of his life. A primary member of the Beat Generation, he was an avant-garde author who affected popular culture as well as literature. His most well known work is probably Naked Lunch. In 1951, Burroughs shot and killed his wife, Joan Vollmer, in a drunken game of “William Tell” at a party above the American-owned Bounty Bar in Mexico City. He spent 13 days in jail before his brother came to Mexico City and bribed Mexican lawyers and officials. This allowed Burroughs to be released on bail while he awaited trial for the killing, which was ruled culpable homicide.

Burroughs reported every Monday morning to the jail in Mexico City, while his prominent Mexican attorney worked to resolve the case. When his attorney fled Mexico, after his own legal problems involving a car accident and altercation with the son of a government official, Burroughs decided to “skip” and return to the United States. He was convicted, in absentia, of homicide and sentenced to two years, which was suspended. [ Wikipedia ] 8 St Thomas More 1478 – 1535 Saint Thomas More was an English lawyer, author and statesman, who, in his lifetime, gained a reputation as a leading humanist scholar, and occupied many public offices, including Lord Chancellor (1529–1532). More coined the word “utopia”, a name he gave to an ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he described in the eponymous book published in 1516. He was beheaded in 1535 when he refused to sign the Act of Succession that would make Henry VIII Supreme Head of the Church in England. On 13 April of that year, More was asked to appear before a commission and swear his allegiance to the parliamentary Act of Succession.

More accepted Parliament’s right to declare Anne the legitimate queen of England, but he refused to take the oath because of an anti-papal preface to the Act, asserting Parliament’s authority to legislate in matters of religion by denying the authority of the Pope, which More would not accept. Four days later he was imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he wrote his devotional Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation. On 1 July 1535, More was tried before a panel of judges. He was charged with high treason for denying the validity of the Act of Succession. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered (the usual punishment for traitors), but the king commuted this to execution by beheading. The execution took place on 6 July. In 1935, four hundred years after his death, Pope Pius XI canonized More in the Roman Catholic Church; More was declared Patron Saint of politicians and statesmen by Pope John Paul II in 1980. [ Wikipedia ] 7 O. Henry 1862 – 1910 O. Henry is the pen name of American writer William Sydney Porter. O.

Henry short stories are known for wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings. Porter and his family moved to Houston in 1895, where he started writing for the Post. His salary was only $25 a month, but it rose steadily as his popularity increased. Porter gathered ideas for his column by hanging out in hotel lobbies, observing and talking to people there. This was a technique he used throughout his writing career. While he was in Houston, the First National Bank of Austin was audited, and the federal auditors found several discrepancies. They managed to get a federal indictment against Porter. Porter was subsequently arrested on charges of embezzlement, charges which he denied, in connection with his employment at the bank. Porter’s father-in-law posted bail to keep Porter out of jail, but the day before Porter was due to stand trial, on July 7, 1896, he fled, first to New Orleans and later to Honduras. While he was in Honduras, Porter coined the term “banana republic”, subsequently used to describe almost any small tropical dictatorship in Latin America.

When he learned that his wife was dying, Porter returned to Austin in February 1897 and surrendered to the court. Having little to say in his own defense, he was found guilty of embezzlement in February 1898, sentenced to five years jail. He was imprisoned on March 25, 1898, as federal prisoner 30664 at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. While in prison, Porter, as a licensed pharmacist, worked in the prison hospital as the night druggist. [ Wikipedia ] 6 Jean Genet 1910 – 1986 Genet was a prominent, controversial French writer and, later, political activist. Early in his life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but later took to writing novels, plays, poems and essays, including Querelle de Brest, The Thief’s Journal, Our Lady of the Flowers, The Balcony and The Blacks and The Maids. Genet’s mother was a young prostitute who raised him for the first year of his life, before putting him up for adoption.

For various misdemeanors, including repeated acts of vagrancy, he was sent, at the age of 15, to Mettray Penal Colony, where he was detained between 2 September 1926 and 1 March 1929. In The Miracle of the Rose (1946), he gives an account of this period of detention, which ended at the age of 18 when he joined the Foreign Legion. He was eventually given a dishonorable discharge on grounds of indecency. After returning to Paris, France in 1937, Genet was in and out of prison through a series of arrests for theft, use of false papers, vagabondage, lewd acts and other offenses. In prison, Genet wrote his first poem, “Le condamné à mort,” which he had printed at his own cost, and the novel Our Lady of the Flowers (1944). In Paris, Genet sought out and introduced himself to Jean Cocteau, who was impressed by his writing.

Cocteau used his contacts to get Genet’s novel published, and in 1949, when Genet was threatened with a life sentence after ten convictions, Cocteau and other prominent figures including Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso successfully petitioned the French President to have the sentence set aside. Genet would never return to prison. [ Wikipedia ] 5 Oscar Wilde 1854 – 1900 Wilde was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet and author of short stories. Known for his biting wit, he became one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day. Several of his plays continue to be widely performed, especially The Importance of Being Earnest. As the result of a widely covered series of trials, Wilde suffered a dramatic downfall, and was imprisoned for two years hard labour after being convicted of the offence of “gross indecency” with other men. After Wilde was released from prison he set sail for Dieppe by the night ferry. He never returned to Britain.

Wilde was imprisoned first in Pentonville, and then in Wandsworth prison in London, and finally transferred in November to Reading Prison, some 30 miles west of London. Wilde knew the town of Reading from happier times when boating on the Thames, and also from visits to the Palmer family, including a tour of the famous Huntley & Palmers biscuit factory, which is quite close to the prison. Now known as prisoner C. 3.3, (which described the fact that he was in block C, floor three, cell three) he was not, at first, even allowed paper and pen, but a later governor was more amenable. Wilde was championed by the reformer, Lord Haldane, who had helped transfer him and afforded him the literary catharsis he needed. After his release, he also wrote the famous poem The Ballad of Reading Gaol. [ Wikipedia ] 4 Paul Verlaine 1844 – 1896 Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.

In September, 1871, he received his first letter from the poet Arthur Rimbaud. By 1872, he had lost interest in Mathilde, his wife, and effectively abandoned her and their son, preferring the company of Rimbaud – his new lover. Rimbaud and Verlaine’s stormy love affair took them to London in 1872. In July 1873, in a drunken, jealous rage, he fired two shots with a pistol at Rimbaud, wounding his left wrist, though not seriously injuring the poet. As an indirect result of this incident, Verlaine was arrested and imprisoned at Mons. There, he underwent a conversion to Roman Catholicism, which again influenced his work and provoked Rimbaud’s sharp criticism. Romances sans paroles was the poetic outcome of this period. Following his release from prison, Verlaine again traveled to England, where he worked for some years as a teacher and produced another successful collection, Sagesse.

He returned to France in 1877 and, while teaching English at a school in Rethel, became infatuated with one of his pupils, Lucien Létinois, who inspired Verlaine to write further poems. Verlaine was devastated when the boy died of typhus in 1883. Verlaine’s last years witnessed a descent into drug addiction, alcoholism and poverty. He lived in slums and public hospitals, and spent his days drinking absinthe in Paris cafes. [ wikipedia ] 3 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1918 – 2008 Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist, dramatist and historian. Through his writings, he made the world aware of the Gulag, the Soviet Union’s labour camp system, and for these efforts, Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1974. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. During World War II, he served as the commander of an acoustic recognizance unit in the Red Army, was involved in major action at the front, and twice decorated.

In February 1945, while serving in East Prussia, he was arrested for writing a derogatory comment in a letter to a friend, N. D. Utkevich, about the conduct of the war by Josef Stalin, whom he called “the whiskered one,” “Khozyain” (“the master”) and “Balabos”, (Odessa Yiddish for “the master”). He was accused of anti-Soviet propaganda, under Article 58 paragraph 10 of the Soviet criminal code, and of “founding a hostile organization” under paragraph 11. Solzhenitsyn was taken to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow, where he was beaten and interrogated. On 7 July 1945, he was sentenced in his absence by a three-man tribunal of the Soviet security police (NKGB) to an eight-year term in a labour camp, to be followed by permanent internal exile. This was the normal sentence for most crimes under Article 58, at the time. The first part of Solzhenitsyn’s sentence was served in several different work camps.

During his years of exile, and following his reprieve and return to European Russia, Solzhenitsyn was, while teaching at a secondary school during the day, spending his nights secretly engaged in writing. In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech he wrote, “during all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared this would become known.” [ Wikipedia ] 2 Voltaire 1694 – 1778 Francois-Marie Arouet, better known by the pen name Voltaire, was a French Enlightenment writer, essayist, deist and philosopher known for his wit, philosophical sport and defense of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and free trade. Voltaire was a prolific writer, and produced works in almost every literary form, authoring plays, poetry, novels, essays, historical and scientific works, over 20,000 letters and over two thousand books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform, despite strict censorship laws and harsh penalties for those who broke them.

A satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize Catholic Church dogma and the French institutions of his day. Most of Voltaire’s early life revolved around Paris. From early on, Voltaire had trouble with the authorities for his energetic attacks on the government and the Catholic Church. These activities were to result in numerous imprisonments and exiles. In 1717, in his early twenties, he became involved in the Cellamare conspiracy of Giulio Alberoni against Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, the regent for Louis XV of France. He allegedly wrote satirical verses about the aristocracy, and one of his writings about the Régent led to him being imprisoned in the Bastille for eleven months. While there, he wrote his debut play, Œdipe. Its success established his reputation. [ Wikipedia ] 1 Cervantes 1547 – 1616 A Spanish novelist, poet and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel by some, is considered a founding classic of Western literature, and regularly figures among the best novels ever written. His work is considered among the most important in all of literature.

He has been dubbed el Príncipe de los Ingenios – the Prince of Wits. By 1570 he had been enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish infantry regiment and continued his military life until 1575, when he was captured by pirates. He was ransomed by his captors and the Trinitarians and returned to his family in Madrid. In 1585, Cervantes published a pastoral novel, La Galatea. Because of financial problems, Cervantes worked as a purveyor for the Spanish Armada, and later as a tax collector. In 1597 discrepancies in his accounts of three years previous landed him in the Crown Jail of Seville. In 1605, he was in Valladolid, just when the immediate success of the first part of his Don Quixote, published in Madrid, signaled his return to the literary world. In 1607, he settled in Madrid, where he lived and worked until his death. [ Wikipedia ] This article is licensed under the GFDL because it contains quotations from Wikipedia. William S.

Burroughs - Junkie Vagabond - Vagobond Vago Damitio beat hotel , beatnik , England , London , Morocco , Paris , Tangier , William S. Burroughs William S. Burroughs – no other name rings so loudly in the annals of extraordinary literary vagabonds of the 20th century. While his friend, Jack Kerouac may have found greater acclaim among stoned poets and hitch-hikers, it is Burroughs who was the true vagabond, though one with a trust fund to help him fund his movement and addictions. Born February 5, 1914 in St. Louis, Missouri, Burroughs lived to the age of 83 and died August 2nd, 1997 in Lawrence, Kansas. He was a founder of the ‘Beat’ movement and a giant in 20th century American popular culture. Even if you’ve never heard of Burroughs – you’ve seen him or been exposed to his work. If you don’t believe me – ask yourself if you’ve ever seen the cover of the Beatles album – Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band – Burroughs is on it.

Burroughs influence affected a range of popular culture as well as literature. His 18 novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays had nothing less than a profound effect on pop culture.. Five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, and made many appearances in films. He was born to a wealthy family and left home in 1932 to attend Harvard University where he studied English and anthropology as a postgraduate, and later attended medical school in Vienna. It was being turned down by the US Navy during World War II that led him to begin experimenting with the drugs that became such a key part of his life. He dropped out and became an addict and later befriended Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. The three of them were the basis of the counter-cultural movement of the Beat Generation which in turn led to the age of the Hippies. Much of Burroughs’s work is semi-autobiographical, primarily drawn from his experiences as a heroin addict, as he lived throughout Mexico City, London, Paris, Berlin, the South American Amazon and Tangier in Morocco.

Finding success with his confessional first novel, Junkie (1953), Burroughs is perhaps best known for his third novel Naked Lunch (1959), a work fraught with controversy that underwent a court case under the U.S. sodomy laws. Jack Kerouac called Burroughs the “greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift,” because of his “lifelong subversion” of the moral, political and economic systems of modern American society, articulated in often darkly humorous sardonicism. J. G. Ballard considered Burroughs to be “the most important writer to emerge since the Second World War,” while Norman Mailer declared him “the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius.” Europe He traveled to Europe after Harvard, which proved a window into Austrian and Hungarian Weimar-era homosexuality; he picked up boys in steam baths in Vienna, and moved in a circle of exiles, homosexuals, and runaways. It was there, he met Ilse Klapper, a Jewish woman fleeing the Nazi government. Burroughs married her, in Croatia, against the wishes of his parents, to allow her to gain a visa to the United States.

She made her way to New York City, and eventually divorced Burroughs. He deliberately severed the last joint of his left little finger, right at the knuckle, to impress a man with whom he was infatuated. This event made its way into his early fiction as the short story “The Finger.” Yes, Burroughs was most definitely a queer . Paris and the ‘Beat Hotel’ Burroughs moved into a rundown hotel in the Latin Quarter of Paris in 1959 when Naked Lunch was still looking for a publisher since Tangier, Morocco with its easy access to drugs, small groups of homosexuals, growing political unrest and odd collection of criminals became increasingly unhealthy for Burroughs. In Paris, he met with Ginsberg and talked with Olympia Press. In so doing, he left a brewing legal problem, which eventually transferred itself to Paris. Paul Lund, a former British career criminal and cigarette smuggler whom Burroughs met in Tangier, was arrested on suspicion of importing narcotics into France. Lund gave up Burroughs and some evidence implicated Burroughs in the possible importation into France of narcotics.

Once again, the man faced criminal charges, this time in Paris for conspiracy to import opiates, when the Moroccan authorities forwarded their investigation to French officials. Yet it was under this impending threat of criminal sanction that Maurice Girodias published Naked Lunch, and it was helpful in getting Burroughs a suspended sentence, as a literary career, according to Ted Morgan, is a respected profession in France. The ‘Beat Hotel’ was a typical European-style rooming house hotel, with common toilets on every floor, and a small place for personal cooking in the room. Life there was documented by the photographer Harold Chapman, who lived in the attic room. This shabby, inexpensive hotel was populated by Gregory Corso, Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky for several months after Naked Lunch first appeared. Burroughs used the $3,000 advance from Grove Press to buy drugs. The London years Burroughs left Paris for London in 1966 to take the cure again with Dr. Dent, a well-known English medical doctor who spearheaded a painless heroin withdrawal treatment using an electronic box affixed to the patient’s temple. Keith Richards and Anita Pallenberg would take this same cure over a decade later from Dr.

Dent’s nurse, Smitty. Burroughs ended up working out of London for six years, traveling back to the United States on several occasions, including one time escorting his son to Lexington Narcotics Farm and Prison after the younger Burroughs had been convicted of prescription fraud in Florida. Burroughs took a large advance from Playboy to write an article about his trip back to St. Louis that was eventually published in The Paris Review, after Burroughs refused to alter the style for Playboy’s publishers. In 1968 Burroughs joined Jean Genet, John Sack, and Terry Southern in covering the 1968 Democratic National Convention for Esquire magazine. Southern and Burroughs, who had first become acquainted in London, would remain lifelong friends and collaborators. In 1972, Burroughs and Southern unsuccessfully attempted to adapt Naked Lunch for the screen in conjunction with legendary insane American game show producer Chuck Barris. In the 1960s Burroughs joined and left the Church of Scientology. In talking about the experience, he claimed that the techniques and philosophy of Scientology helped him and that he felt that further study into Scientology would produce great results.

He was skeptical of the organization itself, and felt that it fostered an environment that did not accept critical discussion. Mexico and South America Burroughs fled to Mexico to escape possible detention in Louisiana’s Angola state prison. Vollmer and their children followed him. Burroughs planned to stay in Mexico for at least five years, the length of his charge’s statute of limitations. Burroughs also attended classes at the Mexico City College in 1950 studying Spanish as well as “Mexican picture writing” (codices) and the Mayan language with R. H. Barlow. In 1951, Burroughs shot and killed Vollmer in a drunken game of “William Tell” at a party above the American-owned Bounty Bar in Mexico City. He spent 13 days in jail before his brother came to Mexico City and bribed Mexican lawyers and officials to release him. Burroughs began to write what would eventually become the short novel Queer while awaiting his trial. After leaving Mexico, Burroughs drifted through South America for several months, looking for a drug called yagé, which promised the user telepathy.

A book, composed of letters between Burroughs and Ginsberg, The Yage Letters, was published in 1963 by City Lights Books. In music, film and television Burroughs not only appears on the cover of The Beatles’ eighth studio album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band but has many more musical connections. Burroughs participated on numerous album releases by Giorno Poetry Systems, including The Nova Convention (featuring Frank Zappa, John Cage, and Philip Glass) and You’re the Guy I Want to Share My Money With (with John Giorno and Laurie Anderson). He is featured in a spoken word piece entitled “Sharkey’s Night” on Laurie Anderson’s album Mister Heartbreak. In addition, Burroughs provided vocal samples for the soundtrack of Anderson’s 1986 concert film, Home of the Brave, and made a cameo appearance in it. He also recites the lyrics of R.E.M.’s “Star Me Kitten” for a special version of the song on the Songs in the Key of X: Music from and Inspired by the X-Files soundtrack. In 1990, Island Records released Dead City Radio, a collection of readings set to a broad range of musical compositions.

It was produced by Hal Willner and Nelson Lyon, with musical accompaniment from John Cale, Donald Fagen, Lenny Pickett, Chris Stein, Sonic Youth, and others. The remastered edition of Sonic Youth’s album Goo includes a longer version of “Dr. Benway’s House,” which had appeared, in shorter form, on Dead City Radio. In 1992 he recorded “Quick Fix” with Ministry, which appeared on their single for “Just One Fix.” The single featured cover art by Burroughs and a remix of the song dubbed the “W.S.B. mix.” Burroughs also made an appearance in the video for “Just One Fix.” The same year he also recorded the EP The “Priest” They Called Him; Burroughs reads the short story of the same name, while Kurt Cobain creates layers of guitar feedback and distortion. Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic is featured on the cover as the titular “Priest.” In 1992 Burroughs worked with The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy on Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales, with the duo providing musical background and accompaniment to Burroughs’s spoken readings from several of his books.

Burroughs appears near the end of U2’s music video “Last Night on Earth”, pushing a shopping cart with a large spotlight positioned inside it. The video ends with a close up of his eyes. In 2000, Spring Heel Jack released the album Oddities, on which appears the band’s remix of Material’s Road to the Western Lands, featuring Burroughs, which had originally appeared on the remix album Seven Souls. Numerous bands have found their names in Burroughs’s work. The most widely known of these is Steely Dan, a group named after a dildo in Naked Lunch.Also from Naked Lunch came the names The Mugwumps and The Insect Trust. The novel Nova Express inspired the names of Grant Hart’s post-Hüsker Dü band Nova Mob, as well as Australian 1960s R&B band Nova Express. British band Soft Machine took its moniker from the Burroughs novel of the same name, as did protopunk band Dead Fingers Talk, from Hull, England; their only album was titled Storm the Reality Studios, after a quote from Nova Express. Alt-country band Clem Snide is named for a Burroughs character.

Thin White Rope took their name from Burroughs’s euphemism for ejaculation.The American extreme metal band Success Will Write Apocalypse Across the Sky took their name from the 1989 text “Apocalypse”, in which Burroughs describes “art and creative expression taking a literal and physical form.” Burroughs played Opium Jones in the 1966 Conrad Rooks cult film Chappaqua, which also featured cameo roles by Allen Ginsberg, Moondog, and others. In 1968, an abbreviated—77 minutes as opposed to the original’s 104 minutes—version of Benjamin Christensen’s 1922 film Häxan was released, subtitled Witchcraft Through The Ages. This version, produced by Anthony Balch, featured an eclectic jazz score by Daniel Humair and narration by Burroughs. He also appeared alongside Brion Gysin in a number of short films in the 1960s directed by Balch. Jack Sargeant’s book Naked Lens: Beat Cinema details Burroughs film work at length, covering his collaborations with Balch and Burroughs’ theories of film.

Burroughs narrated part of the 1980 documentary Shamans of the Blind Country by anthropologist and filmmaker Michael Oppitz. He gave a reading on Saturday Night Live on November 7, 1981, in an episode hosted by Lauren Hutton. Burroughs subsequently made cameo appearances in a number of other films and videos, such as David Blair’s Wax: or the Discovery of Television among the Bees, in which he plays a beekeeper, in an elliptic story about the first Gulf War, and Decoder by Klaus Maeck. He played an aging junkie priest in Gus Van Sant’s 1989 film Drugstore Cowboy. He also appears briefly at the beginning of Van Sant’s Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (based on the Tom Robbins novel), in which he is seen crossing a city street; as the noise of the city rises around him he pauses in the middle of the intersection and speaks the single word “ominous”. Van Sant’s short film “Thanksgiving Prayer” features Burroughs reading the poem “Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986,” from Tornado Alley, intercut with a collage of black and white images.

A documentary titled Burroughs, directed by Howard Brookner, was released in 1984. It included footage of Burroughs and many of his friends and colleagues. Near the end of his life, recordings of Burroughs reading his short stories “A Junky’s Christmas” and “Ah Pook is Here” were used on the soundtracks of two highly acclaimed animated films. Filmmakers Lars Movin and Steen Moller Rasmussen used footage of Burroughs taken during a 1983 tour of Scandinavia in the documentary Words of Advice: William S. Burroughs on the Road. A 2010 documentary, William S. Burroughs: A Man Within, was made for Independent Lens on PBS. As a fictional character Burroughs was fictionalized in Jack Kerouac’s autobiographical novel On the Road as “Old Bull Lee.” He also makes an appearance in J. G. Ballard’s semi-autobiographical 1991 novel The Kindness of Women. In the 2004 novel Move Under Ground, Burroughs, Kerouac, and Neal Cassady team up to defeat Cthulhu.

Burroughs appears in the first part of The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson during the 1968 Democratic Convention riots and is described as a person devoid of anger, passion, indignation, hope, or any other recognizable human emotion. He is presented as a polar opposite of Allen Ginsberg, as Ginsberg believed in everything and Burroughs believed in nothing. Wilson would recount in his Cosmic Trigger II: Down to Earth having interviewed both Burroughs and Ginsberg for Playboy the day the riots began as well as his experiences with Shea during the riots, providing some detail on the creation of the fictional sequence. Can there be a more iconic vagabond of the 20th century than William Seward Burroughs? Share this:

Question: Which American writer shot and killed his ex-wife during a drunken party game in Mexico City in 1951?
Answer: WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS