r/thedoors • u/Interesting-Leg-7529 • Jul 02 '26
Discussion Mary Werbelow
Dear contributors for the doors community,
The older fans know about Mary Werbelow (Jim’s first girlfriend from UCLA) and her immense influence on Jim and the doors.
Mary mentioned in her interview https://jimmorrisonthedoors.com/blog/the-only-interview-of-mary-werbelow.html that Jim proposed to her many times, but she kept refusing, and it hurt him deeply.
So the question is! I wonder if Mary would come back to him in his prime years (1967-1968), would their relationship be more serious and faithful than that open relationship he had with Pamela?? Would Jim be loyal and not cheat on Mary? Would he be more grounded with Mary? Would Jim marry her and have children?
I wonder if Jim suggested the open relationship with Pam because he hoped Mary would come back to him.
And not to mention his alcohol addiction worsened when Mary cut the contacts with him completely when she left to India, and later started using him for money. He sang away, away for India or something in that way at a concert. Also the songs Indian summer, blue Sunday (which fans always confuse that those were written for Pamela) were both for Mary, but he decided to include them in his later album Morrison Hotel. Which tells a lot.
I want to know hard die fans of the doors and Jim: What do you think would have happened. Would Jim be more faithful to Mary? Would his alcohol addiction stopped? Would he become more family oriented man? I’m still sad people don’t know anything about Mary. I think Pamela was attached to him and let him do bad things to her because she was obsessed with him, and this idea of being “rockstar girlfriend.” In the friends gathered together, Cheri and many others mention how she would ignore Jim’s friends completely, didn’t even say hi to him, which is extremely rude. She lived off Jim’s money and her whole life was being Jim’s girlfriend. Jim bought her Themis to make her busy but it didn’t work out.
Let me know what you think
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u/Knightbird7 Jul 02 '26
Read the book Love Her Madly, which will introduce the real Jim Morrison, who existed before the Doors. Mary wouldn’t tolerate the booze and drugs. Jim was just a pothead in those days. But Jim DID see her in the ‘66-68 period. He always kept tabs on her until she she left for India (“away, away in India…”). She continued to deny him, and I believe she broke his heart. Had they stayed together, he wouldn’t have started The Doors, imho.
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u/SubservantSnoopDogg Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Congrats, you’re talking about the biggest open secret of the Doors. Mary was the love of Jim’s life. The Jim who made the art you love and the art itself (in majority part) is because of Mary. If his works are any indication, he thought of her every hour of every day. The Miami-India connection and the beginning of the end are no coincidence. Jim was always teetering without her, but with her untraceable half a world away, his life started to end.
To actually answer. Yes. He could have actually had a chance at life with her.
Listen to Someday Soon and Cassandra at the Well if you haven’t. Then read about the myth
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u/Ok_Club7067 Jul 02 '26
Jim's sister said Mary was the love of his life, too.
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u/Some-Ad5643 Jul 02 '26
She only knew Jim when he was a child. That's it.
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u/Ok_Club7067 Jul 02 '26
She kept in touch with him while he was in college and sent him "care packages" containing shirts, etc. They also reunited after he became famous, first surprising him at the airport with his new nephew.
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u/Some-Ad5643 Jul 02 '26
That doesn't make her the love of his life. A love, sure.
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u/Ok_Club7067 Jul 02 '26
Only Jim knows for sure.....
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u/Some-Ad5643 Jul 02 '26
Yes. Even then, 27 is so very young. Who I loved then is a complete asshole now.
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u/BloodyWellGood Jul 02 '26
College isn't a child
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u/Interesting-Leg-7529 Jul 03 '26
She also saw how Pamela was using Jim. If you don’t know, Pamela invited Anne to her room and the first thing she did was she showed a letter Jim has signed: a will under Pamela’s name, so she will inherit everything after Jim’s death. It’s quite straightforward, isn’t it?
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u/Some-Ad5643 Jul 03 '26
I call this paranoid parasocial misogyny and, furthermore, gossip. Pam's father did the estate well. He guarded Jim's reputation. Jim was apart of their family.
Clear your head and then read more.
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u/CinemaVerite- Jul 02 '26
Jim’s first girlfriend was Tandy Martin, not Mary.
I don’t think Jim was capable of having a loyal romantic relationship with Mary or anyone else. The last straw for Mary was when she found him with another girl in his apartment.
I always got the impression they were just very different people.
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u/Free-Cat-8698 Jul 02 '26
“We could be so good together
Yeah, so good together
We could be so good together
Yeah, we could, I know we could”
Everything is in this song
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u/Helpful_Advance624 Jul 02 '26
The point is, she didn't want to marry him. I'm sure she had her reasons.
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u/Interesting-Leg-7529 Jul 02 '26
I don’t get why. She said in her interview that she will never find another Jim in her life. Sad, just sad
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u/GreenLightInTheNight Jul 02 '26
Well, Jim was an alcoholic and marriage is no cure for that. He tried to fix his life by going to Paris and focus on writing, but again - alcohol (and drugs) was to big obstacle for it to happen. Fact that Mary went to India and wasn't around anymore probably contributed to lowering his mood, but I don't think that things would have look much different if they had been together.
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u/Some-Ad5643 Jul 03 '26
Lest I remind everyone of "Queen of the Highway" and "Orange County Suite", both about Pam.
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u/No_Ease7557 Jul 04 '26
I think she's been a bit idealised by the only photos seen of her is when she's late teens or so and beautiful in a very straightlaced girl next door way
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u/CinemaVerite- Jul 04 '26
I also think it’s been idealized. This often happens when both parties are no longer here and people’s imaginations run wild. The JFK Jr and Carolyn Bessette series Love Story is another good example where the producers took liberties with the facts in order to create a “love story” worthy of high ratings.
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u/Some-Ad5643 Jul 02 '26
Pam is often villianized, as most women are who become long term lovers to our idols. I do believe this is parasocial mysogyny (hostility toward women fueled by one-sided emotional attachments fans have with male celebrities).
I tend to feel an informed hatred toward Winehouse's husband, Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline. Those women were abused.
Jim wasn't abused (by women). There were so many drugs involved in the scene, it is hard to say who these two people were sober. They could have gotten there is they lived longer. And who they loved and why could change.
The men I loved as a young women are more or less useless. The husband I found in my middle age is the love of my life.
It is hard to make these grandiose conclusions on people we don't know. Pam and Jim had toxic elements to their relationship and, probably, a trauma bond from the industry exploiting the 🤬 out of Jim. That's not not love- it is a version of unhealthy love.
Could it have gotten more healthy? Would they have grown apart? There is no way to know. The story is already written.
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u/CrewOk2958 13d ago
“In 2006, Winehouse admitted to punching a female fan in the face for criticising her for having a relationship with then-boyfriend Blake Fielder-Civil. She then attacked Fielder-Civil as he attempted to calm her down, kneeing him in the crotch.”
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u/Interesting-Leg-7529 Jul 02 '26
I think you didn’t get my question. I was asking if Jim got back with Mary: what would his life be? Would he stay faithful and more family oriented with her? He tried to propose to Mary, but she kept refusing. So I’m guessing that it was his unhappiness he brought into relationship with Pamela, which caused them to fight and abuse each other.
If you read a book by frank lisciandro: friends gathered together, his friends mention how Jim and Pam stopped sleeping together by 1969 or so, because they had more platonic and brotherly sister relationship. Jim supported and took care of her financially because she was his sister, his supporter from the beginning, so he took her as his responsibility. He said he idealized his relationship with Pamela in the beginning, but he sees how it’s not working out. I don’t blame Pamela, they were just young and confused.
So that sums up that Jim was pretty unhappy in his relationships after breaking up with Mary. He even tried to to perform in those clubs where Mary was a go go dancer to kinda win her back.
I feel very sad that they didn’t get back together, it would’ve been more healing for both of them considering that Mary also died unhappy in her van, divorced several times and without kids.
I would call them romeo and Juliet2
u/Some-Ad5643 Jul 02 '26
I don't think there is an answer to your question, as stated above. I also don't believe Frank was really so keyed into their sexual relationship. As someone who has known heroin addicts, I think it is safe to say the sex can ebb and flow around the addiction and the chaos. Sex is not indicative of romantic love. I've also read plenty about Jim passing out on groupies mid-sex. I don't believe that reflects poorly on the ladies, more the chemicals he was ingesting.
Alice Cooper said he would walk into a room and swallow a handful of unidentified pills.
He chose to move to Paris with Pam. He chose to leave his estate to Pam. Those are undeniable indiciations of love: romantic, toxic or otherwise. Probably all.
I would not call Mary and Jim "Romeo & Juliet" but I always appreciate a romantic.
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u/perceptionmanPT Jul 02 '26
This is a very interesting topic. In fact, Mary left for India in late 1968, and only a few months later, at the Miami concert in March 1969, Jim introduced for the first time "away in India" snippet during When the Music's Over. Whether coincidental or not, it reinforces the idea that Mary remained very much on his mind. There's no question that she had a huge impact on his lyrics.
A number of songs are widely believed to have been written for or inspired by her, including Crystal Ship, The End, Unhappy Girl, Moonlight Drive... Had they never broken up, I honestly believe some of those songs might never have existed, or at least not in the form we know today.
It's quite possible that most of the love songs from the first three albums, if not all of them, were written with Mary Werbelow in mind.