A bust of Jim Morrison that was stolen from his gravesite in Paris in 1988 was rediscovered last week, the French police said Monday.
The bust had been taken from Père-Lachaise, the cemetery in the 20th arrondissement in east Paris where many notable figures are buried, including Frédéric Chopin, Gertrude Stein, Richard Wright, Édith Piaf, Sarah Bernhardt and Oscar Wilde.
A spokeswoman for the Paris prosecutor’s office said the find was made by chance during a search carried out in connection with an unrelated investigation, but declined to comment further.
The police and the mayor’s office did not respond to requests for comment. There was no immediate word on when or if the bust would be returned to the gravesite.
Morrison, the lead singer of the Doors, known for hits like “Light My Fire” and “Riders on the Storm,” died in Paris in 1971 at age 27, officially of heart failure, although he had struggled with drugs and alcohol and no autopsy was performed. He had moved there a few months before.
Despite the notability of many of those interred around him, Morrison’s grave has consistently been among the most popular for the millions of tourists who visit every year, many of them not yet born when he died.
The bust of Morrison, which was sculpted by a Croatian artist, Mladen Mikulin, and unveiled in 1981 on the 10th anniversary of Morrison’s death, had a rocky few years by his grave before it vanished.
Fans chipped off bits for souvenirs and covered it with graffiti. Then in 1988, the 300-pound bust was stolen.
Even without the bust, Morrison’s grave is a magnet for fans.
Scrawls can be seen elsewhere in the cemetery pointing people in the right direction, often simply “Jim” with an arrow. There is graffiti in multiple languages with messages like “Jim lives” or simply the names of Doors songs.
Some fans push the boundaries by drinking, smoking or behaving rowdily, perhaps, in their minds, as the fast-living Morrison might have wanted.
Though Morrison is the star, Père-Lachaise, named for Louis XIV’s priest, attracts fans of many other interred celebrities of yore.
For years, people kissed Wilde’s tomb, leaving it covered in lipstick marks. But the makeup was damaging the stone, so after a deep cleaning, a barrier was erected to deter smoochers.
Visitors also like to rub the groin area of the bronze effigy of the journalist Victor Noir in the belief that the act will bring fertility. As a result, that particular area of his likeness has a marked shine.
The cemetery, which has phased out the use of pesticides, is also a haven for foxes, owls and other fauna in the city.
Like much of Paris, the cemetery also carries the scent of history.
In 1871, the Commune, the revolutionary government that briefly ran Paris, made its last stand there. The French army lined up and executed more than 100 of the last remaining soldiers of the Commune in a place now known as the Communards’ Wall.
Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting from Paris.
Victor Mather, who has been a reporter and editor at The Times for 25 years, covers sports and breaking news.
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