‘Little House’ Star Charlotte Stewart ‘Became Trusted Friends’ with The Doors Lead Singer Jim Morrison
Learn more about the unlikely friendship between ‘Little House’ star Charlotte Stewart and Jim Morrison
Key Takeaways
- Morrison first met Stewart at her bohemian boutique and they became trusted friends.
- Stewart and Morrison went on a four day road trip, which she filmed on her Super 8.
- A few years later, Stewart became Miss Beadle on 'Little House on the Prairie.'
On Little House on the Prairie, Charlotte Stewart portrayed the patient and kindhearted Miss Beadle, who spent her days teaching the young children of Walnut Grove in a small schoolhouse. But before she took on the beloved role, Stewart was living more of a rock and roll lifestyle, cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway with The Doors lead singer, Jim Morrison.
“We would go out for drinks,” Stewart shared of her friendship with Morrison. “He was quite a drinker, and often he needed to be driven home. So I would take him to my house because he trusted me.”
Long before audiences knew her from the Western family drama, Stewart was immersed in Los Angeles’ burgeoning counterculture scene. Living in Hollywood during the 1960s, she operated a small bohemian clothing shop, selling garments she designed and sewed herself while pursuing an acting career. The actress found herself at the intersection of Hollywood and rock-and-roll culture, landing film roles that included appearances alongside Elvis Presley and mingling with many of the musicians, artists and free spirits who helped define the era.
But her relationship with The Doors singer had a bit of a different beginning. Learn more about the unlikely friendship between Charlotte Stewart and Jim Morrison in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
How Stewart and Morrison met
Given her connections to Hollywood’s music scene, it would be easy to assume Charlotte Stewart met Jim Morrison at a concert, a club or through mutual musician friends. But that’s not how it happened. As Stewart later recalled, Morrison was actually the one who sought her out.
“I never saw The Doors perform,” she shared. “I had a clothing store called The Liquid Butterfly. We had a lot of rock n’ roll in and out of our store all the time. One day I came in and there was Jim Morrison. He was just standing in my store looking out the window. We were right across the street from Elektra Records (the label for The Doors)… we became friends over several weeks.”
Their friendship blossomed quickly, as the two would often go to a nearby bar where they could sit and have a few drinks together. Later on, as noted, Stewart would drive Morrison home.
They didn’t have a romantic relationship
Just because the actress and singer became friends, it doesn’t mean that Stewart was interested in Morrison as anything more than that. She shared that while they were close, that’s all it was.
“I didn’t want him to be my boyfriend,” she explained. “I didn’t want to marry him. All I wanted was to be his friend. He drank like I drank at that time [and] we became trusted friends. He could count on me.” She added later that their relationship “was not a romance…That had nothing to do with it…I was just being a friend—happened to be a friend with benefits. That’s what we did.”
Stewart and Morrison took a roadtrip together
Following the controversy surrounding a March 1969 concert in Miami, Jim Morrison faced a series of legal charges that would shadow him during the final years of his life. Prosecutors ultimately charged the Doors frontman with one felony count of lewd and lascivious behavior and three misdemeanors: indecent exposure, open profanity, lewd behavior and public drunkenness, accusations that generated national headlines and fueled his growing reputation as rock music’s most controversial figure.
“He came up to me and said, ‘I gotta get out of town. You want to go?’ I said, ‘Sure.’ We jumped in the car, and he didn’t know where he wanted to go, so I directed him up Highway 1…we just drove — stopping at bars along the way and staying overnight at motels… I shot our entire trip with my Super 8. Most of it was just him driving, which wasn’t very interesting.”
The impromptu road trip lasted four days. Stewart and Morrison explored the coast and although the singer was massively famous at the time, nobody recognized him.
“We stayed with a lot of friends I had up there,” she said. “They didn’t even know who he was because, at the time, he had a full beard and really didn’t take care of it. He looked like a bum. But I introduced him to my friends, and they didn’t have a clue it was Jim Morrison.”
Once their road trip came to an end, Morrison had to return to Florida where the arrest warrant had been issued.
“He dropped me off and I never saw him again. Within six months he was dead,” Stewart explained, adding,“I was heartbroken…We didn’t have cellphones in those days, so we didn’t know what was going on in the outside world. And suddenly, word got passed around the room. ‘Did you hear? He’s dead.’… I left the room, sat on the staircase and just cried.”
Not long after her friendship with Jim Morrison, Charlotte Stewart landed the role that would define her career: Miss Beadle on Little House on the Prairie. While audiences came to know her as the beloved schoolteacher of Walnut Grove, Stewart has continued to speak fondly of Morrison and the unexpected friendship they shared during Hollywood’s counterculture era.
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