Victoria Ridley has a master’s degree in library & information science and an undergraduate degree in history & art history. She was the youngest of three military (RCAF) brats. Her father was an avid reader and a book collector. Sadly, he also liked to drink. While growing up, she watched in distress as alcohol changed the father she once revered.
The November 15, 1967, issue of Vogue magazine introduced her to Jim Morrison. Though she had heard the song, “Light My Fire,” and watched The Doors on The Ed Sullivan Show, a full-page photograph of Jim cuddled with a model made the first strong impression. She tried modeling, but her brief fling was quite unlike the “ravishing” images in Vogue, which referred to Jim Morrison as one of the “ravishing people…sheer pleasure to look at…listen to…deal with…groove on…” His young death in 1971 was hard to understand.
On the banjo with the McGillicuddy Sisters, Ottawa Bluesfest, 2007
During university, Victoria read No One Here Gets Out Alive (1980), Hopkins & Sugerman’s early biography of Jim Morrison. Once employed in the library and archives field, she had the resources to develop her own Doors archive. Kerry Humpherys, a buyer and seller of Doors’ memorabilia, advertised in Goldmine. She soon assisted him with the production of The Doors Collectors Magazine (The DCM).
Victoria wondered about Oliver Stone’s movie, The Doors (1991). Other than some book covers the camera scans in an early scene, where was the intellectual Jim Morrison who she’d read was a “voracious” reader? He was virtually absent—the emphasis instead being on his taste for drugs and alcohol.
Then, in 1996, a leading publisher approached The DCM to write an encyclopedia of The Doors. Victoria remembers, “We were allotted only 18 months for completion. Impossible. Besides, the enigmatic Jim towered above the rest. The contract was cancelled. Thus, my adventure in research and reading took off, and the 18-month book morphed into a 30-year independent study of a self-created legend.”
Conducting original research on Jim Morrison, who, himself, was no stranger to libraries.
The iconic photo that first sparked the Author’s interest in Jim Morrison, 1967
Photo: Alexis Waldeck, Vogue, Condé Nast
