Lem Billings

Kirk LeMoyne "Lem" Billings (April 15, 1916 – May 28, 1981) was an American businessman known for his close and long-time friendship with John F. Kennedy and the Kennedy family. Billings was a preparatory school roommate of Kennedy, an usher at his wedding, and a campaigner for his successful 1960 presidential bid. Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. called him "my second son," and he sometimes was an escort for several of the Kennedy women. After the assassination of his father, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was placed in Billings' care for a time. Billings assisted Sargent Shriver as a trustee for the Kennedy family trusts.

Billings was born in Pittsburgh on April 15, 1916, the third child of Frederic Tremaine Billings (1873–1933) and Romaine LeMoyne (1882–1970). His father was a prominent physician and a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy. His mother was a Mayflower descendant and his great-grandfather, Francis Julius LeMoyne, was a prominent abolitionist linked to the underground railroad who helped establish what is today known as LeMoyne–Owen College, and was responsible for constructing the first crematorium in the United States. The Billings family were Episcopalians and Republicans.

Billings, a 16-year-old third-year student, and John F. Kennedy, a 15-year-old second-year student, met at Choate, an elite preparatory school in Wallingford, Connecticut, in the fall of 1933. As a teenager, Billings was 6' 2", weighed 175 pounds, and was the strongest member of the Choate crew team. They became close friends. While at Choate, they formed a club and called themselves "The Muckers". The Muckers would pull pranks around the school and even planned to dump horse manure in the school gym, but that fell through after the headmaster found out. Billings' first visit with the Kennedy family was for Christmas in Palm Beach in 1933; after that, he joined them for holidays, participated in family events, and was treated like a member of the family. The Depression had hurt the Billings family financially, and Lem Billings was at Choate on scholarship. Billings repeated his senior year so that he and Kennedy could graduate from Choate together in 1935.

In the summer of 1937, Billings and Kennedy took a summer trip through Europe which solidified their friendship.

In 1939, Billings graduated from Princeton University, majoring in art and architecture and wrote his senior thesis on Tintoretto.

In 1941, Billings failed medical tests required for admission to the U.S. military during World War II. In 1942, supported by a recommendation from Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., he was accepted by the AFS ambulance service, where his poor eyesight was not a disqualification. He was deployed to North Africa from 1942 to 1943. In 1944, he received a commission in the U.S. Naval Reserve and served in the South Pacific until being discharged in 1946.

After working on John F. Kennedy's successful campaign for U.S. Congress in 1946, Billings toured seven Latin American countries with Robert F. Kennedy.

From 1946 to 1948, Billings attended Harvard Business School and earned an MBA. He later had several jobs, including selling Coca-Cola dispensers to drugstores and working at a General Shoe store. As Vice President at the Emerson Drug Company in Baltimore, he invented the 1950s fad drink Fizzies by adding a fruit flavor to disguise the sodium citrate taste. In 1958, Billings moved to the prominent Manhattan advertising firm Lennen & Newell, as an advertising executive.