Before She Was Miss Beadle, Charlotte Stewart Hit the Road With Jim Morrison

She may have had trouble keeping some of the boys in line at school, but years before she became Miss Beadle, Charlotte Stewart spent four days on the road with rock ’n’ roll’s original enfant terrible, Jim Morrison. Long before she became the wholesome schoolteacher Eva Beadle on Little House on the Prairie, Stewart was living a very different kind of Los Angeles life. She ran a clothing boutique called Liquid Butterfly, located across from Elektra Records, the label that had signed The Doors. That unlikely bit of geography put her close to Morrison, and the two eventually became friends.

Morrison would drop into the shop, and Stewart has recalled that their friendship was surprisingly ordinary. They went for drinks, had lunch and spent time together with other friends. She wasn’t chasing a rock star, and that may have been part of the reason Morrison felt comfortable around her. Stewart later put the relationship very simply: “I didn’t want him to be my boyfriend. I didn’t want to marry him. All I wanted was to be his friend.” That distinction matters because this wasn’t some Hollywood romance that has been inflated over the years. Stewart has consistently described Morrison as a friend, someone she could spend time with without wanting anything from him, and that apparently made her a person Morrison could trust at a particularly chaotic point in his life.

Then, in 1969, Morrison needed to get away. He was facing legal trouble following his infamous Miami concert, and according to Stewart’s recollections, he called her and suggested they leave town. “He trusted me at the worst time in his life,” Stewart later recalled. So they did. Morrison got behind the wheel, Stewart climbed into the passenger seat, and they headed north up Highway 1. Stewart later recalled that Morrison didn’t really have a destination in mind, so she directed him toward the California coast. For four days they travelled through California, stopping along the way and eventually visiting the San Simeon area and Hearst Castle. Stewart brought her Super 8 camera and filmed portions of the trip, including Morrison behind the wheel.

There’s something almost too perfect about the image: Jim Morrison driving north along the California coast, Charlotte Stewart sitting beside him, and neither of them knowing that one day she would be remembered as Miss Beadle on Little House on the Prairie. For Morrison, the trip offered something that had become increasingly difficult to find: anonymity. Stewart later recalled that “he didn’t look like the Lizard King. He didn’t look like Jim Morrison.” With his full beard and dishevelled appearance, he could move through towns without people recognizing him, and according to Stewart, some of the people they encountered had no idea who was sitting in front of them. “And it was perfect,” Stewart recalled. “And that’s what he wanted. He just wanted some peace.”

That may have been part of the attraction of simply getting in the car and leaving Los Angeles. Morrison could temporarily step outside the mythology that was growing around him, while Stewart was still years away from becoming the schoolteacher millions of television viewers would know. And that’s where this story gets particularly strange. The woman who would eventually stand in front of a classroom on Little House on the Prairie had spent four days travelling the California coast with one of the most notorious figures of the 1960s counterculture. One became associated with schoolchildren, prairie life and wholesome television. The other became synonymous with leather pants, poetry, controversy and The Doors.

When the four-day adventure ended, they returned to Los Angeles. Morrison dropped Stewart off at her store, they said goodbye, and according to Stewart, she never saw him again. Morrison died in Paris in 1971, while Stewart’s own career took her in a completely different direction. But the wholesome Miss Beadle image only tells part of the story. Stewart’s life before and after Little House included Hollywood’s counterculture, friendships with musicians, drinking, drugs and a difficult period that eventually led her into treatment and recovery. Her memoir, Little House in the Hollywood Hills, offers a much less sanitized look at the woman behind the prairie-schoolteacher image.

And then came another unexpected turn. David Lynch became a major part of her career. He had already cast her as Mary X in Eraserhead, and later brought her into Twin Peaks, where she played Betty Briggs, Bobby Briggs’ mother. She returned to that role in Twin Peaks: The Return. So perhaps Miss Beadle wasn’t quite the innocent prairie schoolteacher we remember. Behind that wholesome television smile was a woman who knew Jim Morrison, rode shotgun with him up the California coast, wandered through the Hollywood counterculture and eventually found herself in the bizarre worlds of David Lynch. Miss Beadle had a past, and it was a lot more interesting than the prairie.

Recommended Reading

More from Sandbox World

• What If Everything We Think We Know About Jim Morrison Is Wrong? — A natural companion to Stewart’s story, looking at the mythology surrounding Morrison and the man behind The Doors.
• The Doors Unhinged: Jim Morrison’s Legacy Goes on Trial by John Densmore — Extends the Morrison story into The Doors, their complicated legacy and the fight over Morrison’s place in rock history.
• L.A. Woman at 55: The Doors’ Final Morrison Album — A good follow-up for readers who want to stay with Morrison and The Doors.

Further Reading

• People: Charlotte Stewart on Jim Morrison — Stewart discusses their friendship, Liquid Butterfly and the road trip.
• Entertainment Weekly: Charlotte Stewart on Jim Morrison — Additional first-person recollections about their friendship and time together.
• The Doors — The band’s official site, useful for readers who want to explore Morrison and The Doors further.

Tony M.

If this article made you think, brought back a memory, or made you see something differently, I’d love to hear from you. Send me an email at sandboxworld@gmail.com. I read every message personally and, with your permission, may feature your thoughts in a future article because the best stories are the ones we share.