Marjorie Cameron

Biography

Red haired, blue eyed Marjorie Cameron was born April 23, 1922, in Belle Plain, Iowa, and grew up in Wisconsin. Her parents were Hill Lislie Cameroun and Carrie V. (Ridenour) Cameroun. She was in the Navy in WWII, and served in Washington as an aide to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and as a photographer. After the war she moved to Los Angeles. There she was introduced by a friend to the Agape Lodge of the OTO, where she met future husband John W. (Jack) Parsons. He was a pioneering genius in rocketry, an author, and very involved in the occult. He was associated with Aleister Crowley. Parsons considered her to be an "elemental" and in early 1946 she, Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard undertook the famous "Babylon Working", a long complex magical working attempting to create a magical child. She married Jack Parsons on October 19, 1946 in San Juan Capistrano, California. They were friends of many science fiction writers. Jack was killed in a mysterious explosion in Pasadena in 1952. At the time they were living with several artists and actors, and the house was reputed to be a hotbed of occult and sexual behavior not in keeping with Pasadena's image. She later married Sharif Kimmel. She saw a flying saucer in 1953 and became very interested in them. She painted and was involved in the Los Angeles art world. Her works have been shown at several major art museums. In 1954 she appeared as the Scarlet Woman and as Kali in Kenneth Anger's Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954). In 1957 she won an obscenity trial when one of her drawings caused a raid on the art gallery. She was a friend of Dennis Hopper and Dean Stockwell, and appeared with Hopper as the Water Witch in _Night Tide (1963)_. She died in 1995, at age 73.