Robby Krieger wrote some of the best-known songs The Doors ever recorded, from “Light My Fire” to “Touch Me.” One of them was always more personal than the rest, because the woman it described was the one he came home to. That woman, Lynn Krieger, died on Thursday, October 29, 2026, at 79, and her husband of more than five decades shared the news with fans days later in a short and tender note.
Robby Krieger’s wife Lynn was not his girlfriend when they met. She caught Jim Morrison’s eye first, in New York, the same year The Doors broke big. How she ended up with the guitarist instead of the singer is a story that ends with a song still on classic rock radio 55 years later.
How Did Lynn Veres Meet The Doors?
Lynn Ann Veres met the band at a New York City nightclub in 1967, according to TMZ, which first reported her death on October 31. That was the year “Light My Fire” went to No. 1, and Morrison was the one who noticed her. Krieger told People, in an interview while promoting his 2021 memoir, that she fell for the singer after meeting him at the club and later moved to Los Angeles to be closer to him.
It did not go as she hoped. Morrison had offered her a place to stay, and when she arrived she found his longtime girlfriend, Pamela Courson, already there. She left upset. Krieger already knew her as a familiar face backstage. “She was one of the gals or guys that would come back to the dressing room and stuff, just to hang out,” he told the magazine.
His chance came when her patience with Morrison ran out. “I just started seeing her a little more when she was really down on Jim because of all his crazy s—,” Krieger said. Far Out Magazine reported that he took a liking to her almost as soon as she reached Los Angeles, and Wide Open Country reported that the two were a couple by 1968. Their romance was not always calm, and one of their fights would end up on a record.
What Did Robby Krieger Say About Her Death?
Krieger broke the news on The Doors’ Instagram. “I am so sorry I can’t share this news in person,” he wrote. “After more than 50 years of love and marriage, my wife Lynn Ann Veres passed away peacefully last night, October 29th.” “Waylon and I were with her until the end. Will miss her so much,” he wrote, and he signed it “Love, Robby K.”
Neither Krieger nor the family has released a cause of death. TMZ, citing sources, reported that she died in her sleep at the couple’s Beverly Hills home after a long illness. The outlet also said paramedics were called shortly before noon about a possible cardiac arrest, and that her official cause of death was not known. Krieger’s own word for it was “peacefully.”
The two married on Christmas Day 1972, according to People, which puts the marriage at 53 years, and they would have marked their 54th anniversary in December. A few older listings give a 1970 wedding date, but People and TMZ both say 1972. Waylon is their only child. With Lynn gone, Krieger is left as one of only two men still here from the four who made those records.
Who Is Still Alive From The Doors?
Krieger was born in Los Angeles on January 8, 1946, which makes him 80. The other survivor is drummer John Densmore, who was born on December 1, 1944, and is 81. More than half a century after the original lineup ended, the two still turn up to tell the old stories together, as they did when they recalled getting banned from The Ed Sullivan Show. Our readers can also see the two living members of The Doors now.
Keyboardist Ray Manzarek died on May 20, 2013, at 74, in a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, after a fight with bile duct cancer. Morrison died in Paris on July 3, 1971, at 27. He was gone months after the song Lynn inspired climbed the charts from L.A. Woman, his last album with the band.
Which Doors Hit Did Lynn Inspire?
The song is “Love Her Madly.” Krieger wrote it in September 1970, during Morrison’s trial, while he was playing around on a new 12-string guitar. The lyric came straight from home. “I fixed on the idea of a guy whose girlfriend is his obsession but she keeps on walking out and giving him the runaround,” Krieger told Britain’s Classic Rock magazine, as reported by Ultimate Classic Rock. “That was me. I wrote it about Lynn, now my wife.”
The walking out was real. “Every time we had an argument, she used to get pissed off and go out the door,” Krieger said in a quote collected by Songfacts, and he went on to describe how hard she slammed it behind her. If you ever sang along to the line about loving her as she’s walking out the door, now you know whose door it was.
Not everyone in the studio heard a hit. Producer Paul Rothchild dismissed it as “cocktail music” and left the L.A. Woman sessions, so the band finished the album with engineer Bruce Botnick. Manzarek later said the title came from Duke Ellington, who ended his concerts by telling the crowd “We love you madly.” Released in March 1971 as the album’s first single, “Love Her Madly” climbed to No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The woman who kept walking out ended up staying for more than half a century. When Krieger published his memoir, Set the Night on Fire, in 2021, he dedicated it to Lynn and praised her “fireball spirit.” “She’s the only person I’ve ever met who lets me be me,” he wrote. “And that’s why I’ll always love her.”
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