Which two graduates of George Washington High School in Alexandria Virginia became 1960's rock stars who died of drug overdoses?

The halls of George Washington High School in Alexandria, Virginia, once held two future, and ultimately tragic, music legends. Ellen Cohen, who would become the iconic Mama Cass Elliot of The Mamas & the Papas, and Jim Morrison, the charismatic frontman for The Doors, both walked these same corridors just a few years apart before defining the sound of the 1960s. Their shared alma mater is a surprising footnote in the history of two of the decade's most influential rock acts.

Jim Morrison, a 1961 graduate, moved to California and co-founded The Doors, becoming a symbol of counterculture with his poetic and rebellious persona. His fame was meteoric but brief. In 1971, at the age of 27, he was found dead in a Paris bathtub. While the official cause of death was listed as heart failure, no autopsy was performed, and it is widely accepted to have been the result of a heroin overdose.

Cass Elliot, who attended the school a couple of years ahead of Morrison, became famous for her powerful, soaring vocals. Her death in 1974 at age 32 is often misattributed to choking on a ham sandwich, an urban legend that was quickly debunked by the coroner. The actual cause was heart failure, brought on by the immense strain of her lifestyle, which included repeated cycles of extreme dieting and reported drug use. These two influential voices of a generation shared a high school, a decade of fame, and a tragically premature end.