1 00:00:07,240 --> 00:00:09,520 MULTIPLE CAMERA CLICKS 2 00:00:16,040 --> 00:00:17,840 CAMERA CLICKS 3 00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:24,680 She did so much with an extraordinary amount of courage. 4 00:00:24,680 --> 00:00:27,000 RAPID GUNFIRE 5 00:00:33,520 --> 00:00:38,160 It's very hard, I think, for women today to understand the degree 6 00:00:38,160 --> 00:00:40,160 of the risks that she took. 7 00:00:42,880 --> 00:00:46,520 You see that in Lee Miller's eyes. 8 00:00:46,520 --> 00:00:49,000 There is a flame there that is ignited 9 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:51,240 when you see those photographs. 10 00:00:52,360 --> 00:00:54,320 CAMERA CLICKS 11 00:00:56,840 --> 00:00:59,080 She went for it, whatever it was. 12 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:07,160 She didn't let any of the 13 00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:10,600 conventions of being a woman hold her back. 14 00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:16,640 CAMERA CLICKS 15 00:01:22,600 --> 00:01:25,480 I hope no-ne will ever forget the subject matter for those pictures. 16 00:01:25,480 --> 00:01:27,120 I won't. 17 00:01:41,680 --> 00:01:43,880 DOOR CREAKS 18 00:01:53,480 --> 00:01:56,600 When I was growing up, I knew virtually nothing of my 19 00:01:56,600 --> 00:01:59,000 mum's past achievements. 20 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:01,480 It was a book that she had closed. 21 00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:09,640 People were trying to celebrate her, but she didn't want it. 22 00:02:10,920 --> 00:02:13,560 She wanted to move on and she wanted to forget. 23 00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:18,160 She packed her life into boxes - 24 00:02:18,160 --> 00:02:22,040 Daz and Heinz Baked Beans - 25 00:02:22,040 --> 00:02:24,840 cardboard boxes, and she put them in the attic. 26 00:02:29,920 --> 00:02:34,160 Well, my late wife Suzanna found these photographs in the attic 27 00:02:34,160 --> 00:02:35,800 of this old house. 28 00:02:37,200 --> 00:02:39,960 My first reaction was disbelief. 29 00:02:50,040 --> 00:02:53,080 I think Lee was very much burying the past. 30 00:02:53,080 --> 00:02:57,480 And I think it was because she...she wasn't terribly happy. 31 00:02:57,480 --> 00:02:59,920 She cut a somewhat lonely figure. 32 00:03:01,880 --> 00:03:05,360 I had known my mum as a useless drunk, 33 00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:09,480 a hysterical kind of person who... 34 00:03:09,480 --> 00:03:13,440 Even catching a train in Lewis was a major episode for her. 35 00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:16,200 I could not believe that she was the same person 36 00:03:16,200 --> 00:03:17,960 that had created this material. 37 00:03:17,960 --> 00:03:22,320 Now I felt that this was a story that needed to be told. 38 00:03:22,320 --> 00:03:24,440 CAR HORNS BEEP 39 00:03:33,760 --> 00:03:37,000 I feel with Lee that she knew she was going to be a star. 40 00:03:37,000 --> 00:03:39,200 If you grow up in the suburbs... 41 00:03:39,200 --> 00:03:42,960 I mean, Poughkeepsie's a train ride from New York. 42 00:03:42,960 --> 00:03:45,040 ..all you want is the big city. 43 00:03:51,720 --> 00:03:54,000 So, Lee goes to New York. 44 00:03:54,000 --> 00:03:57,160 She has youth, she has beauty. 45 00:03:57,160 --> 00:03:58,680 She's confident. 46 00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:01,800 Men take her out for dinner, and then... 47 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:05,960 CAR HORN BEEPS, TYRES SCREECH 48 00:04:05,960 --> 00:04:09,600 The story is that Lee Miller stepped 49 00:04:09,600 --> 00:04:11,280 out in front of an automobile. 50 00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:18,960 And as the driver swerved to a halt, 51 00:04:18,960 --> 00:04:21,000 the most powerful man in fashion 52 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:23,640 managed to scoop her up. 53 00:04:23,640 --> 00:04:26,480 And that man was Conde Nast, who is 54 00:04:26,480 --> 00:04:29,320 the founder of American Vogue. 55 00:04:29,320 --> 00:04:33,920 And what is a fact is, within a very short time of meeting 56 00:04:33,920 --> 00:04:38,680 Conde Nast - who had a bit of a casting couch, apparently - 57 00:04:38,680 --> 00:04:43,160 but very soon after meeting him, she was on the cover of Vogue. 58 00:04:47,640 --> 00:04:49,800 MULTIPLE CAMERA CLICKS 59 00:04:53,440 --> 00:04:56,200 When I look at the images of Lee Miller, I see a woman 60 00:04:56,200 --> 00:05:00,440 who is entirely comfortable in her skin, entirely comfortable 61 00:05:00,440 --> 00:05:04,400 with who she is as a person, as a woman. 62 00:05:06,400 --> 00:05:11,440 And how thoroughly modern she must have been then, beyond modern, 63 00:05:11,440 --> 00:05:14,040 how, probably, ground-breaking she was. 64 00:05:16,560 --> 00:05:19,200 I knew very little of her as a model. 65 00:05:19,200 --> 00:05:22,000 It's not something that she ever talked about at all. 66 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:24,240 Well, she never talked about anything to do with this. 67 00:05:24,240 --> 00:05:26,920 She never showed me the beautiful pictures in Vogue 68 00:05:26,920 --> 00:05:29,480 of her looking absolutely fabulous. 69 00:05:33,520 --> 00:05:36,600 Part of the reason that Lee Miller was such a great model 70 00:05:36,600 --> 00:05:39,200 is she'd been modelling from the day she was born. 71 00:05:50,960 --> 00:05:54,600 Lee's father photographed her all the time. 72 00:06:03,880 --> 00:06:09,040 Theodore Miller was a serious amateur photographer, quite adept 73 00:06:09,040 --> 00:06:14,040 at the techniques of the time, including the stereoscopic camera. 74 00:06:16,920 --> 00:06:19,000 Images would merge with each other 75 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:22,040 to give you an illusion of depth. 76 00:06:22,040 --> 00:06:26,680 Theodore would probably have considered himself an artist, 77 00:06:26,680 --> 00:06:30,160 and he took pictures of his daughter that, to our eyes, 78 00:06:30,160 --> 00:06:31,800 are very dubious. 79 00:06:33,040 --> 00:06:35,240 DOOR CREAKS 80 00:06:51,920 --> 00:06:55,800 I didn't know about these pictures until after Lee died, 81 00:06:55,800 --> 00:06:59,080 and it was part of the stash that we found. 82 00:06:59,080 --> 00:07:01,240 I was quite shocked, actually, because I thought 83 00:07:01,240 --> 00:07:04,080 that they were an invasion of the normal 84 00:07:04,080 --> 00:07:06,760 father-daughter relationship. 85 00:07:06,760 --> 00:07:09,360 And, of course, by that time I'd got my own daughters and I could no 86 00:07:09,360 --> 00:07:12,520 more imagine me taking these kind of pictures. 87 00:07:17,720 --> 00:07:20,240 If you step back and don't think 88 00:07:20,240 --> 00:07:22,880 that those pictures of a father, 89 00:07:22,880 --> 00:07:24,840 of a daughter, they're actually 90 00:07:24,840 --> 00:07:27,280 quite good for an amateur photographer. 91 00:07:27,280 --> 00:07:30,880 But the minute you know that that's her dad, 92 00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:33,560 then you just can't get over it. 93 00:07:35,080 --> 00:07:37,480 It's a transgression of a relationship. 94 00:07:43,440 --> 00:07:46,000 Theodore's photographs of Lee, 95 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:48,000 I see as a collaboration. 96 00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:50,960 I see her as a participant. 97 00:07:50,960 --> 00:07:54,400 I see... And a life experience so similar to my own. 98 00:07:55,960 --> 00:08:01,360 When Mom was working on a photograph, it was a family affair. 99 00:08:03,680 --> 00:08:07,120 I grew up in a family where we were very comfortable with nudity 100 00:08:07,120 --> 00:08:09,600 and being nude around each other. 101 00:08:09,600 --> 00:08:12,600 And it's very sad that people 102 00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:17,440 cannot conceive of Lee engaging in nudity around her father 103 00:08:17,440 --> 00:08:19,800 without it becoming sexualised. 104 00:08:21,120 --> 00:08:25,600 I think women and children in art, 105 00:08:25,600 --> 00:08:30,120 the assumption is one of exploitation, and that is not 106 00:08:30,120 --> 00:08:34,160 what I see at all with her as a child subject 107 00:08:34,160 --> 00:08:35,840 or as an adult subject. 108 00:08:39,080 --> 00:08:44,080 He did bring her up as his favourite model, and this continued 109 00:08:44,080 --> 00:08:46,920 into her teens and early 20s, 110 00:08:46,920 --> 00:08:51,600 apparently without any distress or qualms or worries on her part, 111 00:08:51,600 --> 00:08:53,960 as far as we can tell. 112 00:09:09,320 --> 00:09:13,280 Having already learned quite a bit about photography at home, 113 00:09:13,280 --> 00:09:17,040 she could talk photography with the great photographers 114 00:09:17,040 --> 00:09:20,120 like Steichen, with whom she worked. 115 00:09:20,120 --> 00:09:23,200 She was probably forming the idea that she'd like to take 116 00:09:23,200 --> 00:09:25,440 the photographs herself. 117 00:09:25,440 --> 00:09:28,800 And I think it was Steichen who said, "Well, if you want to 118 00:09:28,800 --> 00:09:31,880 "study with one of the greats, you should go to Paris 119 00:09:31,880 --> 00:09:33,400 "and study with Man Ray." 120 00:09:33,400 --> 00:09:35,760 SHIP HORN BLARES 121 00:09:40,640 --> 00:09:43,000 JAZZ MUSIC 122 00:09:49,800 --> 00:09:53,400 Paris in the late '20s was the centre of the world. 123 00:09:55,280 --> 00:10:00,480 Paris is Paris, and Paris is jazz, and Lee is jazz. 124 00:10:03,240 --> 00:10:06,800 Being in Paris in the '30s, for a woman like Lee, was literally 125 00:10:06,800 --> 00:10:10,600 about ripping your corset off because, you know, it's when fashion 126 00:10:10,600 --> 00:10:13,120 changes, it's when the world changes. 127 00:10:13,120 --> 00:10:17,760 It's...it's a moment of...just huge possibility. 128 00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:19,680 MUSIC CONTINUES 129 00:10:19,680 --> 00:10:22,440 You know, Lee, first I think we'd better clear up just how you 130 00:10:22,440 --> 00:10:24,720 happened to be a photographer in the first place. 131 00:10:24,720 --> 00:10:27,040 I thought the best way was to start out studying with one 132 00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:29,800 of the great masters in the field, Man Ray. 133 00:10:35,800 --> 00:10:38,840 He was in Paris at that time, so I went to him and said, 134 00:10:38,840 --> 00:10:40,920 "Hello, I'm your new student and apprentice." 135 00:10:40,920 --> 00:10:44,160 He said, "Oh, no, you're not. I don't have students or apprentices." 136 00:10:44,160 --> 00:10:45,800 I said, "You do now." 137 00:10:49,160 --> 00:10:52,240 At first she was his student. 138 00:10:52,240 --> 00:10:55,080 She was also his studio assistant. 139 00:10:55,080 --> 00:10:58,320 But they also became lovers early on. 140 00:11:03,200 --> 00:11:08,080 Why did Lee Miller - golden, beautiful, fashionable... 141 00:11:09,640 --> 00:11:11,920 ..fall for a man who was basically 142 00:11:11,920 --> 00:11:14,520 half her height, not very golden? 143 00:11:15,880 --> 00:11:18,680 Because she had much to learn 144 00:11:18,680 --> 00:11:21,880 and he was a great photographer. 145 00:11:28,800 --> 00:11:32,400 For Man Ray, I think it was the incarnation of the most 146 00:11:32,400 --> 00:11:35,200 improbable relationship that he could have imagined. 147 00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:39,320 This incredibly beautiful, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant 148 00:11:39,320 --> 00:11:42,560 from New York dropping into his 149 00:11:42,560 --> 00:11:45,160 lap and his life in this way. 150 00:11:56,320 --> 00:11:58,320 There's still so much that Man Ray 151 00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:00,240 did with Lee Miller that was ground-breaking. 152 00:12:00,240 --> 00:12:03,120 I don't think anyone had ever seen photography as that sort of daring. 153 00:12:07,920 --> 00:12:12,360 This level of artistic genius between the pair of them, 154 00:12:12,360 --> 00:12:15,240 it resonates in photography today. 155 00:12:20,320 --> 00:12:24,400 She understands what Man Ray is asking of her. 156 00:12:25,640 --> 00:12:27,880 From my personal experience, 157 00:12:27,880 --> 00:12:30,920 there is this sense of just knowing 158 00:12:30,920 --> 00:12:33,600 what the photographer wants. 159 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:35,760 And manipulating herself 160 00:12:35,760 --> 00:12:37,840 into these sort of shapes 161 00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:40,240 and positions, but also 162 00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:43,080 being attuned to sort of look 163 00:12:43,080 --> 00:12:46,160 into the camera and convey life... 164 00:12:46,160 --> 00:12:49,040 It is an alchemy of two people. 165 00:12:49,040 --> 00:12:51,040 The photographer, the muse. 166 00:12:52,520 --> 00:12:56,760 Typically, historically, the artist has then taken the photographs, 167 00:12:56,760 --> 00:13:01,120 produced amazing work and walked away saying, "Look at this amazing 168 00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:04,640 "work that I made," as opposed to saying, "Look at this gift 169 00:13:04,640 --> 00:13:06,280 "I've been given and the 170 00:13:06,280 --> 00:13:09,200 "extraordinary magic of this collaboration." 171 00:13:09,200 --> 00:13:13,640 And he did not negate her in retrospect, 172 00:13:13,640 --> 00:13:17,880 which I think, again, speaks volumes about her - 173 00:13:17,880 --> 00:13:21,520 the extent of the respect that he had for her. 174 00:13:35,520 --> 00:13:38,680 Lee and Man fit perfectly into the 175 00:13:38,680 --> 00:13:42,680 world of the Surrealists in the 1930s. 176 00:13:42,680 --> 00:13:47,040 That movement seemed very... not only very unconventional, 177 00:13:47,040 --> 00:13:50,160 but very freeing for the women as well. 178 00:13:51,640 --> 00:13:55,720 To be treated not only as muses, but as muses who were themselves 179 00:13:55,720 --> 00:13:57,920 artists and could participate. 180 00:14:01,760 --> 00:14:05,080 Lee's relationship with Man Ray changed her life in the sense 181 00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:09,520 that it really made her into a Surrealist photographer. 182 00:14:09,520 --> 00:14:13,360 She could already do the fashion and stuff like that. 183 00:14:13,360 --> 00:14:18,000 But I think Man Ray really encouraged that wonderful element 184 00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:20,200 in her work, which is the surreal. 185 00:14:48,600 --> 00:14:51,480 I do think, with Lee Miller, she is much more lauded as an artist 186 00:14:51,480 --> 00:14:54,520 and a creator as well as a muse. 187 00:14:54,520 --> 00:14:59,440 I see a woman who is in charge, and she's the one calling the shots. 188 00:14:59,440 --> 00:15:01,440 And I just love that! 189 00:15:05,840 --> 00:15:10,160 People forget that she actually had her own studio in Paris 190 00:15:10,160 --> 00:15:13,920 and she was working on doing her own commissions. 191 00:15:13,920 --> 00:15:16,720 And working with Hoyningen-Huene, 192 00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:19,520 who is the boss of Paris Vogue Studios. 193 00:15:22,880 --> 00:15:26,040 METRONOME TICKS 194 00:15:29,920 --> 00:15:34,800 He did everything he could, almost, to further her photographic career. 195 00:15:34,800 --> 00:15:37,600 However, he also wanted to control her. 196 00:15:44,040 --> 00:15:47,520 I think we could see it as the relationship of a much younger 197 00:15:47,520 --> 00:15:51,600 woman with a much older man, that initially the power lies 198 00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:55,800 with the man and then there's the shift and it lies with the woman. 199 00:15:55,800 --> 00:15:58,960 And the ending, really, with Man Ray is probably... 200 00:15:58,960 --> 00:16:01,680 ..she got what she wanted. 201 00:16:02,760 --> 00:16:07,240 And he struggled to try and possess and control 202 00:16:07,240 --> 00:16:09,600 this totally uncontrollable woman. 203 00:16:09,600 --> 00:16:12,640 And that's what broke them apart in the end, after three years. 204 00:16:20,600 --> 00:16:23,560 CHEERING, APPLAUSE 205 00:16:37,120 --> 00:16:38,680 Lee Miller, a bride! 206 00:16:41,400 --> 00:16:43,720 "Poughkeepsie, New York, September 4th. 207 00:16:43,720 --> 00:16:45,680 "Mr and Mrs Theodore H Miller 208 00:16:45,680 --> 00:16:49,760 "of this city today announced the marriage of their daughter, 209 00:16:49,760 --> 00:16:53,800 "Lee Miller, to Aziz Eloui Bey of Cairo, Egypt." 210 00:17:10,640 --> 00:17:15,600 Why did Lee Miller marry an Egyptian businessman - that she'd met, 211 00:17:15,600 --> 00:17:18,760 I believe, skiing - and move to Cairo? 212 00:17:19,960 --> 00:17:22,720 He is extremely wealthy, 213 00:17:22,720 --> 00:17:27,440 but he also offers her a kind of magic carpet 214 00:17:27,440 --> 00:17:30,400 to the Arabian Nights, in her mind. 215 00:17:30,400 --> 00:17:34,440 So they get married very quickly in City Hall and she tells 216 00:17:34,440 --> 00:17:36,280 her parents something along the 217 00:17:36,280 --> 00:17:39,960 lines of, "Oh, you know that guy Aziz? Well, I just married him." 218 00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:44,960 She found in Cairo a very luxurious 219 00:17:44,960 --> 00:17:47,280 establishment with servants 220 00:17:47,280 --> 00:17:51,200 and cooks and all sorts of people to look after her. 221 00:17:51,200 --> 00:17:52,920 And for a time she found 222 00:17:52,920 --> 00:17:56,600 a great change of scene which interested her. 223 00:17:56,600 --> 00:18:00,880 For several years, she was quite happily immersed in her new life. 224 00:18:00,880 --> 00:18:04,920 But, in time, this too became insufficient for her. 225 00:18:20,760 --> 00:18:23,840 Lee realised it was full of people 226 00:18:23,840 --> 00:18:26,560 who were pickled with drink 227 00:18:26,560 --> 00:18:31,360 and dried in the sun, and the women had nothing to do. 228 00:18:31,360 --> 00:18:35,120 And I think she got bored extremely quickly. 229 00:18:39,600 --> 00:18:43,880 As an antidote to the boredom of life, she found her Rolleiflex 230 00:18:43,880 --> 00:18:45,720 and started taking pictures again. 231 00:18:45,720 --> 00:18:47,400 And this was one of the most 232 00:18:47,400 --> 00:18:50,440 exciting photographic periods of her career. 233 00:19:19,640 --> 00:19:23,320 So she began going on expeditions into the desert 234 00:19:23,320 --> 00:19:29,080 to take very unusual and, to my mind, highly successful photographs 235 00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:33,480 that have almost a more spiritual dimension. 236 00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:42,680 Certainly the picture she made through the torn fly screen, 237 00:19:42,680 --> 00:19:45,840 Portrait Of Space, that shows that 238 00:19:45,840 --> 00:19:49,920 kind of conjunction of all of the surreal qualities, 239 00:19:49,920 --> 00:19:53,840 all of her internal feelings in that one shot, in that one place. 240 00:19:56,200 --> 00:19:58,640 It seems almost meditative to me. 241 00:19:58,640 --> 00:20:03,160 She had a strong desire to escape into something else 242 00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:05,520 and another place. 243 00:20:05,520 --> 00:20:08,960 And it was in Egypt that she could explore that. 244 00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:18,160 When she was married to Aziz and living in Egypt, she even writes 245 00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:22,640 about it in her letters that she feels like she needs to be 246 00:20:22,640 --> 00:20:26,880 a proper wife, and she knows what the expectations are, 247 00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:29,840 but she just finds it too hard. 248 00:20:29,840 --> 00:20:32,040 And...and it just doesn't work! 249 00:20:33,640 --> 00:20:36,160 Aziz knew that Lee was unhappy 250 00:20:36,160 --> 00:20:38,720 in Cairo and pining for Paris, 251 00:20:38,720 --> 00:20:41,280 so he bought her an airline ticket. 252 00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:50,440 And she flew to Paris, and on the night she arrived 253 00:20:50,440 --> 00:20:53,880 she heard that there was this big party on. 254 00:20:53,880 --> 00:20:56,560 JAZZ MUSIC, LAUGHTER 255 00:20:57,680 --> 00:20:59,880 And it was a fancy dress party, 256 00:20:59,880 --> 00:21:01,880 and all of her Surrealist friends were there. 257 00:21:01,880 --> 00:21:04,200 It must've been the most wonderful reunion. 258 00:21:04,200 --> 00:21:07,360 And that's where she met my dad, Roland Penrose. 259 00:21:11,840 --> 00:21:15,320 I think Aziz shot himself in the foot, really, didn't he? 260 00:21:15,320 --> 00:21:17,760 Cos he was so nice and bought her a 261 00:21:17,760 --> 00:21:21,040 ticket to go to Paris to see her friends, 262 00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:23,520 and then the same night she meets my grandad. 263 00:21:23,520 --> 00:21:25,240 It's a bit like, "Damn!" 264 00:21:25,240 --> 00:21:28,800 If you'd known, would you have bought the ticket, Aziz? 265 00:21:33,920 --> 00:21:39,560 Lee is now, I think it'd be fair to say, in lust with Roland Penrose, 266 00:21:39,560 --> 00:21:41,680 and he feels exactly the same. 267 00:21:43,080 --> 00:21:45,840 WAVES GENTLY BREAK 268 00:21:52,760 --> 00:21:54,320 There is one extraordinary 269 00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:56,440 photograph which kind of sums up 270 00:21:56,440 --> 00:21:59,880 1937 in Lee's life. 271 00:21:59,880 --> 00:22:02,080 They are on this holiday with 272 00:22:02,080 --> 00:22:04,600 a group of people to the South of France. 273 00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:10,920 You see a lot of guys with their tops on... 274 00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:14,520 ..and women with their tops off in the picnic picture, 275 00:22:14,520 --> 00:22:16,440 which, if you ever want anything 276 00:22:16,440 --> 00:22:19,880 to encompass the Surrealists, is a great one. 277 00:22:19,880 --> 00:22:23,320 Also, you know, if you zoom close into Roland, 278 00:22:23,320 --> 00:22:25,280 you can see an Englishman who's 279 00:22:25,280 --> 00:22:27,360 desperately trying to break free 280 00:22:27,360 --> 00:22:29,400 from his Victorian upbringing, 281 00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:31,640 as he's looking very kind of, 282 00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:33,840 "Yes, I'm studying liberation here." 283 00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:35,840 SHE CHUCKLES 284 00:22:35,840 --> 00:22:40,080 She was the sort of person that he wanted to be, in some respects. 285 00:22:53,120 --> 00:22:55,800 The dynamic of the Surrealists 286 00:22:55,800 --> 00:23:00,840 is a dynamic of free love, but free love which tends to favour men 287 00:23:00,840 --> 00:23:03,600 having the free love that they want 288 00:23:03,600 --> 00:23:05,320 and not so much the women. 289 00:23:05,320 --> 00:23:08,000 Then you put Lee Miller into that mix... 290 00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:16,280 ..and Lee is definitely someone who always thinks, 291 00:23:16,280 --> 00:23:20,760 "Well, I don't see why men should be able to do something that I can't." 292 00:23:29,960 --> 00:23:34,600 For her to own the power of her sexuality, 293 00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:39,160 to harness it and then to enjoy it for herself... 294 00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:41,080 I mean, that's crazy. 295 00:23:41,080 --> 00:23:44,920 I'm so proud of all the sex she had, right? 296 00:23:44,920 --> 00:23:47,080 Like, way to go! 297 00:23:47,080 --> 00:23:50,720 It makes me so happy to know that there's a blip in history 298 00:23:50,720 --> 00:23:52,840 where at least one woman... 299 00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:56,120 ..had a good time. 300 00:24:00,400 --> 00:24:02,760 It's one of those moments where everyone 301 00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:05,960 in that photograph is signalling, 302 00:24:05,960 --> 00:24:10,120 "I couldn't be anywhere else than here right now." 303 00:24:10,120 --> 00:24:15,880 It's a moment of extraordinary happiness and joy, 304 00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:18,880 but most of all freedom. 305 00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:23,680 And when we look at it now, of course, it's very poignant, 306 00:24:23,680 --> 00:24:28,080 because what they know - and they do know - 307 00:24:28,080 --> 00:24:30,920 is that war is coming. 308 00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:43,640 The summer of 1937 was a wonderful affair with my grandad, 309 00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:46,280 but she did go back, she went back to Egypt. 310 00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:03,680 "Darling Lee, this is hell. Another week on and still no news of you. 311 00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:08,520 "Three weeks now since your last letter arrived. 312 00:25:08,520 --> 00:25:11,960 "I get more and more depressed and worried every day." 313 00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:19,040 It still takes him two years to convince her that he's the guy. 314 00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:25,680 "When I got married, I really did it for better or for worse. 315 00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:29,880 "With that little idea blown to hell by this summer and you, it makes me 316 00:25:29,880 --> 00:25:33,560 "cynically suspicious of any attachment I might make. 317 00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:38,920 "Aziz and I had a long conversation 318 00:25:38,920 --> 00:25:41,200 "about you, and my situation in general. 319 00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:43,000 "He doesn't want to divorce me 320 00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:46,280 "unless he's sure I'm going to be happy and taken care of elsewhere." 321 00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:52,040 It was inevitable that Lee left him because she just could not live 322 00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,080 without the artistic environment 323 00:25:55,080 --> 00:25:59,400 that she had experienced in Paris or even New York. 324 00:25:59,400 --> 00:26:03,080 I don't know how she does it, by the way, with her men. 325 00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:06,400 I don't know how she manages to keep all her men in love with her, 326 00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:08,640 right the way through your life. 327 00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:11,560 Man Ray is still there. Aziz, 328 00:26:11,560 --> 00:26:15,360 she treats him terribly and has all sorts of affairs behind... You know, 329 00:26:15,360 --> 00:26:19,280 but he knows about them and he even says, "If you leave me, 330 00:26:19,280 --> 00:26:21,480 "can I be one of your lovers?" 331 00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:26,400 But when she left him, he gave her a portfolio of shares 332 00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,240 so that she could always be independent. 333 00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:31,280 And he... You know, 334 00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:32,920 what an amazing guy. 335 00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:34,440 SHE CHUCKLES 336 00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:47,320 AIR-RAID SIREN 337 00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:01,960 CAMERA CLICKS 338 00:27:10,120 --> 00:27:14,200 What brought Lee Miller to London is Roland Penrose. 339 00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:16,920 He is absolutely loaded. 340 00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:21,040 But Lee's very independent, so she wants her own job. 341 00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:24,120 So, what does Lee know? 342 00:27:24,120 --> 00:27:29,280 She knows how to model - not madly useful in a city under bombardment - 343 00:27:29,280 --> 00:27:31,520 and she knows how to take photographs. 344 00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:45,400 One day she meets the most dowdy, unfashionable 345 00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:50,560 tweedy, blue-stocking woman, 346 00:27:50,560 --> 00:27:53,920 and this British woman who could not 347 00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,400 be less, like, glamorous 348 00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:58,760 American, scintillating, 349 00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:00,640 gorgeous Lee Miller, 350 00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:04,240 is the editor of Vogue, and she is Audrey Withers. 351 00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:12,680 And Lee offers Audrey everything she needs. 352 00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:28,400 Vogue is a fashion magazine. 353 00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:30,400 Britain is a country under rationing. 354 00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:33,960 So, what Vogue celebrates is, kind of, "make do and mend". 355 00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:40,560 And so Lee is taking the pictures. 356 00:28:40,560 --> 00:28:42,880 I mean, some of the pictures are sort of hilarious 357 00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:45,760 because the clothes, of course, are borderline hideous. 358 00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:04,320 Audrey Withers was an extraordinary woman in her own right. 359 00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:10,120 She had a real interest in women's rights, 360 00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:12,120 in women's independence, 361 00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:16,400 and in the creativity and contribution that they could make. 362 00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:23,160 Women's magazines were key, because you have to remember 363 00:29:23,160 --> 00:29:27,440 that many British men were in the Armed Forces and serving 364 00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:30,320 overseas and that it was women who were not only running 365 00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:34,480 the household, but also taking over men's roles. 366 00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:37,560 And so, if the Ministry of Information wanted to get a general 367 00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:42,520 message out, they always factored in the women, and the women's 368 00:29:42,520 --> 00:29:44,240 magazines in particular. 369 00:29:56,080 --> 00:30:01,280 Lee's transition from being a lapsed fashion photographer to shooting 370 00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:04,200 for Vogue was actually not a huge step. 371 00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:07,840 The big step was when she became a photojournalist. 372 00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:31,160 And then, one day, she meets a young Life magazine photographer 373 00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:32,800 called David Scherman, 374 00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:35,640 and each has what the other needs. 375 00:30:35,640 --> 00:30:38,040 EXPLOSION 376 00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:43,800 David Scherman is a really very, very good photographer 377 00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:47,640 who is already, you know, completely bloodied in war. 378 00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:49,880 He's quite heroic, actually. 379 00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:54,720 David Scherman was befriended by Lee and they struck up 380 00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:57,600 an extraordinarily close friendship. 381 00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:01,840 And Roland invited Scherman to come and live with them. 382 00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:04,120 It was a menage a trois. 383 00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:07,520 They were having a jolly good time, those three! 384 00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:09,040 SHE LAUGHS 385 00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:13,200 HILARY ROBERTS: David Scherman taught her the art of 386 00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:15,080 news photography, and in order 387 00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:18,760 to do what she wanted to do, which was take photographs 388 00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:22,160 that mattered, that were relevant to the war effort and not simply 389 00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:25,840 be confined to fashion, she had to become 390 00:31:25,840 --> 00:31:28,560 an official war correspondent. 391 00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:31,920 I explained to Lee, "You're an American. Why don't you just get 392 00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:34,560 "a uniform and get accredited to the American Army?" 393 00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:37,200 And she said, "That's a good idea." 394 00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:41,440 So she promptly bought a uniform in Savile Row, 395 00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:44,640 had it specially made. She took it very seriously and decided 396 00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:47,240 that she would be a war photographer. 397 00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:52,520 Audrey wants Lee 398 00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:55,240 to cover the war. 399 00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:58,440 Lee desperately wants to cover the war. 400 00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:03,760 Lee always sees an opportunity, 401 00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:07,640 so war is opportunity, and just goes, "I could do that." 402 00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:22,000 Lee Miller gets dumped into this town, that's pacified, to do 403 00:32:22,000 --> 00:32:26,600 a story on women, and suddenly she's under sniper fire. 404 00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:28,080 GUNSHOTS 405 00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:33,840 And one can only imagine that she would have been utterly terrified, 406 00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:36,400 but then slightly exhilarated. 407 00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:53,800 EXPLOSION 408 00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:58,360 The story was one of mistaken intelligence. 409 00:32:58,360 --> 00:33:00,880 She was able to go there because it was thought 410 00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:05,200 that Saint-Malo had already fallen, that the battle was over. 411 00:33:05,200 --> 00:33:08,280 In fact, it was pretty much just beginning. 412 00:33:11,880 --> 00:33:14,080 "From outside the town, we heard bombers approaching 413 00:33:14,080 --> 00:33:17,480 "over our shoulder. There were three groups of B-26s. 414 00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:19,480 "They passed and we could see 415 00:33:19,480 --> 00:33:21,920 "the bombs away by their attitude, if nothing else. 416 00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:30,880 "I had the clothes I was standing in, a couple of dozen films 417 00:33:30,880 --> 00:33:33,200 "in an eiderdown blanket roll. 418 00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:36,440 "I was the only photographer for miles around, 419 00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:38,720 "and I now owned a private war." 420 00:33:42,160 --> 00:33:45,400 Remember that she had no training for this sort of work. 421 00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:48,640 No professional training as a photographer had prepared 422 00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:52,200 her for this sort of work. It was "work it out as you go along". 423 00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:06,520 "Deadly hit. For a moment, I could see where and how. 424 00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:11,120 "Then it was swallowed in smoke, belching, mushrooming and columning, 425 00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:13,200 "towering up, black and white. 426 00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:18,240 "Our house shuddered and stuff flew in the window. 427 00:34:18,240 --> 00:34:22,200 "More bombs crashing, thundering, flashing like Vesuvius." 428 00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,480 The difficult bit was becoming a writer. 429 00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:37,200 She'd never written anything before. 430 00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:41,240 But now, suddenly, she was having to put words to pictures. 431 00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:49,480 "I sheltered in a cramped dugout, squatting under the ramparts. 432 00:34:49,480 --> 00:34:53,080 "My heel ground into a dead, detached hand, and I cursed the 433 00:34:53,080 --> 00:34:56,840 "Germans for the sordid, ugly destruction they had conjured up 434 00:34:56,840 --> 00:34:59,320 "in this once beautiful town. 435 00:34:59,320 --> 00:35:02,480 "I picked up the hand and hurled it across the street and ran back 436 00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:04,400 "the way I'd come, bruising my feet 437 00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:06,560 "and crashing into the unsteady 438 00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:10,360 "piles of stone and slipping in blood. Christ, it was awful." 439 00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:15,200 As a war photographer, I think it's 440 00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:17,760 actually important to have fear, 441 00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:19,880 but to know how to manage it. 442 00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:25,280 Because that will also keep you alive, you know. 443 00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:27,200 I think if you're fearless, 444 00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:29,720 you're likely to get killed pretty quickly. 445 00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:39,760 At one point I had to run through sniper fire. 446 00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:44,040 And, you know, ISIS was 150m away. I mean, that's nothing. 447 00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:48,280 And, I mean, the fear that...that, you know, just leading up to 448 00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,000 that run between buildings, you know, was like, 449 00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:52,840 "Will this be my last run? 450 00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:55,080 "Will I die? Will I get shot?" 451 00:35:58,480 --> 00:36:01,680 There's an adrenaline rush, of course, that gets you through. 452 00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:09,200 Definitely, women like her blazed a trail. 453 00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:13,440 I think there is a type of woman that goes into this war. 454 00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:19,440 Women who were tough but funny, irreverent, who really rejected 455 00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:23,160 all the norms of what women's lives should have been at that time. 456 00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:31,440 There were no British female photographers who did what 457 00:36:31,440 --> 00:36:33,760 Lee Miller did. For the Americans, 458 00:36:33,760 --> 00:36:36,040 they had a more open policy. 459 00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:39,320 But the fact that there were only four women photographers 460 00:36:39,320 --> 00:36:41,520 who were accredited in that respect 461 00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:44,120 gives you an idea of how rare it still was. 462 00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:00,160 The whole body of work from 463 00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:02,000 Saint-Malo is fascinating 464 00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:04,080 because it shows an evolution 465 00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:05,960 in Lee Miller's thinking. 466 00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:09,920 The tone and the mood darkens. 467 00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:15,360 And I would say that that is almost a turning point in Lee Miller's war, 468 00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:19,440 because this is where, if you like, she had her baptism of fire, 469 00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:23,840 and from hereon in, until the very end of her time 470 00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:25,240 as a war correspondent, 471 00:37:25,240 --> 00:37:28,920 this darker note never quite leaves her photography. 472 00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:31,440 CHEERING 473 00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:35,520 CHEERING 474 00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:37,920 TYPEWRITER KEYS CLICK 475 00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:42,440 "Dear Audrey, I won't be the first woman journalist in Paris, 476 00:37:42,440 --> 00:37:46,040 "but I'll be the first dame photographer, I think, unless 477 00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:48,280 "someone parachutes in. 478 00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:50,280 "It is bitter to me to go to Paris 479 00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:53,000 "now that I have a taste for gunpowder. 480 00:37:57,120 --> 00:38:00,080 "Could you arrange that Roland Penrose could read my piece 481 00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:02,320 "soon, as I haven't written him or anyone yet?" 482 00:38:03,720 --> 00:38:06,080 Lee had fantastic stamina. 483 00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:09,280 I would simply go to sleep, wake up about six or eight hours later, 484 00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:11,880 and she was still there knocking...knocking, tapping away 485 00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:13,160 at the typewriter. 486 00:38:13,160 --> 00:38:15,240 TYPEWRITER KEYS CLICK 487 00:38:16,520 --> 00:38:20,960 "Our boys were kissed and cheered and showered with presents. 488 00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:24,840 "They battled in one square and celebrated in the next." 489 00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:29,520 We were the first photographers in many places. In fact, it got 490 00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:31,160 to be sort of a joke. 491 00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:34,360 I remember Marguerite Higgins of the New York Herald Tribune 492 00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:38,200 would continually arrive at a spot and say, "How does it happen 493 00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:41,400 "that when I'm just arriving at some spot, Lee Miller and Dave Scherman 494 00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:42,960 "are just leaving?" 495 00:38:58,440 --> 00:39:02,440 increased dramatically as she saw the results of the war. 496 00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:25,200 "The love of death, which is the under-pattern of the German 497 00:39:25,200 --> 00:39:28,680 "living, caught up with the high officials of the regime 498 00:39:28,680 --> 00:39:32,360 "and they gave a great party, toasted death and Hitler, 499 00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:34,120 "and poisoned themselves. 500 00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:40,760 "Leaning back on the sofa is a girl 501 00:39:40,760 --> 00:39:44,480 "with extraordinarily pretty teeth, waxen and dusty." 502 00:39:46,920 --> 00:39:52,360 I think the power of that image is sort of how quietly beautiful it is. 503 00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:55,440 I think the light is very soft, and I think 504 00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:57,520 the composition is beautiful. 505 00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:01,200 And I think that's very eerie, of course, given the context 506 00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:04,080 and given what had just happened. 507 00:40:04,080 --> 00:40:07,960 But, to me, that's really the power of a good photograph, is that, 508 00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:11,200 A, it evokes emotions that are unexpected, 509 00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:13,840 but, B, it makes you ask questions. 510 00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:16,520 And I think that that's exactly what that image does. 511 00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:20,440 CHURCH BELL TOLLS 512 00:40:22,600 --> 00:40:26,680 "Germany is a beautiful landscape dotted with jewel-like villages, 513 00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:28,760 "blotched with ruined cities. 514 00:40:29,840 --> 00:40:33,360 "The children have stilts and marbles and tops and hoops, 515 00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,400 "and they play with dolls. 516 00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:39,920 "Mothers sew and sweep and bake, and farmers plough and harrow, 517 00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:44,120 "all just like real people - but they aren't. 518 00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:45,920 "They are the enemy. 519 00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:48,920 "This is Germany and it is spring." 520 00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:21,640 Lee's arrival with Dave Scherman at Dachau 521 00:41:21,640 --> 00:41:24,680 is one of the central times in her story. 522 00:41:27,920 --> 00:41:32,360 They came just in the very process of the liberation of Dachau. 523 00:41:47,560 --> 00:41:51,360 She felt it to be a deep moral 524 00:41:51,360 --> 00:41:54,000 calling to reveal the truth 525 00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:55,520 as she understood it. 526 00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:03,760 DAVID SCHERMAN: Well, we had to just sort of steel ourselves for it, 527 00:42:03,760 --> 00:42:06,680 like a surgeon going into a operating room or like a police 528 00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:09,520 examiner going into a morgue to do a postmortem. 529 00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:12,480 If you started worrying about it, you'd go to pot right away. 530 00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:15,080 You'd just come apart at the seams. 531 00:42:15,080 --> 00:42:18,440 HEARTBEAT 532 00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:21,680 If you have a camera in your hand, you suddenly think about it only, 533 00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:23,160 and its being a job, 534 00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:26,720 then you simply steel yourself to the...to the horrors of the thing. 535 00:42:26,720 --> 00:42:29,240 HEARTBEAT CONTINUES 536 00:42:29,240 --> 00:42:33,160 "I implore you to believe this is true. 537 00:42:33,160 --> 00:42:35,120 "I usually don't take pictures 538 00:42:35,120 --> 00:42:36,960 "of horrors, but don't think 539 00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:39,280 "that every town and every area 540 00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:41,560 "isn't rich with them. 541 00:42:41,560 --> 00:42:44,840 "I hope Vogue will feel that it can publish these pictures." 542 00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:49,120 Audrey Withers and American Vogue 543 00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:51,160 agreed to publish this work. 544 00:42:53,280 --> 00:42:56,320 I think that coverage is the most 545 00:42:56,320 --> 00:42:58,720 graphic and difficult that 546 00:42:58,720 --> 00:43:01,120 Vogue Magazine has ever carried. 547 00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:06,640 The pictures from Dachau are incredible. 548 00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:10,160 I don't know if this day and age of people would publish them as much 549 00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:14,040 because, ironically, the more violence we see 550 00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:17,000 and the more we're inundated with images, the more kind 551 00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:18,440 of prude we get. 552 00:43:20,720 --> 00:43:25,160 Those images of bodies stacked on top of each other, 553 00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:27,280 you don't see those, and that's happening. 554 00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:30,920 I mean, there are mass graves being unearthed in Syria now, 555 00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:33,720 you know, but we don't see those images. 556 00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:43,680 I have met nobody who has seen 557 00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:46,560 those scenes in any concentration 558 00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:48,800 camp, who has talked about them 559 00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:50,880 willingly or has been able to 560 00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:52,480 walk away from them. 561 00:43:56,920 --> 00:43:58,800 I had seen nothing. 562 00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:04,880 She kept everything away from me. 563 00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:13,160 I think that Lee definitely did not 564 00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:15,280 want to revisit that experience 565 00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:16,920 by talking about it. 566 00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:30,320 You know, we're all very, very different and we all process 567 00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:32,560 trauma and, um, these scenes 568 00:44:32,560 --> 00:44:34,600 in a very different way, 569 00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:37,840 so I can't possibly know how she felt 570 00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:40,280 and what she walked away feeling. 571 00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:47,400 But I do know for myself, you know, it's important when I walk away 572 00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:51,680 from a scene like that to revisit it and to talk about it a lot. 573 00:44:51,680 --> 00:44:55,160 And that's sort of how I deal with my own trauma. 574 00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:02,200 A lot of people with PTSD, they never deal with it, 575 00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:05,880 and they just shut down and it doesn't go away and, in fact, 576 00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,160 it's been proven that it gets worse over time. 577 00:45:15,160 --> 00:45:18,880 I interviewed several friends who were very young women at the time 578 00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:24,560 when they visited Lee at Farley Farm, who said that sometimes, 579 00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:29,040 late at night, at 3am, if they stayed up with Lee and drank 580 00:45:29,040 --> 00:45:32,520 with her - because she would drink a great deal - 581 00:45:32,520 --> 00:45:36,520 she would break down and sometimes cry and tell them, 582 00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:40,840 "You have to be careful about what you let yourself in for." 583 00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:45,400 And she would allude sometimes, briefly, to those moments 584 00:45:45,400 --> 00:45:46,800 in the concentration camps. 585 00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:48,480 It was still with her. 586 00:45:50,720 --> 00:45:53,120 If you take photographs like that, 587 00:45:53,120 --> 00:45:56,000 they remain imprinted on your brain. 588 00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:04,600 So, Lee's only in Dachau for actually a few hours. 589 00:46:04,600 --> 00:46:08,880 What happens next is that she goes to Hitler's apartment. 590 00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:15,160 This is an example of the working partnership of Lee and David, 591 00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:19,960 the really efficient news-gathering partnership, which means 592 00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:23,680 that you find a goal and you head for it. 593 00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:26,960 And, um, if you're lucky, you scoop the opposition. 594 00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:33,640 "I've been carrying Hitler's Munich address around in my pocket 595 00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:36,080 "for years, and finally I had a chance to use it, 596 00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:37,840 "but mein host wasn't home." 597 00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:42,720 We wound up in Hitler's home on 27 Regent Street, 598 00:46:42,720 --> 00:46:47,440 which a bunch of GIs had simply taken over as a place to crash. 599 00:46:47,440 --> 00:46:51,040 And that was the spot that we got some GIs to read a copy 600 00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:54,320 of Hitler's Mein Kampf with their feet up on Hitler's bed, 601 00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:56,480 lying on Hitler's pillow. 602 00:46:58,120 --> 00:46:59,760 "I took some pictures of the place, 603 00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:02,280 "and I also got a good night's sleep in Hitler's bed. 604 00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:04,920 "I even washed the dirt of Dachau off in his own tub." 605 00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:08,960 We hadn't seen a bathtub for weeks, so Lee immediately jumped into 606 00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:12,760 the bathtub and I photographed her, and I locked the door 607 00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:14,640 so we wouldn't be disturbed. 608 00:47:14,640 --> 00:47:17,320 And suddenly there was this tremendous banging on the door. 609 00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:19,960 The lieutenant was dying to get in and shave. 610 00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:22,960 And he said, you know, "Get out of there. Whoever you are, 611 00:47:22,960 --> 00:47:26,040 "you've been in there too long." 612 00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:29,040 It was sort of the last of the...the last of the Hitler myth right 613 00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:31,480 there, in that spot that night. 614 00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:35,760 The story of Lee Miller in Hitler's 615 00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:38,840 bathtub has spread around the world, 616 00:47:38,840 --> 00:47:42,680 and it's the one with which she's most identified. 617 00:47:42,680 --> 00:47:45,800 It's got all the elements - a beautiful woman sitting in a bath 618 00:47:45,800 --> 00:47:47,760 with no clothes on... 619 00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:51,200 There is an equivalent photograph by Lee of David Scherman in the bath, 620 00:47:51,200 --> 00:47:54,440 and nobody is very interested in looking at that one. 621 00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:08,440 That photograph, for many years after the war, 622 00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:10,920 was actually completely forgotten. 623 00:48:10,920 --> 00:48:13,480 And it was really only after her 624 00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:15,280 death that it became 625 00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:17,680 as well-known as it currently is today. 626 00:48:19,560 --> 00:48:22,720 So, initially, the idea was just to have a bath, 627 00:48:22,720 --> 00:48:25,840 and then they realised what the circumstances were, 628 00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:28,760 and between them they made an enduring story out of it. 629 00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:34,800 They placed the photograph of Hitler by Heinrich Hoffmann, 630 00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:37,240 Hitler's pet photographer, 631 00:48:37,240 --> 00:48:39,720 and it was actually a kind of vanity shot. 632 00:48:39,720 --> 00:48:44,760 But the key to the shot is the boots, because those boots... 633 00:48:44,760 --> 00:48:48,160 ..carried Lee around Dachau that morning, and now she's grinding 634 00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:51,240 "the filth of that place into Hitler's nice, clean bath-mat. 635 00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:02,120 And, of course, what neither of them knew in that moment was, 636 00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:05,920 way across Germany, in Berlin at 4:45 that afternoon, Hitler and 637 00:49:05,920 --> 00:49:07,880 Eva Braun had killed themselves, 638 00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:12,440 and so there's this kind of incredible closing of a circle 639 00:49:12,440 --> 00:49:16,200 in that image, as well as that defiance of stamping the filth 640 00:49:16,200 --> 00:49:18,000 into Hitler's bath-mat. 641 00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:19,560 GUNSHOT 642 00:49:26,720 --> 00:49:30,320 A strange-looking carving by the modern sculptor Henry Moore 643 00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:33,800 watches the arrival of a young lady whose comings and goings make news. 644 00:49:33,800 --> 00:49:36,440 The name is Lee Miller, press photographer, 645 00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:39,040 just back from gathering scoops on the Continent. 646 00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:40,920 Roland Penrose, surrealist artist, 647 00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:43,360 welcomes her back and helps her to get rid of the baggage 648 00:49:43,360 --> 00:49:46,000 she's had to hump round on her news, getting jobs. 649 00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:50,240 The end of the war was, I think, the most difficult thing that Lee faced, 650 00:49:50,240 --> 00:49:53,160 and she really got lost. 651 00:49:53,160 --> 00:49:57,280 I think, in a way, she recognised that she was beaten. 652 00:49:58,640 --> 00:50:02,040 KITTEN MEOWS 653 00:50:02,040 --> 00:50:05,280 Sure, she was a peacetime casualty in many ways. 654 00:50:08,840 --> 00:50:12,160 Her objectives had been taken away from her. 655 00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:14,480 Her raison d'etre was taken away from her. 656 00:50:16,920 --> 00:50:20,160 Roland, by this time, had sort of given up on her. 657 00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:22,800 She was not answering his letters. 658 00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:27,400 He'd taken up with someone else in London, uh, and I saw 659 00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:30,240 Lee's position as being badly threatened. 660 00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:39,080 Eventually it was Scherman who said, "Go home." 661 00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:47,800 And it was, I guess, with a big sigh that she did decide finally to 662 00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:49,480 knock it off and go back home. 663 00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:54,440 It is as if that she opens the door, walks back into her life 664 00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:57,280 with Roland and nothing is changed. 665 00:50:57,280 --> 00:50:59,360 It couldn't be further from the truth. 666 00:51:01,480 --> 00:51:04,480 He had to learn afresh how it was 667 00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:07,200 to have this deeply damaged 668 00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:10,480 and disturbed person, who he loved. 669 00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:12,360 He had to cope with all of that. 670 00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:21,760 She tried to go back into fashion, 671 00:51:21,760 --> 00:51:24,480 taking pictures of hats and handbags, 672 00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:28,360 and tried to kind of go back to how things were before the war, 673 00:51:28,360 --> 00:51:32,280 but when you've watched such life-changing things, 674 00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:34,520 then it's very hard to adjust. 675 00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:39,000 She's told by, you know, a doctor she goes to see 676 00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:40,920 to pull herself together. 677 00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:45,640 She is also a raging alcoholic by this point. 678 00:51:45,640 --> 00:51:48,440 She then has lost her looks. 679 00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:52,680 So, the biggest power that she has always played on has gone. 680 00:51:54,000 --> 00:51:56,560 Then we add that she gets pregnant. 681 00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:03,920 Then she may well have had postnatal depression. 682 00:52:03,920 --> 00:52:07,400 She didn't find it very easy to be a mother. 683 00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:10,680 And then Roland Penrose, 684 00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:13,440 who sees the woman of his life 685 00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:16,040 just being absolutely destroyed, 686 00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:18,040 comes up with a bright idea - 687 00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:21,160 because he's very tin-eared, Roland - 688 00:52:21,160 --> 00:52:25,160 to move this woman, who is completely urban, who loves 689 00:52:25,160 --> 00:52:29,880 connecting with people, to a lonely farm in the country, 690 00:52:29,880 --> 00:52:31,920 where she knows nobody, 691 00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:33,720 with a newborn baby. 692 00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:40,480 It's astonishing to me that she actually survived. 693 00:52:51,960 --> 00:52:55,480 I think "lost" is a good way to describe her at Farley Farm. 694 00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:00,960 I think Lee was such a complicated person. 695 00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:05,840 All we could see as, you know, Tony and I growing up, was somebody 696 00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:07,560 who was just difficult. 697 00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:14,760 I get a sense that she was dissociated. 698 00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:21,000 It's something that she used effectively, and as a model 699 00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:24,800 she could just disconnect from her surroundings, 700 00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:28,800 disconnect from everything and just be this beautiful object. 701 00:53:28,800 --> 00:53:32,400 And later, when she became the combat photographer 702 00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:35,000 and was in this terrible danger, 703 00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:37,720 witnessing awful things, I think 704 00:53:37,720 --> 00:53:39,760 she used that sense of dissociation 705 00:53:39,760 --> 00:53:42,040 to detach from the horror 706 00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:43,480 that surrounded her. 707 00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:49,120 And I think that sense of dissociation, that sense 708 00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:51,000 of disconnect between her emotional 709 00:53:51,000 --> 00:53:53,000 side and her physical side 710 00:53:53,000 --> 00:53:56,000 inevitably came from her childhood trauma. 711 00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:02,840 The story of what happened to Lee 712 00:54:02,840 --> 00:54:05,120 when she was seven years old 713 00:54:05,120 --> 00:54:08,800 is hard to, um, clarify. 714 00:54:11,680 --> 00:54:15,120 She was staying with friends of the family, very good friends, 715 00:54:15,120 --> 00:54:18,160 in, I believe, Brooklyn for a sort of holiday. 716 00:54:19,400 --> 00:54:22,200 These friends left the little girl 717 00:54:22,200 --> 00:54:25,240 in the care of a young man 718 00:54:25,240 --> 00:54:27,680 who was either a boarder or a relative. 719 00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:33,520 And what we know is that he took advantage of this time 720 00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:36,280 and he did indeed rape the little girl. 721 00:54:42,680 --> 00:54:45,040 After the rape, she was rushed home. 722 00:54:45,040 --> 00:54:47,400 She was subjected to the most 723 00:54:47,400 --> 00:54:50,080 painful, humiliating treatment 724 00:54:50,080 --> 00:54:51,440 available at the time, 725 00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:52,800 because she developed 726 00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:55,480 a sexually transmitted disease. 727 00:54:55,480 --> 00:54:59,120 Her mother, who was a nurse, had to administer 728 00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:02,960 this extraordinarily painful treatment every day. 729 00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:06,440 Her brother heard his sister screaming in the bathroom. 730 00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:08,920 And the whole thing was, of course, 731 00:55:08,920 --> 00:55:11,360 hush-hush because this was a huge 732 00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:13,600 scandal and no-one wanted it to be 733 00:55:13,600 --> 00:55:15,560 known that this had happened 734 00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:18,720 to little Elizabeth Miller. 735 00:55:29,480 --> 00:55:32,520 It was the final piece in the puzzle. 736 00:55:32,520 --> 00:55:36,880 I could never really understand why she was so secretive. 737 00:55:36,880 --> 00:55:39,600 But as a child, she had learned 738 00:55:39,600 --> 00:55:41,120 to keep secrets, 739 00:55:41,120 --> 00:55:44,360 and that was important for her survival. 740 00:55:44,360 --> 00:55:46,320 And she was good at it. 741 00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:55,880 Why she buried the past and all 742 00:55:55,880 --> 00:55:59,320 of those photographs in boxes in the attic... 743 00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:06,720 ..perhaps she wanted to put it behind her, not dwell on these most 744 00:56:06,720 --> 00:56:09,360 painful times and images and moments... 745 00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:13,160 ..rather than address them head-on. 746 00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:29,560 When she died... 747 00:56:29,560 --> 00:56:33,440 ..emotionally it affected me, personally, very little. 748 00:56:36,120 --> 00:56:39,160 And I didn't really shed tears for her until I began writing 749 00:56:39,160 --> 00:56:41,400 her biography, and that's when 750 00:56:41,400 --> 00:56:43,800 I began to really understand her, 751 00:56:43,800 --> 00:56:46,000 and that's when I practically 752 00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:48,120 drowned my word processor, 753 00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:50,680 because I realised how much I'd missed. 754 00:56:50,680 --> 00:56:52,920 There was so much I wish I'd known 755 00:56:52,920 --> 00:56:55,680 about her and understood. 756 00:56:55,680 --> 00:56:58,400 Yes, it's been an extraordinary 757 00:56:58,400 --> 00:57:00,680 voyage of understanding. 758 00:57:09,880 --> 00:57:14,080 When Lee died, I wanted to write an obit for American Vogue, 759 00:57:14,080 --> 00:57:16,720 because she died totally unrecognised. 760 00:57:19,080 --> 00:57:22,400 I wanted to write an obit, and I got to thinking about what form 761 00:57:22,400 --> 00:57:24,960 the obit would take. 762 00:57:24,960 --> 00:57:27,440 Because she led six, eight, ten 763 00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:30,400 discrete, totally different lives. 764 00:57:36,000 --> 00:57:38,640 She was an amazing, unusual person. 765 00:57:38,640 --> 00:57:41,720 Exasperating person, lovable person, 766 00:57:41,720 --> 00:57:44,360 beautiful person, ugly person. 767 00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:46,280 She was all of these different things. 768 00:57:46,280 --> 00:57:47,960 Those were her different lives. 769 00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:53,480 The temptation is to seek women that aren't quite so challenging. 770 00:57:53,480 --> 00:57:56,280 But what we need are examples like Lee Miller. 771 00:57:56,280 --> 00:58:01,440 We need women that are complicated and fully three-dimensional. 772 00:58:03,600 --> 00:58:06,720 When I think about Lee Miller, 773 00:58:06,720 --> 00:58:10,680 it wasn't that she was leaning in to be taken seriously by the men. 774 00:58:10,680 --> 00:58:12,960 She didn't even care. 775 00:58:12,960 --> 00:58:16,240 She's just a woman who did not 776 00:58:16,240 --> 00:58:19,120 apologise for who she was.