What About Theodore?
In The Guardian article referred to in the opening of this discussion forum, the author offers two early traumatic life events that shaped Lee’s worldview and life. The first was the death of Harold Baker, previously discussed, and the other is sexual abuse that Lee allegedly suffered at the age of seven.
Discussion of the alleged childhood sexual abuse is problematic because it was never talked about in Lee’s life. This is understandable because family secrets and the absence of collaboration is common for cases of childhood sexual abuse. The alleged event occurred in 1914 and was not revealed according to Lives until an interview by Antony Penrose with his uncle, Eric Miller after Lee’s death in 1977.
The questions presented are whether Lee suffered childhood sexual abuse and, if so, who was the abuser? By necessity one must rely on the leading biographies of Antony Penrose and Carolyn Burke because these biographers alone had access to John and Eric Miller, the last keepers of the family secret. Unlike other forum topics, the subject of Lee’s sexual assault and the identity of the abuser requires merely questioning and thinking through what has been presented by Lee’s biographers.
To date, researchers and authors have simply accepted the childhood sexual abuse as fact and that the offender was an unnamed man in Brooklyn, New York. More than a few, however, do look at Lee’s father, Theodore uncomfortably, but they are reluctant to make the leap to an alternative assailant.
Antony Penrose states:
“At the age of seven, during a brief illness of her mother’s, Lee was sent to stay with some friends of the family, who lived in Brooklyn. They had a young son who was in the United States Navy, and during Lee’s stay he was home on leave. The details and circumstances of his connection with Lee are not know, but what is certain is that she was the victim of sexual molestation with savage consequences. On her return home, she was found to be infected with venereal disease. These were the days before Penicillin was discovered and the only cure was douching with dichloride of mercury. It fell to Florence with her nurse’s training, to administer the treatment. It was agony for them both” (1).
The 2005 biographer of Lee Miller, Carolyn Burke, interviewed John Miller approximately two decades later and he presents a somewhat different version of the events. In the Burke version, Lee was in the care of Astrid Kajerdt and her family in Brooklyn. Burke writes:
“One day when Astrid went shopping, she left the girl in the care of a male friend, “Uncle Bob” or a nephew who was staying with the Kajerdt’s on leave from his tour of duty as a sailor. The details of what happened are unclear. Mrs. Kajerdt’s correspondence ended abruptly. Theodore’s diaries are mute on the subject even though Elizabeth was rushed to Poughkeepsie. At nine her brother John did not know the word rape, but he later surmised that Elizabeth’s caretaker had raped her during Mrs. Kajerdt’s absence. Given the secrecy surrounding such matters it is no wonder that John had to piece together the story, which was never explained” (2).
Although John had to “surmise” or “piece together” that there was a rape, he identified specifically “Uncle Bob” or, alternatively, an unidentified “nephew”. In the case of Eric’s story to Antony Penrose, Eric identified the assailant as being the “son”. The sources who are the history of Lee’s sexual molestation are Eric and John and, there are serious inconsistencies between the brothers on the identification of the assailant and events that occurred some seventy years earlier. It is unclear why Antony Penrose claims “…but what is certain is that she was the victim of sexual molestation with savage consequences…” Their accounts are fairly subject to challenge and no researcher could be criticized for concluding that there is insufficient clarity to accept that Lee actually suffered childhood sexual abuse based solely on the resurrected memories of almost 70 years prior. As shown by the accounts of Harold Baker’s death in front of a young Lee Miller, memories alone are imperfect yardsticks by which to measure fact.
In Burke’s interview with John Miller, he recounted his observations of Lee’s lengthy painful treatments, screams and her behavior changes as a child:
“Florence administered these treatments in her immaculate white bathroom. Although the boys were not supposed to know what was happening, John heard his sister cry out when her mother performed the irrigations, and he watched her sterilize the fixtures to keep the disease from spreading” (3).
Eric was approximately five and John nine at the time and the only information they would have was provided by their parents other than the post-assault observations of John. John’s direct observation of the trauma Lee suffered as he related to Carolyn Burke, suggests a possibility that the abuse did occur and for this author at least, it is sufficiently persuasive.
John did not have a good relationship with his sister and he would have had no reason to fabricate the story or justify her adult behavior with a sympathetic portrait of her childhood (4). Also neither Eric nor John would have a reason to fabricate the story, and then go along with it after its publication. It seems reasonable to accept that they believed what they had been told.
In addition to John’s direct observations, Lee’s adult manifestations of childhood sexual abuse are too numerous to ignore. Throughout her adult life, Lee suffered from depression (possibly manic), alcoholism, drug abuse, sexual promiscuity or addiction and other indicia of childhood sexual abuse such as impulsivity, fits of anger and self-pity. It is a binary choice. Some will find the direct observations of John persuasive while others will find that it is insufficient, even with Lee’s adult behavioral issues.
If the sexual abuse of Lee is accepted as true, we are presented with the question of who was the abuser. To date, the man from Brooklyn has been universally identified as Lee’s abuser, although suspicions about Theodore occasionally dance around the edges.
There has been no evidence produced whatsoever as to the culpability of the man from Brooklyn other than the vague and conflicting assertions of the Miller brothers, who clearly accepted the story they were told about a Brooklyn assailant. If Lee had contracted gonorrhea as reported, family, friends, school and medical authorities and the Miller boys would have had to be presented with an explanation as to how Lee contracted a venereal disease at the age of seven. Lee’s parents would have had every reason to fabricate the Brooklyn story if Theodore was culpable for incestuous sexual abuse. At the time, child sex abuse was a serious crime resulting in long prison sentences or, in some states, even execution (5). This would also explain the absence of any diary entry by Theodore concerning the devastating event in his daughter’s life.
The Penrose and Burke narratives discuss, but do not connect, pertinent facts that would point to Theodore over the man from Brooklyn. The adherents of the Brooklyn story generally ignore, even the possibility, that Theodore could have been the abuser and that Lee was actually the victim of long term incestuous sexual abuse as opposed to an event that occurred at the hands of “Uncle Bob” while “Astrid went shopping”. Interestingly, one finger has been pointed towards Theodore as the abuser, some twenty-two years after the publication of Lives and, that finger belongs to Antony Penrose himself.
In a 2007 article entitled Lee Miller’s Tale, Penrose is quoted as saying, “Personally, I wonder if it was actually her father, Theodore Miller. He had very strange attitude towards her and had taken a lot of nude photographs of her between the ages of 18 and 21, and some earlier. Some of these are really creepy.” Notwithstanding this conjecture by Antony, the man from Brooklyn remains front and center in the narrative and, astonishingly, the account has been republished as originally written in the editions of Lives published after 2007.
Theodore took nude photos of Lee from the time she was seven until the age of twenty-two. These are readily available through Google Images by Theodore Miller of Lee Miller. They are, as Antony Penrose says “creepy”. A photo Theodore took of Lee at age twenty-two sitting nude in her private bath appears as if Theodore was standing in the bathtub while taking the photograph of Lee curled up in the corner. There are various photos of Lee taken by Man Ray of her resting her head on Theodore as if she has reverted into a little girl. The photographs are, of course, subject to interpretation, but one could hardly be criticized for characterizing them as portraits in trauma bonding.
It should be noted that Theodore generally used a stereoscopic camera. Stereoscopic cameras were used for a variety of purposes, but because of the 3-D images produced, they were frequently used for pornographic photography. It is hard to imagine how Theodore could have remained comfortable posing his nude daughter for photos, including one taken at age seven contemporaneously with the on-going treatment for her gonorrhea over the course of a year (6). Although Theodore’s interest in photographing a nude Lee seems troubling to several biographers, he is often conveyed as a father whose was simply interested in photography and used it as an aid to Lee’s recovery or alternatively an artistic endeavor.
The notion that Theodore’s photographs of his nude daughter were an effort to help her overcome her abuse or an effort to make artistic portraits, is delusional. It is impossible to reconcile these contentions with the fact that his “curative” efforts would extend from age 7 to 22 nor was there ever an attempt to display or exhibit his “art” to anyone. Moreover, Lee was the only pre-pubescent model he worked with although in her late teens he persuaded friends of Lee to pose naked with her. Whatever Theodore’s interest in stereoscopic prepubescent nude photography may have been, it was limited to his daughter. The Stereoscopic camera produces “side by side” images which are presented before the stereoscope to achieve the three dimensional images. They are designed for solo use.
It is a matter of statistical fact that, in case of a daughter’s childhood sexual abuse, the abuser is most often the father or stepfather (7). It is also worth noting that while Lee’s mother would not be present when Lee was photographed by her father, she was present when other girls were photographed. It is not uncommon for mothers to fail to protect their daughters from abuse for reasons of economic dependency or even fear. If it is accepted that Lee’s life was impacted by sexual abuse and that she contracted gonorrhea at the age of seven, the depth of the trauma and its adult manifestations should be of great importance to chroniclers of her life. Sexual assault by a family member, by definition, provides greater access and longevity to the abused living under the same roof. The depth of the trauma is augmented by an abuser who is a parent responsible for the well-being of the child. It is hard to imagine a greater abuse of a child’s trust then incestuous childhood sexual abuse.
An interview that Lee Miller gave to the fashion author, Bridget Keenan in the 1970’s, is often quoted by her biographers. Lee explained to Bridget Keenan, “I really was terribly, terribly pretty. I looked like an angel, but I was a fiend inside” (8). This expression is, perhaps trite, but nonetheless appropriate to the life of Lee Miller. There was a “fiend inside”. Lee was, by the consensus of her biographers, an abusive mother, incorrigible daughter, unfaithful lover and wife, homewrecker and a manipulative liar, suffering from alcoholism, sexual promiscuity or addiction, depression, heavy nicotine addiction, hypochondria and the inability to form healthy sustained relationships or complete goals. She possessed, as she said a “fiend inside” but was the “fiend” intrinsic to Lee or a creature of traumatic childhood sexual abuse that metastasized and spread?
It is impossible in 2022 to definitively say whether Lee was a victim of childhood sexual abuse or who was Lee’s abuser, but certainly it would take enormous mental gymnastics to ignore the possibility that her own father Theodore was the offender if we are only offered a choice between him and “Uncle Bob”. However, this is exactly what commentators have done since the 1985 footprint was cast in Lives.
Footnotes:
(1) Penrose, Antony (1985) The Lives of Lee Miller Thames & Hudson (page 12)
(2) Burke, Carolyn (2005) Lee Miller: A Life. Knopf, New York (page 18)
(3) Burke, Carolyn (2005) Lee Miller: A Life. Knopf, New York (pages 17-18)
(4) Interview with Patricia (Trish) Miller daughter of John Miller February 2021
(5) Sacco, Lynn (2002) Sanitized for Your Protection: Medical Discourse and the Denial of Incest in the United States, 1890-1940 Journal of Women’s History (volume 14, number 3, pages 80-104) Johns Hopkins University Press
(6) Burke, Carolyn (2005) Lee Miller: A Life. Knopf, New York (page 148)
(7) Sacco, Lynn (2002) Sanitized for Your Protection: Medical Discourse and the Denial of Incest in the United States, 1890-1940 Journal of Women’s History (volume 14, number 3, pages 80-104) Johns Hopkins University Press
(8) Keenan, Bridget (1977)The Women We Wanted to Look Like St. Martine Press, NY (pages 137-38)