Who was Lee Miller? The Vogue model and war correspondent Kate Winslet plays in new film (2024)

Lee Miller's life was the stuff of Hollywood films. She was a Vogue model, a war correspondent, a muse and a mother. Her work is recognised worldwide — Miller famously photographed herself bathing in Hitler's bath on the day of his death — and her legacy includes thousands of images. It's little surprise then that her life is the subject of a new star-studded film, Lee.

A moving (and likely heartbreaking) biopic, if the trailer is anything to go by, the movie recounts how "determined to document the truth of the Nazi regime, and in spite of the odds stacked against female correspondents, Lee captured some of the most important images of World War II, for which she paid an enormous personal price."

Kate Winslet stars as the eponymous American photographer, while big names including Alexander Skarsgård and Josh O’Connor also feature in the cast. But who was the creative who lends her name to the film? Below, Cosmopolitan reflects on Lee Miller's life, including her work as a photojournalist during World War II, what she took photos of, and why she was so famous.

Miller's career began in front of the camera, and she enjoyed great success as a model, even before she cemented her name in history as a photographer. Born in Poughkeepsie, New York in 1907, Miller quite literally fell into her career. According to Susan Ronald, the biographer for publishing giant Condé Nast, Miller met the Vogue boss when he pulled her out of the way of an oncoming car and she collapsed into his arms. Not long after, she appeared on the March 1927 cover of the magazine, for which she would go on to model regularly.

But it was for her work as a photojournalist and war correspondent for the glossy magazine that Miller would later come to be known. How did she make the transition from model to photographer? Well, knowing her dreams were elsewhere, she gave up her life in New York to move to Paris, where she started work as an assistant to Man Ray and also became his muse.

Lee Miller and Man Ray (the Surrealist artist and photographer) enjoyed both a professional and a personal relationship after Miller purposefully sought out Ray, hoping to learn from him.

“When I met [him] in Paris, I asked him to take me on as a pupil. He said he never accepted pupils, but I guess he fell for me. We lived together for three years and I learned a lot—about photography,” Miller told Vogue.

Miller both produced her own work and acted as a model for Ray. Together, the pair created a technique called solarisation, which Ray often used in his art. When Miller returned home to New York, she established her own studio, before later moving to Cairo when she married Aziz Eloui Bey, an Egyptian businessman. But in 1939, Miller left Bey and moved to London, right before the outbreak of war.

In 1940, shortly after war was declared on 1 September 1939, Vogue hired Miller, who reportedly started out as a photo assistant before taking on further responsibilities when conscription saw male photographers leave for military service. Then, in 1944, she became a correspondent accredited to the US Army.

She was one of few women combat photojournalists to travel to the front line, according to Lee Miller Archives (an archive dedicated to the conservation of Miller's work and that of her second husband, Roland Penrose).

Miller documented the siege of Saint-Malo and the horrors of the war, observing the liberation of Buchenwald and Dachau Concentration Camps. She photographed German soldiers who had died by suicide and starving prisoners.

Together with her collaborator and friend David Scherman, she also visited Hitler's abandoned Munich home. There, Miller bathed in his bathtub and slept in his bed, creating a series of well-known photographs.

Tragically, the war deeply affected Miller. Though she enjoyed a busy life — marrying Roland Penrose in 1947, welcoming her son, Anthony Penrose, and continuing to contribute to Vogue — she was not well. She struggled with alcohol and depression, and she may have experienced PTSD (as it is now known). Scherman, her friend, described her as a "peacetime casualty".

Fortunately, her son, Anthony, who discovered Miller's archives in her attic, took great efforts to protect her legacy and ensure her work was not forgotten. Miller sadly passed away in 1977 but her work lives on.

The upcoming biopic, a Sky Original film, stars Kate Winslet, who will portray Lee Miller. The film takes the famous photographer as its subject, recounting the story of her life and her work during World War II.

Watch the trailer below:

LEE premieres in UK cinemas from 13 September 2024