Marilyn Monroe's x-rays, white-on-black films of her chest and pelvis, are up for grabs this weekend. The images, long held by the star's deceased gynecologist, will be sold at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. Julien's Auctions, a Hollywood firm specializing in the sale of celebrity memorabilia, expects to fetch at least $3,000 for these rare pix.
I heard this news one recent morning while dressing. Without thinking, I looked up at the small TV in my bedroom as a CNN anchor, Brooke Anderson, primed viewers on the upcoming event. Monroe's clear-dark lung fields filled most of my screen, revealing the particular curves of her whited-out heart. I couldn't help but notice the breast shadows peeking out at the edges of her ribbed thoracic cavity.
Immediately I regretted my glance. These were her films.
Norma Jeane Mortenson, who assumed the name of Marilyn Monroe, died on August 5, 1962 at the age of 36, a few weeks before my second birthday. My knowledge of the beautiful, troubled icon draws from a few, scattered and wistful remarks by older men over the intervening years, her movies and, mainly, her fame -- kindled with time by cultural references: Andy Warhol's silk-screens and songs like Elton John's "Candle in the Wind" the Clash's late Joe Strummer alludes to her death in his melodic "Ramshackle Day Parade," a personal favorite.
Monroe chose a career in the limelight, lifted by swirls of glamour, rumor and rare beauty. Her private figure, loaded with confusion and despair, spilled into our popular culture years ago. Still, 37 years after her death, I wonder if any traces remain of her hidden self, confidential and unexposed. Perhaps the x-rays don't belong in the public domain.
The chest, abdominal and pelvic images were part of the personal health record that she, presumably, once entrusted to her physician for safekeeping. Now, digitized versions of these films can be found in a flash, on websites for Julien's auction house and other Internet platforms. Close inspection of one shot reveals it was taken at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. There's a medical record number. The patient's name is listed as DiMaggio, Marilyn. The date was November 10, 1954.
Monroe's x-rays are hardly sexy, less titillating than some of her ordinary photos. Still, they contain privileged information -- the sort intended for her doctors' eyes only, and that might be protected by modern health care privacy laws.
As a doctor, I know that I shouldn't view the films. She was not my patient and never will be. There's nothing to learn here, no medical mystery to solve. The only reason to look would be to satisfy curiosity, or to consider making a bid at auction.
Darren Julien, founder of Julien's Auctions, says the x-rays are a good investment. He would know; a few years ago he received a sum of $7,000 for Elvis Presley's medical images. These are a unique kind of novelty item that collectors would prize, he told me. "Anything associated with Marilyn Monroe is highly valuable."
The images, proffered by the family of Dr. Leon Krohn, include two standard chest x-rays: an anterior-posterior and a lateral film in separate sale lots, and three images of her lower torso showing instruments and contrast dye. Other items for sale include the reclining couch from the office of the star's psychiatrist, Dr. Ralph Greenson, a place where Monroe may have bared her deepest secrets, some intimate garments and hand-written letters.
When Monroe was hospitalized in 1954, medical privacy laws were essentially non-existent. Now, a physician would have to ask a patient's permission before displaying her films before a classroom of students, on TV or the Web. The images would be stripped of any identifying labels.
This story, on patient's rights and privacy, relates to that of another woman who received care in the same era. Henrietta Lacks, the subject of Rebecca Skloot's current best-seller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, died of cervical cancer at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1951. She was 31 years old and had five children. Without her explicit consent, physicians took malignant, ever-replicating cells from her tumor to establish valuable cell lines that have been used -- and sold -- for medical research ever since, while the family stayed impoverished for decades.
It seems ironic that Monroe, who was hospitalized for gynecological reasons and died childless, has no descendants to hold her records near, to intervene or somehow say "no, the x-rays are off-limits." Rather, it's her doctor's children who've cut the deal.
I can't help thinking that she, who struggled so in her life, in and out of strangers' households, love affairs and flicks, is defenseless now again. The films render her vulnerable, again, to more inspection. The loss of privacy is irrevocable, a violation after death.
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as an archaeologist by training, I know we do many intrusive things to other humans when they're deceased, without their permission. I wish I could see what folks do with my stuff and records.
Yesterday I learned that the x-rays sold for 45K. Having read on Monroe's life and how, early in her career her pictures were used without her consent, I suspect that she would have been saddened by all of this. Of course we can never know for sure.
I do think the law should favor privacy when a patient's wishes aren't documented. Hopefully this case and others will prompt better, future laws regarding medical records of the deceased.
ES
You're absolutely correct when you say you don't know how Marilyn Monroe would feel about this. I've also read about Monroe's life and feel she would not mind at all if her x-rays were available for review by generations to come. But since she is dead, and she has no heirs, that's pretty much irrelevant.
But, more importantly, since you are a doctor, and considering Monroe died under mysterious and controversial circumstances, don't you think there might be historical and/or medically relevant, information contained in those x-rays that some scientist or law enforcement officer sometime in the future might find useful?
We are talking about information here, not body parts. That's a BIG difference.
I see the potential of more to be gained by allowing this information to circulate in the wake of Monroe's death than the benefits of forever restricting access to this information.
Allowing the wishes of a dead person to forever prevent the flow of certain kinds of factual information seems counterproductive from a public health standpoint and a scientific standpoint.
With all due respect, I do not feel you have made a decent case for your position, but are simply pandering to sentimentality at the expense of truth and knowledge.
In other situations, people hold onto bone fragments of revered people.
Marilyn Monroe was a cultural icon. It's only natural that people would want to view or possess such relics. Is that really so "strange" or "creepy"?
If there was a link here to view the x-rays I'll bet the majority of the critics here would click on it. Be honest now.
It's common throughout the world, now and in the past, for people to possess relics like bones and hair from deceased loved ones. It's really not that weird or unusual. I've read of some cultures where people keep human skulls in the room where they sleep.
Different cultures have different approaches and attitudes toward death and privacy. Americans happen to be particularly uptight about issues of death, perhaps more so than nearly every other society.
There comes a time when we all have to "let go". The unwillingness to do so is what makes death so difficult for so many people. They try to desperately hold onto the world and their influence in it and thus they approach death kicking and screaming at a time when acceptance and detachment will do them so much better.
(I really wish the author of this article would reply. As it is now, I consider her argument extremely weak, and little more than a mostly vacuous, sentimental, emotional rant without any other apparent foundation. Am I wrong?)
Looking at them would feel like an invasion of her privacy.
Some things are just meant to remain private.
The doctor who held these records may be legally in the clear and also clear by the jot and tittle of professional discipline codes, but it clearly violates the spirit of confidentiality and loyalty to the patient's best interests.
As it is, with no rational explanation so far, including from the author of the original article, I'm left to conclude that the critics of this transaction are being irrational, over-emotional and sentimental to the point of being caustic for no good reason.
And thus this article is simply serving as a weak excuse to attack and insult people for no other reason than the critics own personal hang-ups about death and privacy and sentimentality.
On the other hand, I think there may be some legitimate reason to object to this transaction, but so far I haven't heard one logically articulated.
As it is now, medical records are routinely transfered between doctors via the internet.
And as this article suggests, and my experience shows, records do not have to be on-line to be viewed or obtained by unauthorized people.
I can't say I'm an expert on the subject, but there are plenty of medical professionals who believe that the health and safety benefits of having medical records online outweighs any potential downside.
And, in any case, as you suggest, regardless of the medical angle, technology has progressed to the point that certain types of privacy are or will be a "thing of the past." But there is no going back. It's part of evolution and not necessarily all bad, as we will become a more open, more transparent society. The younger generation, for the most part, doesn't seem to mind this nearly as much as older folks. Taking a Luddite approach won't change any of that.
It's a new world!
Still, among the still-living in this realm, should there
not be lines of common decency drawn around those
who are no longer with us?
True, the departed are not hurt by our callousness
(as far as we know).
We are the ones who are demeaned when we
stoop to lower levels of behavior.
When the author tells us that Monroe is "defenseless now again", she seems to playing on sentimentality. What dead person is not "defenseless"?
And, frankly, from what I know of Marilyn Monroe, I think she might be the kind of person who would be happy that someone would be able to derive some pleasure from anything, including medical images, that she left behind.
Furthermore, far into the future, the images and information they contain might have historical significance that we can't imagine today. Do the critics here want these images put away or destroyed so that no one will ever, even hundreds of years from now, be able to review them?
Will not the new owner of these images actually be preserving this information for generations to come?
I'm not clear as to what the problem is here.
The only thing we value is money. No nation survives on that as its' only animating value.
If I sell my car to some guy and after I die he sells it to someone who puts it in a car show or on TV, was there an ethics violation in that?
It's easy to be a critic and get all huffy and emotional and sentimental about such things, but let's get real here. Who has been harmed by the selling of Miss Monroe's x-rays?
I think it is just as much an "ethics' violation (and a form of perverse control-freak vanity) to try to expect to control the behavior of people after you are dead.
And when you say that wanting the x-rays is "creepy" or "strange" , you are not only being judgmental, you may be projecting your own desires or perversions. You and I really have no idea why a person may want the x-rays. It may simply be for investment purposes. And if it is for some other reason and it doesn't harm anyone, what's the problem?
I'll ask again: Who is being harmed by this transaction? And if you say "Marilyn Monroe", I will ask: How so?
I think it may be just as "strange" or "creepy" that people are so critical of this transaction. What is going on in THEIR imagination that they are projecting onto others?