by Steve Fiffer
"But here there were lots of small fragments and the markings on those
were hard to figure out." On opening some of the jackets, the prepara-
tors found bones they didn't think had been unearthed by the institute.
In the end, they determined that only a foot, an arm, and a few ribs and
vertebrae were missing.
Brochu's needs were not only subject to the learning curve of the
preparators. Phil Fraley, w h o had been hired by the m u s e u m to m o u n t
Y O U M A Y A P P R O A C H H E R M A J E S T Y 2 2 1
the skeleton, was also h u n g r y for bones—preferably the hips first. He
wanted to start his model in the middle and work outward toward the
tail and skull.
The New Jersey-based Fraley had established his reputation by
remounting the B a r n u m Brown T. rex a n d several h u n d r e d other verte-
brate fossils at the American M u s e u m of Natural History. Edwin Cope,
it turned out, was not the only expert ever to err in constructing a
dinosaur. At the t u r n of the century, the American Museum's H e n r y
Fairfield O s b o r n stood the B a r n u m Brown T. rex upright, its legs mea-
suring fifteen feet from hip to floor. T h e decision to do so was d o n e in
part for show, in part because the technology of the day m a d e it diffi-
cult to brace the dinosaur in a less erect fashion, a n d in part because
O s b o r n did not have an entire specimen with which to work, writes
Horner. In fact, "To make the T. rex look whole a n d steady, O s b o r n
m a d e other creative decisions. He added several feet of imaginary lizard
like tail, which also helped to stabilize the s t a n d - u p T. rex" As a result,
says Horner, "For generations, in its most famous a n d influential repre-
sentation, T. rex has been viewed as a stiff, long-tailed lumbering beast."
Charles Knight, w h o worked at the American M u s e u m of Natural
History before painting the murals in the Field M u s e u m , portrayed
many of his T. rex as upright, too. T h e tall, plodding creatures in movies
like Godzilla were based on o n e of Knight's paintings, as was a 25-foot-
long animated T. rex at the Sinclair Refining Company's dinosaur exhib-
it at the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago.
In 1992, the American M u s e u m finally dismantled its famous rex.
After m u c h internal debate, the staff chose a different pose: head down,
back horizontal, jaws shut. Fraley's r e m o u n t e d skeleton was unveiled in
1994.
Prior to its 2000 unveiling, the Field M u s e u m was not about to
reveal Sue's exact pose. Flynn would say only that the museum's o w n
experts had designed a "scientifically accurate biology of the living ani-
mal." He explained that such a design is influenced by the study of "joint
surfaces that limit the range of m o t i o n " a n d the examination of the hind
limbs and tail. "Once you set constraints, you have aesthetic latitude," he
explains.
Many dinosaurs that stand in m u s e u m s a r o u n d the world are plas-
ter or fiberglass casts of the original. Not Sue. Only her skull would be
2 2 2 TYRANNOSAURUS S U E
cast for the Field's exhibit. T h e m u s e u m estimates that Sue weighed 7
tons. At about 600 p o u n d s , the real skull could not be supported by the
fleshless skeleton. It was given its own space on a mezzanine looking
d o w n u p o n Sue and her faux head.
The decision to use the original Sue, not a cast, presented a chal-
lenge for Fraley and his team. They had to m o u n t the skeleton in such a
way that each b o n e could be removed for future study. This meant "no
p e r m a n e n t glues, no holes drilled, and no anchors to the bone," says
Simpson.
Fraley's solution: Each b o n e would be cradled in a hand-forged
metal bracket—"like a d i a m o n d in its setting," said project coordinator
Louis. The brackets would be hinged and locked, but each individual
b o n e could be unlocked a n d removed for research.
W h o would be conducting future research? The m u s e u m hoped to
sponsor workshops and symposia to study specific elements of the
skeleton and produce scientific papers. "We would like to let younger
scientists do this research," said Flynn, w h o added, that like any other
specimen in the m u s e u m , Sue would also be available for study by all
qualified scholars. Such study would begin only after Brochu published
his m o n o g r a p h .
Although Peter Larson had aroused the world's curiosity and imag-
ination with his papers and snapshots of Sue's life, the m u s e u m was, as
Louis put it, "pretty tight-lipped" about what it learned about Sue in the
m o n t h s leading up to her unveiling. Flynn, w h o between 1996 and 1999
led expeditions to Madagascar that found the oldest dinosaur bones on
record, says a conscious decision was m a d e to limit public p r o n o u n c e -
ments to May 1999 and May 2000. "We wanted to wait for peer review,"
he explains. "There is a great o p p o r t u n i t y for public education here
because of all the hype. O u r job is to separate out the fantasy and story-
telling a n d Jurassic Park. If we d e b u n k hyperbolic speculation, that's not
bad." Adds Simpson: "The skeleton is so complete that it actually con-
strains the stories."
T h e May 1999 science briefing centered on the results of the CT
scan of Sue's skull at Boeing Company's Rocketdyne lab in Ventura
County, California. In August 1998, the skull had been shipped to the
West Coast after being foamed a n d packed vertically in an octangular
crate customized by a structural engineer. Boeing conducted 500 hours
Y O U M A Y A P P R O A C H H E R M A J E S T Y 2 2 3
of scans over a six-week period, or, as one Boeing technician put it,
"more radiation than Godzilla received when the French A - b o m b was
detonated in Polynesia." Brochu and Masek were present for m u c h of
the work. When Brochu went back to Chicago, the Boeing operator sent
him data over the Internet.
The m u s e u m received a total of 748 CT images. These x-ray slices
filled eight CDs and could be viewed individually or stacked to create a
three-dimensional image of Sue's skull a n d snout. With the assistance of
a computer program, Brochu could take a virtual journey t h r o u g h Sue's
head.
Brochu was delighted with what he saw. The scan revealed that the
olfactory passage—where nerves for smell passed between the nose a n d
the brain—was huge, he said. "This thing must have smelled its way
through life." Did that indicate it was a scavenger or predator? Like
Larson, Brochu said he suspected that T. rex was an opportunistic feed-
er that killed some of its food and ate carcasses it found. A m o n g the
other revelations: Sue's braincase was only "the size of a quart of milk."
Brochu was not ready to pass j u d g m e n t on most of Larson's snap-
shots or theories. "I'd love to be able to tell you a lot of things about this
specimen, but I can't yet," he told National Geographic magazine. "Was
it male or female? I don't know. W a r m - b l o o d e d or cold-blooded? I'd
&nbs
p; love to tell you this dinosaur was purple with green spots. I'd love to be
able to tell you the s o u n d it made. But I can't."
Brochu did say that he had found further evidence suggesting that
birds evolved from theropods. As Larson had previously noted, bones in
Sue's jaws were similar to those in m o d e r n birds. And, as Larson had
also observed, Sue's skull bones and vertebrae were air-filled, like those
of their feathered friends.
Larson had concluded that Sue suffered a broken fibula that had
healed. Brochu agreed. He was not certain, however, that Sue had been
bitten by a fellow dinosaur; what Larson thought were teeth marks may
just have been infected areas. The m u s e u m ' s researcher also suspected
that Sue had died of natural causes rather than in battle. Brochu's inter-
im findings were the focus of an exhibit premiering at the end of May
1999: "Sue: T h e Inside Story."
Shortly before this exhibit opened, in-house staff began making
molds of the bones prepared in the m u s e u m and at DinoLand USA.
2 2 4 TYRANNOSAURUS S U E
These bones were then sent to Peter May, a highly regarded cast maker
based in Beamsville, Ontario. W h e n he finished with them, May sent the
molds on to Fraley, w h o used t h e m to make projections pending the
arrival of the bones themselves.
To coordinate these comings and goings as well as everything else
related to Sue, Louis held a multidisciplinary group meeting every Monday
morning. The group included representatives of the exhibits, education,
geology, marketing, and public relations departments. Topics ranged from
the SueCam, which afforded Internet visitors a live view of preparation, to
the Sue Web site, which offered both information and merchandise.
A m o n g the items that could be purchased on line or in the museum store:
several styles of Sue T-shirts and sweatshirts ranging in price from $12.95
to $35.95; Sue baseball caps priced at about $15; a Sue coffee m u g at $6.95;
a mini T. rex skull for $68; a cast of a tooth for $44; a cast of a claw for $33;
and a brass Sue ornament for $14. Louis reports that sales were brisk.
Louis also served as liaison with McDonald's and Disney. The
Colossal Fossil kit distributed in the spring of 1998 generated the most
favorable response from teachers of any packet in McDonald's history,
says Nemeth. In the fall of 1999, the c o m p a n y also opened a show about
Sue for elementary schools, "Ronald McDonald and the Amazing
Thinking Machine."
Orchestrating the tour of the two Sue casts was m o r e complicated.
"This was the area I was most concerned about," says Daly. "We didn't
need to be persuaded about the logistics of moving it. I always knew that
was something we could do. T h e concerns I had was m o r e on the recep-
tivity—could we create something and make it well enough financially
structured so that local markets would pick it up?"
McDonald's is organized in 40 regions in the United States. Coops
within the regions buy advertising, food, and paper goods together and
plan p r o m o t i o n a l activities. Once Sue was acquired, McDonald's offered
each of the regions the o p p o r t u n i t y to sponsor a traveling exhibit that
would include the 45-foot cast skeleton of Sue, a video, freestanding
interactive exhibits, touchable casts of bones, and interactive anatomi-
cal models that would allow visitors to control the movements of a T.
rex's jaw, tail, neck, a n d forelimbs. Headquarters provided a "pro forma
of what this thing was going to look like and predicted costs," but the
Y O U M A Y A P P R O A C H H E R M A J E S T Y 2 2 5
local markets had to choose a date and find a site—a m u s e u m or edu-
cational institution. The Field M u s e u m had to approve the venue in
each market.
From the beginning McDonald's envisioned offering the tour to the
U.S. markets over the three-year period following the unveiling. "Then,
hopefully on the strength of the performance in the United States, we'd
be able to take it international so that it had even m o r e value to our ini-
tial investment," says Daly. Initially, the company thought Sue would stay
in a region for two weeks before moving on. "But the [Field] m u s e u m ,
said 'whoa.' They wanted it for two m o n t h s in a market and then anoth-
er m o n t h to pack it all up. They have to do it right by their museums."
As the unveiling approached, the two casts were slated to visit 15 cities,
beginning with Boston and Honolulu. Other sites included St. Paul; Los
Angeles; Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Missouri; Louisville;
Portland, Oregon; Fresno; Toledo; Salt Lake City; Dallas; Seattle; and
Milwaukee.
Disney's task was considerably easier than McDonald's. DinoLand
merely had to be reconfigured to a c c o m m o d a t e the fossil prep lab a n d
the cast of Sue. The T. rex would stand in the middle of the park, out-
side, but under a shelter. Educational graphics also had to be created.
How do m u s e u m experts look at these efforts by McDonald's a n d
Disney? Does taking replicas of Sue on tour or standing a replica in a
theme park cross the line between science and industry? Is this type of
corporate/museum partnership cause for alarm or cause for celebra-
tion? A little background is in order.
In recent years the relationships between several m u s e u m s and their
patrons or exhibition sponsors have raised eyebrows a n d questions
about the division between art and commerce. In 1998, for example, the
Solomon B. Guggenheim M u s e u m in New York m o u n t e d an exhibition
called the "Art of the Motorcycle." BMW, a major manufacturer of
motorcycles, sponsored the show. In 1999, the Guggenheim a n n o u n c e d
that in the fall of 2000 it would present a major retrospective on the cre-
ations of Italian designer Giorgio Armani. According to The New York
Times, however, "What the m u s e u m did not acknowledge was that some
eight m o n t h s earlier, Mr. A r m a n i had become a sizable benefactor to the
2 2 6 TYRANNOSAURUS S U E
Guggenheim." H o w sizable? Perhaps as m u c h as $15 million, said the
Times.
The Guggenheim has stated that it would have m o u n t e d the Armani
exhibition even if the designer hadn't contributed. Whether this is true
or not, corporations are "pushing the envelope" by demanding quid pro
quos, says Ed Able, president of the 3000-member American Association
of Museums. Able sees a disturbing trend in which corporations have
ceased creating philanthropic budgets for making contributions to not-
for-profit institutions like m u s e u m s . Instead, the corporations make
such contributions from their marketing budgets—and the marketing
departments look for something in return.
The challenge for a m u s e u m , says Able, is "to separate corporate
support from content control. If a corporation exerts influence on
what's in an exhibit and how it's exhibited, [it is an] absolute violation
of ethical standards." He points to "Sensation," a 1999 show at the
Brooklyn M u s e u
m of Art as a cautionary tale. The m u s e u m receives
funding from the city of New York. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
tried, unsuccessfully, to close d o w n the exhibition because he and oth-
ers found some of its paintings and sculptures offensive. Able finds this
attempt at control nefarious. But he is also disturbed by the control
exerted by the exhibition's major financial backer, British advertising
magnate and art collector Charles Saatchi.
According to a front-page article in The New York Times written by
David Barstow, "The director of the Brooklyn M u s e u m of Art gave . . .
Saatchi a central role in determining the artistic content of 'Sensation,'
so m u c h so that senior m u s e u m officials expressed concern that Mr.
Saatchi had usurped control of the exhibition." Apparently, when muse-
um staffers wanted to eliminate certain paintings from the show, Saatchi
overruled them.
Saatchi owned the paintings and the sculptures in the exhibition.
He had also pledged $160,000 in financial support to the m u s e u m — a
fact the m u s e u m concealed for m o n t h s , according to the Times. Saatchi,
like other collectors, sometimes sells works after they have been exhib-
ited. Christie's auction house, where Saatchi has sold art, also con-
tributed $50,000 to the show. Arguably a painting may become more
valuable and draw m o r e at auction after it appears in an exhibition.
Y O U M A Y A P P R O A C H H E R M A J E S T Y 2 2 7
The Field Museum would leave itself open to criticism if it accept-
ed McDonald's or Disney's support and then m o u n t e d an exhibit on
hamburgers or theme parks. Criticism would also arise if there were evi-
dence that McDonald's or Disney pressured the m u s e u m to exhibit Sue
in a particular way or compromised the scientific study of the specimen.
McDonald's acknowledges that it would receive some negative feedback
if it turned Sue into a H a p p y Meal or action figure.
Because n o n e of these scenarios appeared to have materialized, Able
and others gave the m u s e u m and its sponsors high marks for the pre-
liminary handling of Sue. Philanthropic activities, as opposed to m a r -
keting activities, present the corporation as a good citizen in the com-
munity, says Able. "I frankly admire the way in which McDonald's has
gone about sending a message that it cares about the c o m m u n i t y — b e it