LOS ANGELES – Bettie Page, the 1950s secretary-turned-model whose
controversial photographs in skimpy attire or none at all helped set the
stage for the 1960s sexual revolution, died Thursday. She was 85.
Page was placed on life support last week after suffering a heart attack in
Los Angeles and never regained consciousness, said her agent, Mark Roesler.
He said he and Page's family agreed to remove life support. Before the
heart attack, Page had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia.
"She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her
free spirit and unabashed sensuality," Roesler said. "She is the embodiment
of beauty."
Page, who was also known as Betty, attracted national attention with
magazine photographs of her sensuous figure in bikinis and see-through
lingerie that were quickly tacked up on walls in military barracks, garages
and elsewhere, where they remained for years.
Her photos included a centerfold in the January 1955 issue of
then-fledgling Playboy magazine, as well as controversial sadomasochistic
poses.
"I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture
who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous
impact on our society," Playboy founder Hugh Hefner told The Associated
Press on Thursday. "She was a very dear person."
Page mysteriously disappeared from the public eye for decades, during which
time she battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian.
After resurfacing in the 1990s, she occasionally granted interviews but
refused to allow her picture to be taken.
"I don't want to be photographed in my old age," she told an interviewer in
1998. "I feel the same way with old movie stars. ... It makes me sad. We
want to remember them when they were young."
The 21st century indeed had people remembering her just as she was. She
became the subject of songs, biographies, Web sites, comic books, movies
and documentaries. A new generation of fans bought thousands of copies of
her photos, and some feminists hailed her as a pioneer of women's
liberation.
Gretchen Mol portrayed her in 2005's "The Notorious Bettie Page" and Paige
Richards had the role in 2004's "Bettie Page: Dark Angel." Page herself
took part in the 1998 documentary "Betty Page: Pinup Queen."
Hefner said he last saw Page when he held a screening of "The Notorious
Bettie Page" at the Playboy Mansion. He said she objected to the fact that
the film referred to her as "notorious," but "we explained to her that it
referred to the troubled times she had and was a good way to sell a
movie."
Page's career began one day in October 1950 when she took a respite from
her job as a secretary in a New York office for a walk along the beach at
Coney Island. An amateur photographer named Jerry Tibbs admired the
27-year-old's firm, curvy body and asked her to pose.
Looking back on the career that followed, she told Playboy in 1998: "I
never thought it was shameful. I felt normal. It's just that it was much
better than pounding a typewriter eight hours a day, which gets
monotonous."
Nudity didn't bother her, she said, explaining: "God approves of nudity.
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they were naked as jaybirds."
In 1951, Page fell under the influence of a photographer and his sister who
specialized in S&M. They cut her hair into the dark bangs that became her
signature and posed her in spiked heels and little else. She was
photographed with a whip in her hand, and in one session she was
spread-eagled between two trees, her feet dangling.
"I thought my arms and legs would come out of their sockets," she said
later.
Moralists denounced the photos as perversion, and Sen. Estes Kefauver of
Tennessee, Page's home state, launched a congressional investigation.
Page quickly retreated from public view, later saying she was hounded by
federal agents who waved her nude photos in her face. She also said she
believed that, at age 34, her days as "the girl with the perfect figure"
were nearly over.
She moved to Florida in 1957 and married a much younger man, as an early
marriage to her high school sweetheart had ended in divorce.
Her second marriage also failed, as did a third, and she suffered a nervous
breakdown.
In 1959, she was lying on a sea wall in Key West when she saw a church with
a white neon cross on top. She walked inside and became a born-again
Christian.
After attending Bible school, she wanted to serve as a missionary but was
turned down because she had been divorced. Instead, she worked full-time
for evangelist Billy Graham's ministry.
A move to Southern California in 1979 brought more troubles.
She was arrested after an altercation with her landlady, and doctors who
examined her determined she had acute schizophrenia. She spent 20 months in
a state mental hospital in San Bernardino.
A fight with another landlord resulted in her arrest, but she was found not
guilty because of insanity. She was placed under state supervision for
eight years.
"She had a very turbulent life," Todd Mueller, a family friend and
autograph seller, told The Associated Press on Thursday. "She had a temper
to her."
Mueller said he first met Page after tracking her down in the 1990s and
persuaded her to do an autograph signing event.
He said she was a hit and sold about 3,000 autographs, usually for $200 to
$300 each.
"Eleanor Roosevelt, we got $40 to $50. ... Bettie Page outsells them all,"
he told The AP last week.
Born April 22, 1923, in Nashville, Tenn., Page said she grew up in a family
so poor "we were lucky to get an orange in our Christmas stockings."
The family included three boys and three girls, and Page said her father
molested all of the girls.
After the Pages moved to Houston, her father decided to return to Tennessee
and stole a police car for the trip. He was sent to prison, and for a time
Betty lived in an orphanage.
In her teens she acted in high school plays, going on to study drama in New
York and win a screen test from 20th Century Fox before her modeling career
took off.
____________________ My Life is like a porno-Without the sex-Just the weird music
Xaoswolf
Fanatic
Posts: 463 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
posted on 12/12/2008 at 07:16 PM
Is it bad that I didn't even know she was still alive?
____________________ Sometimes I dream about dinosaurs shopping for cargo shorts at the Gap.
Does that make me a bad person?
EyeCandyRayce
Fanatic
Posts: 247 Registered: 19/1/2004 Status: Offline
posted on 2/1/2009 at 05:09 PM
quote:Is it bad that I didn't
even know she was still alive?
Not really. She was a very private person.
____________________ Suicide Hotline - Please Hold