Hello all
From The Times Picayune, New Orleans, La. March 26, 2006
'50s pinup girl posts strong figures
Innocence paired with fetish poses still appeals to paying customers
By Louis Sahagun Los Angeles Times
LOS aNGELES - Bettie Page was plunging into theday's work: autographing
pinups of herself in various Naughty Girl personas, with kitschy bangs,
high
heels, mesh hose and tasseled underwear.
Nurse Bettie, Jester Bettie, Substitute Teacher Bettie, Cowgirl Bettie,
Jungle Bettie, Wild Orchid Bettie, Banned in Boston Bettie, Crackers in
Bed
Bettie.
The task ahead was arduous given her many ailments, including diabetes and
stabbing pains in her back, legs and hands.
But the 82-year-old Page - a taboo-breaker who helped usher in the ***ual
revolution of the 1960s - is not a quitter.
"I'm about ready to roll," she said in a Southern drawl, frehening her
bright red lipstick. "But I'm going to go slow. I won't squiggle if I
write
slow."
CMG Worldwide, the company that markets her image, had organized the event
at its Sunset Boulevard penthouse offices. The idea was to get Page's
autograph on as many prints as possible, because demand for anything
Page-related is soaring.
Between 1949 and 1957 she was immortalized in thousands of saucy photos.
Those images have spawned biographies, comic books, fan clubs and numerous
Web sites, as well as commerical products - playing cards, lunch boxes,
beach towels, action figures.
According to her agents at CMG, who control the images of Marilyn Monroe
and
Princess Diana, Page's official Web site, www.BettiePage.com, has received
588 million hits over the last five years. That's cult status.
For the last 13 years, she's been living in seclusion in various Southern
California communities. Nearly five decades after the last photos of her
appeared in magazines like "Chicks and Chuckles," Page is finally earning
a
respectable income for her work.
"I'm more famous now than I was in the 1950s," she said.
"Being in the **** isn't a disgrace unless you're being promiscuous about
it," she said. She added with a laugh, "After all, when God created Adam
and
Eve, they were stark ****d. And in the Garden of Eden, God was probably
****d as a jaybird too!"
"My land! Is that supposed to be me?" asked Page, surveying a painting of
her reclining in a negligee with an ecstatic smile on her face.
Putting pen to canvas and concentrating mightily, she muttered, "I was
never
that pretty."
But to generations of men, she was.
She was born Bettie Mae Page in Jackson, Tenn., 105 miles southwest of
Nashville. She was the oldest girl among Roy and Edna Page's six children.
Roy, an auto mechanic, "molested all three of his daughters," Page said.
Edna divorced Roy in 1933 after he got a teenager pregnant, but life
didn't
get any easier for Bettie.
"All I ever wanted was a mother who paid attention to me," page recalled.
"She didn't want girls. She thought we were trouble. She didn't help with
homework or teach me to sew or cook.
"She didn't go to the school plays I was in or go to my high school
graduation. When I started menstruating at 13, I thought I was dying
because
she never taught me anything about that."
Two weeks before her final exams in high school, her mother's much younger
lover "tried to pull me into his car. My mother nearly murdered me over
that, then made me live with my father. So I couldn't review my exam
notes,
which were at home."
"Because of that I got beat out of graduating valedictorian by a quarter
of
a grade point and lost my dream of getting a scholar****p to attend
Vanderbilt University," she said. "It was the worst disappointment of my
life."
She tried secretarial work and marriage. But by 1948 she was divorced and
had moved to New York and enrolled in acting cl*****. Strolling the beach
at
Coney Island, Page crossed paths with New York cop and amateur
photographer
Jerry Tibbs, who introduced her to shutterbug clubs and suggested she wear
bangs to help cover a slightly protruding forehead.
From the start, Page - whose measurements were 36-24-37 - preferred the
skimpy outfits she designed and sewed at home. "I made all of my bikinis
and
most of my lingerie," she said.
Almost overnight, she became an underground sensation, attracting the
attention of Irving Klaw and his sister, Paula, who operated a mail-order
business specializing in cheesecake.
Page soon became the Klaws' busiest pinup and also starred in their
peekaboo
short films, "Varietease" and "Stri****ama."
During her brief career, she became the obsession of thousands of men - a
fact that mystifies her to this day: "I have no idea why I'm the only
model
who has had so much fame so long after quitting work."
Her most acclaimed photographs were taked in 1955 by fa****on photographer
Bunny Yeager. They included shots of a **** Page lounging with leopards,
frolicking in the waves and deep-sea fi****ng and a January 1955 Playboy
centerfold of her winking under a Santa Claus cap while placing a bulb on
a
Christmas tree.
"Exactly what captures the imagination of people in terms of pop culture
is
something hard to define," Playboy founder Hugh Hefner said. "But in
Bettie's case, I'd say it's a combination of wholesome innocence and
fetish-oriented poses that is at once retro and very modern."
In 1955, Page was summoned to Capitol Hill by Sen. Estes Kefauver, a
Tennessee Democrat who was investigating the ****ography business.
Kefauver's committee never compelled Page to testify but the uproar cause
the Klaws to close their business. At 35, Page quit modeling and moved to
Florida, where she married a much younger man whose passions, she later
learned, were watching television and eating hamburgers.
"Six weeks into the marriage, on New Year's Eve 1959," she recalled, "I
wanted to go dancing with him at a nightclub. He said he'd rather get
drunk
with his brothers."
Page charged out of the house in tears, wondering whether to divorce him.
Down the street, she noticed a white neon sign over a little white church
with its doors open.
"The Lord took me by the hand and we stepped inside," she recalled. "I was
crying in the back row about my sins. I turned my life over to the Lord."
In her new life as a born again Christian, Page immersed herself in Bible
studies and served as a counselor for the Billy Graham Crusade.
In 1967, she married her third husband. After their divorce 11 years
later,
Page plunged into a depression marked by violent mood swings. She got into
an argument with her landlady and attacked her with a knife. A judge found
her innocent by reason of insanity but sentenced her to 10 years in a
California mental institution.
She emerged from San Bernardino's Patton State Hospital in 1992 to find
that
there was new interest in her story and her old poses.
In the autumn of her life, Page is learning to accept what her modeling
meant for her and for American popular culture.
A motion picture, "The Notorious Bettie Page," is scheduled for release in
April, 2006. Artist Olivia De Berardinis, whose work Page was
autographing,
expects to publish a book this year featuring her own idealized ****traits
of
Page.
Still, she shuns the public eye, rarely venturing out even with trusted
friends. These days Page spends most days reading the Bible, listening to
Christian music and country tunes, watching oaters on television and
catching up on the latest diet plans and exercise regimes.
But a few weeks ago, with confidant and CMG executive Richard Bann as her
escort, she joined Hefner at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles for a
special screening of "The Notorious Bettie Page."
Page had a beef with the title. "Notorious? That's not flattering at all,"
she said. "They should have used another word."
In an interview, the film's producer, Pam Koffler, said, "The title was
meant ironically, Bettie Page gained such notoriety for her modeling, but
the real person and her life were exactly opposite of all that."
Page had one request for this story - that her face not be photographed.
"I
want to be remembered," she said, "as I was when I was young and in my
golden times... I want to be remembered as a woman who changed people's
perspectives concerning ****ity in its natural form."
But this much can be shared. Her face remains smooth and frest and one can
still see the face of the young woman in the old. Her eyes, bright blue,
still sparkle.
Hope you have enjoyed reading this.
Hello all
From The Times Picayune, New Orleans, La. March 26, 2006
'50s pinup girl posts strong figures
Innocence paired with fetish poses still appeals to paying customers
By Louis Sahagun Los Angeles Times
LOS aNGELES - Bettie Page was plunging into theday's work: autographing
pinups of herself in various Naughty Girl personas, with kitschy bangs,
high
heels, mesh hose and tasseled underwear.
Nurse Bettie, Jester Bettie, Substitute Teacher Bettie, Cowgirl Bettie,
Jungle Bettie, Wild Orchid Bettie, Banned in Boston Bettie, Crackers in
Bed
Bettie.
The task ahead was arduous given her many ailments, including diabetes and
stabbing pains in her back, legs and hands.
But the 82-year-old Page - a taboo-breaker who helped usher in the ***ual
revolution of the 1960s - is not a quitter.
"I'm about ready to roll," she said in a Southern drawl, frehening her
bright red lipstick. "But I'm going to go slow. I won't squiggle if I
write
slow."
CMG Worldwide, the company that markets her image, had organized the event
at its Sunset Boulevard penthouse offices. The idea was to get Page's
autograph on as many prints as possible, because demand for anything
Page-related is soaring.
Between 1949 and 1957 she was immortalized in thousands of saucy photos.
Those images have spawned biographies, comic books, fan clubs and numerous
Web sites, as well as commerical products - playing cards, lunch boxes,
beach towels, action figures.
According to her agents at CMG, who control the images of Marilyn Monroe
and
Princess Diana, Page's official Web site, www.BettiePage.com, has received
588 million hits over the last five years. That's cult status.
For the last 13 years, she's been living in seclusion in various Southern
California communities. Nearly five decades after the last photos of her
appeared in magazines like "Chicks and Chuckles," Page is finally earning
a
respectable income for her work.
"I'm more famous now than I was in the 1950s," she said.
"Being in the **** isn't a disgrace unless you're being promiscuous about
it," she said. She added with a laugh, "After all, when God created Adam
and
Eve, they were stark ****d. And in the Garden of Eden, God was probably
****d as a jaybird too!"
"My land! Is that supposed to be me?" asked Page, surveying a painting of
her reclining in a negligee with an ecstatic smile on her face.
Putting pen to canvas and concentrating mightily, she muttered, "I was
never
that pretty."
But to generations of men, she was.
She was born Bettie Mae Page in Jackson, Tenn., 105 miles southwest of
Nashville. She was the oldest girl among Roy and Edna Page's six children.
Roy, an auto mechanic, "molested all three of his daughters," Page said.
Edna divorced Roy in 1933 after he got a teenager pregnant, but life
didn't
get any easier for Bettie.
"All I ever wanted was a mother who paid attention to me," page recalled.
"She didn't want girls. She thought we were trouble. She didn't help with
homework or teach me to sew or cook.
"She didn't go to the school plays I was in or go to my high school
graduation. When I started menstruating at 13, I thought I was dying
because
she never taught me anything about that."
Two weeks before her final exams in high school, her mother's much younger
lover "tried to pull me into his car. My mother nearly murdered me over
that, then made me live with my father. So I couldn't review my exam
notes,
which were at home."
"Because of that I got beat out of graduating valedictorian by a quarter
of
a grade point and lost my dream of getting a scholar****p to attend
Vanderbilt University," she said. "It was the worst disappointment of my
life."
She tried secretarial work and marriage. But by 1948 she was divorced and
had moved to New York and enrolled in acting cl*****. Strolling the beach
at
Coney Island, Page crossed paths with New York cop and amateur
photographer
Jerry Tibbs, who introduced her to shutterbug clubs and suggested she wear
bangs to help cover a slightly protruding forehead.
From the start, Page - whose measurements were 36-24-37 - preferred the
skimpy outfits she designed and sewed at home. "I made all of my bikinis
and
most of my lingerie," she said.
Almost overnight, she became an underground sensation, attracting the
attention of Irving Klaw and his sister, Paula, who operated a mail-order
business specializing in cheesecake.
Page soon became the Klaws' busiest pinup and also starred in their
peekaboo
short films, "Varietease" and "Stri****ama."
During her brief career, she became the obsession of thousands of men - a
fact that mystifies her to this day: "I have no idea why I'm the only
model
who has had so much fame so long after quitting work."
Her most acclaimed photographs were taked in 1955 by fa****on photographer
Bunny Yeager. They included shots of a **** Page lounging with leopards,
frolicking in the waves and deep-sea fi****ng and a January 1955 Playboy
centerfold of her winking under a Santa Claus cap while placing a bulb on
a
Christmas tree.
"Exactly what captures the imagination of people in terms of pop culture
is
something hard to define," Playboy founder Hugh Hefner said. "But in
Bettie's case, I'd say it's a combination of wholesome innocence and
fetish-oriented poses that is at once retro and very modern."
In 1955, Page was summoned to Capitol Hill by Sen. Estes Kefauver, a
Tennessee Democrat who was investigating the ****ography business.
Kefauver's committee never compelled Page to testify but the uproar cause
the Klaws to close their business. At 35, Page quit modeling and moved to
Florida, where she married a much younger man whose passions, she later
learned, were watching television and eating hamburgers.
"Six weeks into the marriage, on New Year's Eve 1959," she recalled, "I
wanted to go dancing with him at a nightclub. He said he'd rather get
drunk
with his brothers."
Page charged out of the house in tears, wondering whether to divorce him.
Down the street, she noticed a white neon sign over a little white church
with its doors open.
"The Lord took me by the hand and we stepped inside," she recalled. "I was
crying in the back row about my sins. I turned my life over to the Lord."
In her new life as a born again Christian, Page immersed herself in Bible
studies and served as a counselor for the Billy Graham Crusade.
In 1967, she married her third husband. After their divorce 11 years
later,
Page plunged into a depression marked by violent mood swings. She got into
an argument with her landlady and attacked her with a knife. A judge found
her innocent by reason of insanity but sentenced her to 10 years in a
California mental institution.
She emerged from San Bernardino's Patton State Hospital in 1992 to find
that
there was new interest in her story and her old poses.
In the autumn of her life, Page is learning to accept what her modeling
meant for her and for American popular culture.
A motion picture, "The Notorious Bettie Page," is scheduled for release in
April, 2006. Artist Olivia De Berardinis, whose work Page was
autographing,
expects to publish a book this year featuring her own idealized ****traits
of
Page.
Still, she shuns the public eye, rarely venturing out even with trusted
friends. These days Page spends most days reading the Bible, listening to
Christian music and country tunes, watching oaters on television and
catching up on the latest diet plans and exercise regimes.
But a few weeks ago, with confidant and CMG executive Richard Bann as her
escort, she joined Hefner at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles for a
special screening of "The Notorious Bettie Page."
Page had a beef with the title. "Notorious? That's not flattering at all,"
she said. "They should have used another word."
In an interview, the film's producer, Pam Koffler, said, "The title was
meant ironically, Bettie Page gained such notoriety for her modeling, but
the real person and her life were exactly opposite of all that."
Page had one request for this story - that her face not be photographed.
"I
want to be remembered," she said, "as I was when I was young and in my
golden times... I want to be remembered as a woman who changed people's
perspectives concerning ****ity in its natural form."
But this much can be shared. Her face remains smooth and frest and one can
still see the face of the young woman in the old. Her eyes, bright blue,
still sparkle.
Hope you have enjoyed reading this.
Hello all
From The Times Picayune, New Orleans, La. March 26, 2006
'50s pinup girl posts strong figures
Innocence paired with fetish poses still appeals to paying customers
By Louis Sahagun Los Angeles Times
LOS aNGELES - Bettie Page was plunging into theday's work: autographing
pinups of herself in various Naughty Girl personas, with kitschy bangs,
high
heels, mesh hose and tasseled underwear.
Nurse Bettie, Jester Bettie, Substitute Teacher Bettie, Cowgirl Bettie,
Jungle Bettie, Wild Orchid Bettie, Banned in Boston Bettie, Crackers in
Bed
Bettie.
The task ahead was arduous given her many ailments, including diabetes and
stabbing pains in her back, legs and hands.
But the 82-year-old Page - a taboo-breaker who helped usher in the ***ual
revolution of the 1960s - is not a quitter.
"I'm about ready to roll," she said in a Southern drawl, frehening her
bright red lipstick. "But I'm going to go slow. I won't squiggle if I
write
slow."
CMG Worldwide, the company that markets her image, had organized the event
at its Sunset Boulevard penthouse offices. The idea was to get Page's
autograph on as many prints as possible, because demand for anything
Page-related is soaring.
Between 1949 and 1957 she was immortalized in thousands of saucy photos.
Those images have spawned biographies, comic books, fan clubs and numerous
Web sites, as well as commerical products - playing cards, lunch boxes,
beach towels, action figures.
According to her agents at CMG, who control the images of Marilyn Monroe
and
Princess Diana, Page's official Web site, www.BettiePage.com, has received
588 million hits over the last five years. That's cult status.
For the last 13 years, she's been living in seclusion in various Southern
California communities. Nearly five decades after the last photos of her
appeared in magazines like "Chicks and Chuckles," Page is finally earning
a
respectable income for her work.
"I'm more famous now than I was in the 1950s," she said.
"Being in the **** isn't a disgrace unless you're being promiscuous about
it," she said. She added with a laugh, "After all, when God created Adam
and
Eve, they were stark ****d. And in the Garden of Eden, God was probably
****d as a jaybird too!"
"My land! Is that supposed to be me?" asked Page, surveying a painting of
her reclining in a negligee with an ecstatic smile on her face.
Putting pen to canvas and concentrating mightily, she muttered, "I was
never
that pretty."
But to generations of men, she was.
She was born Bettie Mae Page in Jackson, Tenn., 105 miles southwest of
Nashville. She was the oldest girl among Roy and Edna Page's six children.
Roy, an auto mechanic, "molested all three of his daughters," Page said.
Edna divorced Roy in 1933 after he got a teenager pregnant, but life
didn't
get any easier for Bettie.
"All I ever wanted was a mother who paid attention to me," page recalled.
"She didn't want girls. She thought we were trouble. She didn't help with
homework or teach me to sew or cook.
"She didn't go to the school plays I was in or go to my high school
graduation. When I started menstruating at 13, I thought I was dying
because
she never taught me anything about that."
Two weeks before her final exams in high school, her mother's much younger
lover "tried to pull me into his car. My mother nearly murdered me over
that, then made me live with my father. So I couldn't review my exam
notes,
which were at home."
"Because of that I got beat out of graduating valedictorian by a quarter
of
a grade point and lost my dream of getting a scholar****p to attend
Vanderbilt University," she said. "It was the worst disappointment of my
life."
She tried secretarial work and marriage. But by 1948 she was divorced and
had moved to New York and enrolled in acting cl*****. Strolling the beach
at
Coney Island, Page crossed paths with New York cop and amateur
photographer
Jerry Tibbs, who introduced her to shutterbug clubs and suggested she wear
bangs to help cover a slightly protruding forehead.
From the start, Page - whose measurements were 36-24-37 - preferred the
skimpy outfits she designed and sewed at home. "I made all of my bikinis
and
most of my lingerie," she said.
Almost overnight, she became an underground sensation, attracting the
attention of Irving Klaw and his sister, Paula, who operated a mail-order
business specializing in cheesecake.
Page soon became the Klaws' busiest pinup and also starred in their
peekaboo
short films, "Varietease" and "Stri****ama."
During her brief career, she became the obsession of thousands of men - a
fact that mystifies her to this day: "I have no idea why I'm the only
model
who has had so much fame so long after quitting work."
Her most acclaimed photographs were taked in 1955 by fa****on photographer
Bunny Yeager. They included shots of a **** Page lounging with leopards,
frolicking in the waves and deep-sea fi****ng and a January 1955 Playboy
centerfold of her winking under a Santa Claus cap while placing a bulb on
a
Christmas tree.
"Exactly what captures the imagination of people in terms of pop culture
is
something hard to define," Playboy founder Hugh Hefner said. "But in
Bettie's case, I'd say it's a combination of wholesome innocence and
fetish-oriented poses that is at once retro and very modern."
In 1955, Page was summoned to Capitol Hill by Sen. Estes Kefauver, a
Tennessee Democrat who was investigating the ****ography business.
Kefauver's committee never compelled Page to testify but the uproar cause
the Klaws to close their business. At 35, Page quit modeling and moved to
Florida, where she married a much younger man whose passions, she later
learned, were watching television and eating hamburgers.
"Six weeks into the marriage, on New Year's Eve 1959," she recalled, "I
wanted to go dancing with him at a nightclub. He said he'd rather get
drunk
with his brothers."
Page charged out of the house in tears, wondering whether to divorce him.
Down the street, she noticed a white neon sign over a little white church
with its doors open.
"The Lord took me by the hand and we stepped inside," she recalled. "I was
crying in the back row about my sins. I turned my life over to the Lord."
In her new life as a born again Christian, Page immersed herself in Bible
studies and served as a counselor for the Billy Graham Crusade.
In 1967, she married her third husband. After their divorce 11 years
later,
Page plunged into a depression marked by violent mood swings. She got into
an argument with her landlady and attacked her with a knife. A judge found
her innocent by reason of insanity but sentenced her to 10 years in a
California mental institution.
She emerged from San Bernardino's Patton State Hospital in 1992 to find
that
there was new interest in her story and her old poses.
In the autumn of her life, Page is learning to accept what her modeling
meant for her and for American popular culture.
A motion picture, "The Notorious Bettie Page," is scheduled for release in
April, 2006. Artist Olivia De Berardinis, whose work Page was
autographing,
expects to publish a book this year featuring her own idealized ****traits
of
Page.
Still, she shuns the public eye, rarely venturing out even with trusted
friends. These days Page spends most days reading the Bible, listening to
Christian music and country tunes, watching oaters on television and
catching up on the latest diet plans and exercise regimes.
But a few weeks ago, with confidant and CMG executive Richard Bann as her
escort, she joined Hefner at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles for a
special screening of "The Notorious Bettie Page."
Page had a beef with the title. "Notorious? That's not flattering at all,"
she said. "They should have used another word."
In an interview, the film's producer, Pam Koffler, said, "The title was
meant ironically, Bettie Page gained such notoriety for her modeling, but
the real person and her life were exactly opposite of all that."
Page had one request for this story - that her face not be photographed.
"I
want to be remembered," she said, "as I was when I was young and in my
golden times... I want to be remembered as a woman who changed people's
perspectives concerning ****ity in its natural form."
But this much can be shared. Her face remains smooth and frest and one can
still see the face of the young woman in the old. Her eyes, bright blue,
still sparkle.
Hope you have enjoyed reading this.
Hello all
From The Times Picayune, New Orleans, La. March 26, 2006
'50s pinup girl posts strong figures
Innocence paired with fetish poses still appeals to paying customers
By Louis Sahagun Los Angeles Times
LOS aNGELES - Bettie Page was plunging into theday's work: autographing
pinups of herself in various Naughty Girl personas, with kitschy bangs,
high
heels, mesh hose and tasseled underwear.
Nurse Bettie, Jester Bettie, Substitute Teacher Bettie, Cowgirl Bettie,
Jungle Bettie, Wild Orchid Bettie, Banned in Boston Bettie, Crackers in
Bed
Bettie.
The task ahead was arduous given her many ailments, including diabetes and
stabbing pains in her back, legs and hands.
But the 82-year-old Page - a taboo-breaker who helped usher in the ***ual
revolution of the 1960s - is not a quitter.
"I'm about ready to roll," she said in a Southern drawl, frehening her
bright red lipstick. "But I'm going to go slow. I won't squiggle if I
write
slow."
CMG Worldwide, the company that markets her image, had organized the event
at its Sunset Boulevard penthouse offices. The idea was to get Page's
autograph on as many prints as possible, because demand for anything
Page-related is soaring.
Between 1949 and 1957 she was immortalized in thousands of saucy photos.
Those images have spawned biographies, comic books, fan clubs and numerous
Web sites, as well as commerical products - playing cards, lunch boxes,
beach towels, action figures.
According to her agents at CMG, who control the images of Marilyn Monroe
and
Princess Diana, Page's official Web site, www.BettiePage.com, has received
588 million hits over the last five years. That's cult status.
For the last 13 years, she's been living in seclusion in various Southern
California communities. Nearly five decades after the last photos of her
appeared in magazines like "Chicks and Chuckles," Page is finally earning
a
respectable income for her work.
"I'm more famous now than I was in the 1950s," she said.
"Being in the **** isn't a disgrace unless you're being promiscuous about
it," she said. She added with a laugh, "After all, when God created Adam
and
Eve, they were stark ****d. And in the Garden of Eden, God was probably
****d as a jaybird too!"
"My land! Is that supposed to be me?" asked Page, surveying a painting of
her reclining in a negligee with an ecstatic smile on her face.
Putting pen to canvas and concentrating mightily, she muttered, "I was
never
that pretty."
But to generations of men, she was.
She was born Bettie Mae Page in Jackson, Tenn., 105 miles southwest of
Nashville. She was the oldest girl among Roy and Edna Page's six children.
Roy, an auto mechanic, "molested all three of his daughters," Page said.
Edna divorced Roy in 1933 after he got a teenager pregnant, but life
didn't
get any easier for Bettie.
"All I ever wanted was a mother who paid attention to me," page recalled.
"She didn't want girls. She thought we were trouble. She didn't help with
homework or teach me to sew or cook.
"She didn't go to the school plays I was in or go to my high school
graduation. When I started menstruating at 13, I thought I was dying
because
she never taught me anything about that."
Two weeks before her final exams in high school, her mother's much younger
lover "tried to pull me into his car. My mother nearly murdered me over
that, then made me live with my father. So I couldn't review my exam
notes,
which were at home."
"Because of that I got beat out of graduating valedictorian by a quarter
of
a grade point and lost my dream of getting a scholar****p to attend
Vanderbilt University," she said. "It was the worst disappointment of my
life."
She tried secretarial work and marriage. But by 1948 she was divorced and
had moved to New York and enrolled in acting cl*****. Strolling the beach
at
Coney Island, Page crossed paths with New York cop and amateur
photographer
Jerry Tibbs, who introduced her to shutterbug clubs and suggested she wear
bangs to help cover a slightly protruding forehead.
From the start, Page - whose measurements were 36-24-37 - preferred the
skimpy outfits she designed and sewed at home. "I made all of my bikinis
and
most of my lingerie," she said.
Almost overnight, she became an underground sensation, attracting the
attention of Irving Klaw and his sister, Paula, who operated a mail-order
business specializing in cheesecake.
Page soon became the Klaws' busiest pinup and also starred in their
peekaboo
short films, "Varietease" and "Stri****ama."
During her brief career, she became the obsession of thousands of men - a
fact that mystifies her to this day: "I have no idea why I'm the only
model
who has had so much fame so long after quitting work."
Her most acclaimed photographs were taked in 1955 by fa****on photographer
Bunny Yeager. They included shots of a **** Page lounging with leopards,
frolicking in the waves and deep-sea fi****ng and a January 1955 Playboy
centerfold of her winking under a Santa Claus cap while placing a bulb on
a
Christmas tree.
"Exactly what captures the imagination of people in terms of pop culture
is
something hard to define," Playboy founder Hugh Hefner said. "But in
Bettie's case, I'd say it's a combination of wholesome innocence and
fetish-oriented poses that is at once retro and very modern."
In 1955, Page was summoned to Capitol Hill by Sen. Estes Kefauver, a
Tennessee Democrat who was investigating the ****ography business.
Kefauver's committee never compelled Page to testify but the uproar cause
the Klaws to close their business. At 35, Page quit modeling and moved to
Florida, where she married a much younger man whose passions, she later
learned, were watching television and eating hamburgers.
"Six weeks into the marriage, on New Year's Eve 1959," she recalled, "I
wanted to go dancing with him at a nightclub. He said he'd rather get
drunk
with his brothers."
Page charged out of the house in tears, wondering whether to divorce him.
Down the street, she noticed a white neon sign over a little white church
with its doors open.
"The Lord took me by the hand and we stepped inside," she recalled. "I was
crying in the back row about my sins. I turned my life over to the Lord."
In her new life as a born again Christian, Page immersed herself in Bible
studies and served as a counselor for the Billy Graham Crusade.
In 1967, she married her third husband. After their divorce 11 years
later,
Page plunged into a depression marked by violent mood swings. She got into
an argument with her landlady and attacked her with a knife. A judge found
her innocent by reason of insanity but sentenced her to 10 years in a
California mental institution.
She emerged from San Bernardino's Patton State Hospital in 1992 to find
that
there was new interest in her story and her old poses.
In the autumn of her life, Page is learning to accept what her modeling
meant for her and for American popular culture.
A motion picture, "The Notorious Bettie Page," is scheduled for release in
April, 2006. Artist Olivia De Berardinis, whose work Page was
autographing,
expects to publish a book this year featuring her own idealized ****traits
of
Page.
Still, she shuns the public eye, rarely venturing out even with trusted
friends. These days Page spends most days reading the Bible, listening to
Christian music and country tunes, watching oaters on television and
catching up on the latest diet plans and exercise regimes.
But a few weeks ago, with confidant and CMG executive Richard Bann as her
escort, she joined Hefner at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles for a
special screening of "The Notorious Bettie Page."
Page had a beef with the title. "Notorious? That's not flattering at all,"
she said. "They should have used another word."
In an interview, the film's producer, Pam Koffler, said, "The title was
meant ironically, Bettie Page gained such notoriety for her modeling, but
the real person and her life were exactly opposite of all that."
Page had one request for this story - that her face not be photographed.
"I
want to be remembered," she said, "as I was when I was young and in my
golden times... I want to be remembered as a woman who changed people's
perspectives concerning ****ity in its natural form."
But this much can be shared. Her face remains smooth and frest and one can
still see the face of the young woman in the old. Her eyes, bright blue,
still sparkle.
Hope you have enjoyed reading this.
