[kj] OT: Bettie Page dead. RIP. (1923 - 2008)

[B. Oliver Sheppard]

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b73000_pinup_queen_bettie_page_dead_85.html


Pinup Queen Bettie Page Dead at 85

Today 7:29 PM PST

Although her body was mortal, Bettie Page's image is forever young and 
feisty.

The 1950s-era model, whose saucy poses for publications like Beauty 
Parade, Twitter and an upstart rag called Playboy won her a legion of 
fans and a cult following long after her pinup days were over, died 
Thursday night at a Los Angeles hospital, nine days after suffering a 
heart attack. She was 85.

According to her agent, Page had been hospitalized for three weeks 
beforehand with pneumonia.

Page's trademark jet-black bangs and curvy figure—clad in slinky 
lingerie, bondage gear or other thematic costumes, if clad in anything 
at all—were fixtures on the pages of men's magazines from 1951 to 1957.

Hugh Hefnerpicked her to be Playboy's Playmate of the Month in January 1955.

In an interview a couple of years ago, Hefner described her MO as "a 
combination of wholesome innocence and fetish-oriented poses that is at 
once retro and very modern."

Her willingness to go wild in front of the camera also landed her the 
starring role in dozens of silent fetish shorts, featuring her as a 
dominatrix, with her biggest-selling still photo of all time coming from 
the featurette Leopard Bikini Bound. The only time the dancer and 
aspiring actress' voice was captured on film was in the feature-length 
Striporama, in which she had a small speaking role.

Of course, this was the 1950s, so all that risqué exposure came with a 
price.

In 1957, Page was called to testify before Congress during an 
investigation into the possible perversity of such photographs. She 
ultimately never had to take the stand, but many of the negatives from 
her gigs as a mail-order pinup were destroyed during the proceedings.

Page ended up leaving the life—and how—in 1959, when she became a 
born-again Christian, not long after suffering a nervous breakdown upon 
the collapse of her second marriage.

The Nashville native applied to be a missionary in Africa but was 
rejected because she had been divorced. She later ended up working for 
the Rev. Billy Graham's ministry. Depression and other mental issues 
clouded some of her later years

But while Page may have turned her back on her past, her fans didn't. 
The 1976 book A Nostalgic Look at Bettie Page won her a small but 
devoted following, and the photo reissues, film collections and 
reimagined accounts of her life and infamous career have been pouring 
forth ever since, including in 2005 when Gretchen Mol starred in The 
Notorious Bettie Page for HBO.

Page began giving interviews again in the 1990s, but wouldn't allow 
reporters to take her picture, figuring fans would prefer to remember 
the sultry sexpot she once was, or, as she told the Los Angeles Times in 
2006:

"I want to be remembered as the woman who changed people's perspectives 
concerning nudity in its natural form."
by Natalie Finn