R. I. P. - Betty Page

Crimson Ghost · 12-11-2008, 11:11 PM

1950s pinup model Bettie Page dies at 85

LOS ANGELES (AP) — 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 suffered a heart attack last week in Los Angeles and never regained consciousness, her agent Mark Roesler said. 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.

The latter helped contribute to her mysterious disappearance from the public eye, which lasted decades and included years during which 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, websites, 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.

Her 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, 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.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Stress Puppy · 12-11-2008, 11:59 PM

I now have 'The Them - We Killed Betty Page' in my head.

xoxoxoBruce · 12-12-2008, 12:58 AM

Spent a lot of my youth staring at her pictures... they tended to blur after a minute or two.

lookout123 · 12-12-2008, 10:25 AM

Why's the screen all blurry?

TheMercenary · 12-12-2008, 10:43 AM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28185814/

lookout123 · 12-12-2008, 10:54 AM

Oh, c'mon - I don't get to make fun of Merc very often.

xoxoxoBruce · 12-12-2008, 11:08 AM

There's no point in merging the threads to clean up the board if you're going to confuse the issue. :p

lookout123 · 12-12-2008, 11:10 AM

by "the issue" I assume you mean dwellars. um, i hate to say it but most of us seem confused already. :

:

xoxoxoBruce · 12-12-2008, 11:12 AM

With all the stupid clone threads, I'm not surprised.

TheMercenary · 12-12-2008, 11:14 AM

Thanks for moving that.

classicman · 12-12-2008, 11:36 AM

They aren't all stupid are they?

Perhaps we could put them in their own section then.

xoxoxoBruce · 12-13-2008, 01:45 AM

Maybe 1 in 10 drifts into something interesting, the rest are just clutter.

Elspode · 12-13-2008, 09:50 AM

Bettie was awesome. Definitely superior wanking material.

Trilby · 12-13-2008, 04:04 PM

Bettie was my favorite pin up girl. I loved her in those silky, skimy red devil outfits...

Cloud · 12-13-2008, 08:07 PM

my humble contribution to her memorials:

Infamous and Immortal

And yes, this is where I've been spending my time lately.

12-11-2008, 11:11 PM	#1
Crimson Ghost Larger than life and twice as ugly. Join Date: Apr 2004 Posts: 5,264	R. I. P. - Betty Page 1950s pinup model Bettie Page dies at 85 LOS ANGELES (AP) — 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 suffered a heart attack last week in Los Angeles and never regained consciousness, her agent Mark Roesler said. 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. The latter helped contribute to her mysterious disappearance from the public eye, which lasted decades and included years during which 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, websites, 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. Her 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, 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. Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. Attached Images __________________ We must all go through a rite of passage. It must be physical, it must be painful, and it must leave a mark. I have no knowledge of the events which you are describing, and if I did have knowledge of them, I would be unable to discuss them with you now or at any future period. Don't waste your time always searching for those wasted years

12-11-2008, 11:59 PM	#2
Stress Puppy Elite Elitist Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Fresno, CA Posts: 359	I now have 'The Them - We Killed Betty Page' in my head. __________________ ~Stress Puppy~ Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur

12-12-2008, 12:58 AM	#3
xoxoxoBruce The future is unwritten Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 71,105	Spent a lot of my youth staring at her pictures... they tended to blur after a minute or two. __________________ The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump.

12-12-2008, 10:25 AM	#4
lookout123 changed his status to single Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Right behind you. No, the other side. Posts: 10,308	Why's the screen all blurry? __________________ Getting knocked down is no sin, it's not getting back up that's the sin

12-12-2008, 10:43 AM	#5
TheMercenary “Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo” Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Savannah, Georgia Posts: 21,393	RIP Bettie Page http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28185814/ __________________ Anyone but the this most fuked up President in History in 2012!

12-12-2008, 10:54 AM	#6
lookout123 changed his status to single Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Right behind you. No, the other side. Posts: 10,308	Oh, c'mon - I don't get to make fun of Merc very often. __________________ Getting knocked down is no sin, it's not getting back up that's the sin

12-12-2008, 11:08 AM	#7
xoxoxoBruce The future is unwritten Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 71,105	There's no point in merging the threads to clean up the board if you're going to confuse the issue. :p __________________ The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump.

12-12-2008, 11:10 AM	#8
lookout123 changed his status to single Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Right behind you. No, the other side. Posts: 10,308	by "the issue" I assume you mean dwellars. um, i hate to say it but most of us seem confused already. :: __________________ Getting knocked down is no sin, it's not getting back up that's the sin

12-12-2008, 11:12 AM	#9
xoxoxoBruce The future is unwritten Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 71,105	With all the stupid clone threads, I'm not surprised. __________________ The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump.

12-12-2008, 11:14 AM	#10
TheMercenary “Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo” Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Savannah, Georgia Posts: 21,393	Thanks for moving that. __________________ Anyone but the this most fuked up President in History in 2012!

12-12-2008, 11:36 AM	#11
classicman barely disguised asshole, keeper of all that is holy. Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 23,401	They aren't all stupid are they? Perhaps we could put them in their own section then. __________________ "like strapping a pillow on a bull in a china shop" Bullitt

12-13-2008, 01:45 AM	#12
xoxoxoBruce The future is unwritten Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 71,105	Maybe 1 in 10 drifts into something interesting, the rest are just clutter. __________________ The descent of man ~ Nixon, Friedman, Reagan, Trump.

12-13-2008, 09:50 AM	#13
Elspode When Do I Get Virtual Unreality? Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Raytown, Missouri Posts: 12,719	Bettie was awesome. Definitely superior wanking material. __________________ "To those of you who are wearing ties, I think my dad would appreciate it if you took them off." - Robert Moog

12-13-2008, 04:04 PM	#14
Trilby Slattern of the Swail Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 15,654	Bettie was my favorite pin up girl. I loved her in those silky, skimy red devil outfits... __________________ In Barrie's play and novel, the roles of fairies are brief: they are allies to the Lost Boys, the source of fairy dust and ...They are portrayed as dangerous, whimsical and extremely clever but quite hedonistic. "Shall I give you a kiss?" Peter asked and, jerking an acorn button off his coat, solemnly presented it to her. —James Barrie Wimminfolk they be tricksy. - ZenGum

12-13-2008, 08:07 PM	#15
Cloud ... Join Date: Feb 2007 Posts: 8,360	my humble contribution to her memorials: Infamous and Immortal And yes, this is where I've been spending my time lately. __________________ "Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards!"

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