[BretLudwig]

1950s pin-up queen Bettie Page dies


By Dean Goodman

"LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Bettie Page, one of America's most photographed
pin-up girls during the 1950s, died in Los Angeles on Thursday from
pneumonia, her agent said. She was 85.

Page was a ubiquitous sight during the 1950s, propelled to stardom when
she posed for Playboy as Miss January 1955. Soon her image was gracing
playing cards, record albums and bedroom posters across the country.

She stopped modeling in 1957, retreated from the public spotlight and
turned to religion. She enjoyed a renaissance of sorts in the 1980s, as a
new generation of fans became obsessed with her legacy.

Her agent, Mark Roesler, said Page was admitted to a Los Angeles-area
hospital four weeks ago. She never regained consciousness after suffering
a heart attack earlier this month.

With her dark bangs, alluring blue-gray eyes and wide smile, Page
cultivated an innocent girl-next-door persona. The one-time school teacher
was nice, but clearly also naughty. Some of her photos featured spanking
and bondage.

"Bettie Page embodied the stereotypical wholesomeness of the Fifties and
the hidden sexuality straining beneath the surface," authors Karen Essex
and James L. Swanson wrote in their 1996 book "Bettie Page: The Life of a
Pin-Up Legend."

Page professed to be mystified by all the attention, saying she never felt
particularly attractive and had to wear a lot of makeup to cover up her
large pores. After she found God, she was initially ashamed of having
posed nude.

"(B)ut now most of the money I've got is because I posed in the nude," she
told Playboy last year. "So I'm not ashamed of it now, but I still don't
understand it."

Bettie Mae Page was born on April 22, 1923, in Nashville, one of six
children. She and two sisters were sent to an orphanage after her father
went to jail and her mother could not cope on her own. Page later
described her father as "a sex fiend" who started sexually molesting her
when she was 13.

Page, armed with an arts degree with Peabody College in Nashville, did her
first modeling work in the 1940s after moving to San Francisco with the
first of her three husbands. After they divorced in 1947, she pursued
modeling in New York. Photos from a shoot with Miami photographer Bunny
Yeager ended up in the pages of Playboy.

The layout featured Page winking at the camera wearing only a Santa hat as
she decorated a Christmas tree. Playboy founder Hugh Hefner described it as
"a milestone in the history of the magazine," which he had founded less
than two years earlier.

Later in life, Page was furious that Yeager made a fortune from the photos
and never compensated her.

Some American lawmakers were not as impressed with her modeling abilities.
Page was served with a subpoena to appear before U.S. Senate investigators
trying to discover a link between juvenile delinquency and pornography.
Page never appeared. Soon after, she completely disappeared from the
scene.

After two other brief marriages failed, Page battled acute schizophrenia
beginning in the early 1970s. Her comeback gathered momentum with the 1991
movie "The Rocketeer," based on a comic book where the hero's girlfriend
was Page. Fan clubs and websites proliferated, and Page made a good living
signing memorabilia at conventions. On the rare occasions that she gave
interviews, she insisted that she not be photographed.

Page had no children. There was no immediate information about funeral
plans."

http://www.reuters.com/article/enter...4BB0XP20081213

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