Members mystofpric Posted December 12, 2008 Members Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 Pinup Queen Bettie Page Dead at 85Los Angeles (E! Online) – 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 Hefner picked her to be Playboy's Playmate of the Month in January 1955.In an interview a couple 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 yearsBut 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." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sun_flower969 Posted December 12, 2008 Members Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 Nice Suzy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ladylove Posted December 12, 2008 Members Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 Very nice.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mystofpric Posted December 12, 2008 Author Members Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 Oh guys, i hope you odn't think i wrote that! i just suppliedf the pictures. Bettie Page was my "sex" hero. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sun_flower969 Posted December 12, 2008 Members Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 Oh guys, i hope you odn't think i wrote that! i just suppliedf the pictures. Bettie Page was my "sex" hero. No no I just meant nice tribute... I dig her too! but as you probably know I am a Marilyn fan myself! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mystofpric Posted December 12, 2008 Author Members Report Share Posted December 12, 2008 No no I just meant nice tribute... I dig her too! but as you probably know I am a Marilyn fan myself!HAHAduh, i should have known that. Bettie is my Marilyn. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ToyQueen Posted December 13, 2008 Members Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 My dad had a pin up of her in his shed--supposedly hidden from our young eyes... She was beautiful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members jesso Posted December 13, 2008 Members Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 Suz thanks for posting this. You beat me to the punch! Bettie Page was an amazing icon for Boudoir Photography. I'm glad she got some recognition on here, even for a couple days! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mystofpric Posted December 13, 2008 Author Members Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 Suz thanks for posting this. You beat me to the punch! Bettie Page was an amazing icon for Boudoir Photography. I'm glad she got some recognition on here, even for a couple days!She was an amazing icon for women! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ladylove Posted December 13, 2008 Members Report Share Posted December 13, 2008 Did you know Howard Hughes wanted to marry her. I heard it on a newsy channel this am in my car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members FOS Posted December 16, 2008 Members Report Share Posted December 16, 2008 She was beautiful.Yeah, she really was. I didn't know that she was actually photographed in bondage on a pretty reguular basis. The lingerie pics alone are dy-no-mite, but...in bondage? Heh heh...quite a shake-up, in the squeaky-clean (and yet also fear-mongering) 1950s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mystofpric Posted December 16, 2008 Author Members Report Share Posted December 16, 2008 Yeah, she really was. I didn't know that she was actually photographed in bondage on a pretty reguular basis. The lingerie pics alone are dy-no-mite, but...in bondage? Heh heh...quite a shake-up, in the squeaky-clean (and yet also fear-mongering) 1950s.Yup she truly lead the way! Unfortunately most of teh negitives of her photos were distroyed when congress launched an investigation into the "morality" of porn, she was never called to testify but she stopped taking photos after that and dropped off the map. She wasn't heard from again until the 90s when the younger generations re-discovered her. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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