Vale! "The Dark Angel"

 

R.I.P BETTY MAE PAGE (aka BETTIE PAGE)
April 22, 1923 - December 11, 2008

What can you say about a 'timeless' icon of the pinup, rockabilly, fetish & gothic communities, who had a profound impact on your life? That she was the face which launched a thousand black-haired, banged, imitators, and innocently sent people into paroxysms of fetish and pinup worship for over six decades. I discovered Bettie Page in an old Playboy magazine at a somewhat young age (well, young enough to be mesmerised by her looks and her innocent-yet-knowing image. From there I managed to stumble into her image (or her likeness) in so many places. To this day I have images of Bettie on my wall, on shot-glasses, in pin-up books, and even imitated by girl-friends. 

Born Betty Mae Page on April 22, 1923, in Nashville, Tennessee. She was the oldest girl of Roy and Edna Page's six children. Coming from a troubled home, in a time of economic depression, and her parents troubled marriage which ended in 1933, Betty literally raised herself and her siblings. Her mother, adverse to the thought of daughters provided little in the way of a family environment, in fact leaving Betty and her sister in an orphanage for 2 years. Despite these trials, Betty was a brilliant scholar (with a view to becoming a teacher) and graduated near the top of her classes, going on the graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree, from Peabody University, in 1944. 

After a failed marriage to Bill Neal, Betty moved around for a few years, working in jobs such as secretary, until meeting amateur photographer Jerry Tibbs in New York. Tibbs introduced Betty to the underground world of Camera Clubs (whose existance was widely known to be the legal loophole for the production or erotic photographs) where she changed the spelling of her first name to Bettie. Through these clubs, Bettie's image was circulated and appeared in many Men's Magazines of the time. It was then that Bettie met Irving Klaw, widely recorgnised as one fo the single biggest producers of mail-order Bondage and Fetish Photographs in the US at the time. Bettie's image was now sealed forever as being the world's first famous bondage model. Her fame (some would say notoriety) skyrocketed, yet Bettie wanted to do more than just pose for risque shots (although she would not stop for some time as she saw nothing wrong with the content of the shots at all). Bettie studied acting at the Herbert-Burgoff Studioos, appeared on TV programs such as 'The Jackie Geason Show', and made a few smaller risque films with other pin-up legends such as Lily St Cyr and Tempest Storm, such as Tease-erama. On one of Bettie's many modelling tours, being now the nighest paid model in New York State, she hooked up with the second most profound influence on her professional life, photographer Bunny Yeager who, after shooting the now famous 'Jungle Bettie' set in Florida, sent photos to Hugh Hefner of Playboy magazine. Betty became Playmate of the month in January in 1955, and awarded "Pin-Up Girl of The World" later that year. 

Her career continued to skyrocket until the now infamous 'Kefauver Hearings of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency', commissioned after a young man was found to have died during an erotic session surrounded by images of a bound Bettie Page. It is widely accepted that the stress and severity of these hearings, coupled with her name now being besmirched by the Government, helped to drive Betty into a fundamental Christian community, where she 'found' salvation, and shielding from the press and her old life, which she severed all ties to. For a number of years Betty dropped out of the public eye, and indeed the public interest until in the late 1970's interest was kindled again by several publishers who started using her likenss (gleaned from copies of the once-banned Irving Klaw photos, and other photographers' associated works). The list is long but works such as 'The Betty Pages', 'Tor Love Betty', 'The Rocketeer', 'Bettie Page Queen Of The Pin-ups' all utilised her images and likenesses from photos which (ironically) were now in the public domain, and hence were not subject to copyright or roaylty payments. In the 1990's, and living in a share-house, Betty became aware of the resurgence of interest in her image, granting non-filmed interviews with hosts such as Robin Leach from 'Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous', E! Television, and NBC's 'Real Life'. Thanks to this wave of publicity, and some new biographies being published of her life, her financial future was finally assured after securing the services of the same agency which represented the images of both James Dean and Elvis Presley. A financial firm was engaged to recoup as much of her lost earnings as possible. She could now live off her well-deserved fame.

In a late-1990s interview, Page stated she would not allow any current pictures of her to be shown because of concerns about her weight. In 2003, however, she changed her mind and allowed a publicity picture to be taken of her, for the August 2003 edition of Playboy. In 2006, the Los Angeles Times ran an article headlined A Golden Age for a Pinup, covering an autographing session at her current publicity company, CMG Worldwide. Once again, she declined to be photographed, saying that she would rather be remembered as she was.

The subject, now of many films and so-called bio-pics, the most recent being 'The Notorious Bettie Page' in 2005, yet one more is due for release in 2009, directed by Academy Award winner Mark Mori, and made with Bettie's close assistance, the project taking approximately 10 years to complete.

On December 11th 2008, after 9 days in hospital due to a reported case of pneumonia followed by a major heart-attack, Bettie Page passed away at Kindred Hospital in Los Angeles, where she had been on life support since suffering her attack. She leaves behind two ex-husbands, no children, and yet a profound and lasting impact on popular-culture, having forever changed the face of modelling, and countless performers. She will always remain the vibrant Bettie Page of memory, of glamour and fetish modelling, forever in her 20's. An icon of the 20th Century. She was 85.