R.I.P., Bettie Page - Rape Board

Ntense · 12-12-2008, 12:10 PM

as my post at Celboard is about to be buried under the spam,

From www.bettiepage.com

With deep personal sadness I must announce that my dear friend and client Bettie Page passed away at 6:41pm PST this evening in a Los Angeles hospital. She died peacefully but had never regained consciousness after suffering a heart attack nine days ago.

She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality. She is the embodiment of beauty.

Statement by Mark Roesler, business agent for Bettie Page

Bettie or Betty?

While it reportedly says "Betty Mae Page" on her birth certificate, "Bettie" is the form that she has always used since she was a child (such as for signatures), so Bettie is therefore the preferred spelling. However, whether due to oversight or for the sake of simplification, in her 1950's photos and films she was often billed as "Betty Page." So for Bettie or worse, today the two spellings are used more or less interchangeably.

During one of Bettie's photo sessions with Jerry Tibbs, he suggested she cut her hair in bangs because of her high, prominent forehead. She followed his advice, resulting in the famous hairdo she always wore from then on. Bettie was meticulous about her hair for photo shoots -- she curled it at night and then brushed it extensively before sessions, often causing a delay.

Bettie had learned to sew as a youngster, so she actually made her skimpy bikinis and many other costumes herself. She says, "I never kept up with the fashions. I believed in wearing what I thought looked good on me." Some of the lingerie was from Frederick's of Hollywood, and much of the fetish wear (such as extreme high heels, leather, and a metal cone-bra) was provided by the Klaw studios and may have come from the confidential customers who ordered the photos.

In addition to appearing in about 50 "loops" (short films made by the Klaw studios), she danced in three feature-length burlesque films: Striporama (1953), Varietease (1954), and Teaserama (1955). Bettie once did a screen test in Hollywood, but never got a role in "legitimate" movies because she refused the casting couch, rejecting overtures from studio executives and Howard Hughes. In New York, she studied acting under Herbert Berghof and appeared in several off-Broadway plays and a number of TV shows, such as "The U.S. Steel Hour" and "The Jackie Gleason Show."

Bettie Page:
A Short Biography

In an era in which sexual repression was high, Bettie Page pioneered and established the genres of pinup, glamour, and B&D modeling. In a blazing career that lasted less than a decade, it is claimed that she appeared in over 1,000 publications and had been photographed more than Cindy Crawford and Marilyn Monroe, combined.

With larger-than-life looks, jet black hair and bangs, blue-gray eyes, a super thin waste, and a body most women would die for, she hit the photo scene in the 50's like a comet, and became one of the world's most photographed women. At her prime, Bettie was 5' 5-1/2" tall, weighed in at 128 lbs., and measured an captivating 36"-23"-35". Trivia buffs might care to note that she liked to drink Hires Root Beer and also played some piano and guitar.

Born as Betty Page into an struggling family in Jackson, Tennessee, near Nashville, on April 22, 1923, Bettie (as she later preferred it to be spelled) was the second of child in a family of six. Her father often got into trouble and, when Bettie was only 5, got a young girl pregnant and was jailed for stealing a car. When her mother divorced him in 1933, Bettie found herself in a single-mother family in the midst of the depression. Unable to make ends meet, her mother was forced to place three of the children, including Bettie, in an orphanage. After about a year, she rejoined her mother but their living situation remained poor.

Seeing education as a way to a better life, Bettie concentrated on studies and managed to graduate second in her high school class. Missing Valedictorian by only a 1/4 point, she went on to attend George Peabody College on a $100 scholarship and graduated with a BA in 1944. Marrying a boy she met as a student, she moved with him to San Francisco, where he entered the service and was shipped out. In 1945, while still in San Francisco, she met Art Grayson who convinced her to pose for some photos for newspaper ads. Grayson had also forwarded the photos to 20th Century Fox which landed her a screen test. Nothing further came from it when she refused to play the casting couch game with a studio executive. She was offered another test in 1946 but she refused it, which she later regretted, and moved to Nashville with her husband who had returned from the service.

In 1947, seeking a better life, she left her husband and moved to Miami where she was offered a secretarial job for a man in Haiti. It ended a few months later when riots broke out there. With money from a Miami night club job, she moved to New York City to seek an acting career. Having been molested soon after her arrival, she return to Nashville, tried to resurrect her marriage, failed, and decided to return to New York City to try again. She worked on and off as a secretary in New York and unsuccessfully tried to get into summer stock theater in upstate New York.

Around 1950, a photographer, Jerry Tibbs, spotted her in Coney Island. He created a portfolio for her and introduced her to the camera club scene. It was Tibbs who suggested she have bangs to complement her high forehead. At age 73, she still wears them. Although she was paid little or nothing, the resulting photographs were flogged to various magazines. It was then that Robert Harrison, the publisher of many men's magazines, saw her photos and the career that we now know her for had begun. Her first national exposure occurred about 1951 with a cheesecake picture in one of Harrison's many girlie magazines of that time. These magazines were characterized by no nudity, silly burlesque skits, and strippers or models in g-strings and pasties.

In 1952, Bettie met Irving Klaw and his sister, Paula. It was as a model for their prosperous photo business, "Movie Star News", that the bulk of Bettie's countless photos were taken. Their work together lasted from 1952 to 1957.

It was also during this period that Bunny Yeager, an art nude photographer and former model, photographed Bettie for her herself and for Playboy magazine. As a result, Bettie was the centerfold for the January, 1955 issue of Hugh Hefner's fledgling magazine. So popular had she become that even Howard Hughes gave her a private screen test.

Bettie continued to work with both Yeager and the Klaws but it was the latter who shot her the most, producing thousands of images for just about every mens magazine, tabloid, paperback cover, post card, and calendar in existence. More importantly, they also made her queen of a new photo genre -- bondage and discipline.

Posing in nylons, corsets, and bondage gear, as both dominitrix and submissive, she brought B&D imagery out of the closet onto the printed page. At the same time, but in far less volume, Bunny Yeager's work made Bettie the quintessential art nude model, with classic nude, beach bunny, jungle, and amusement park themes.

The meteoric rise of career was quickly dampened around 1955, when Senator Estes Kefauver attacked the businesses of Irving Klaw. If that weren't enough, Robert Kennedy, then as Attorney General, joined the witch-hunt. As a result, Irving was forced to destroy countless negatives. Luckily, Paula Klaw secretly ignored the edicts and kept many of them, preserving for us the higher quality images of Betty that we have today. The images in Bunny Yeager's collection are still intact and available directly from her. Bunny was alive and well in 1997.

As a result of the pornographic witch-hunts of 1955-1957, Bettie was subpoenaed to appear in court but was never called. In fact, Bettie was left to wait outside the courtroom till 1 a.m. before a janitor told her the hearings were over for hours. However, the dangerous attacks were close enough to home to cause Bettie to recede from the limelight. Coupled with an inability to lose her southern drawl, an acting career eluded her. Frustrated over only having been able to make a few tame strip flicks, she retired from the modeling around 1958, less than 10 years after her career began.

Between 1958 and 1978, Bettie moved around a lot, living in Florida and in Chicago for a while. She worked at various jobs and attended a bible studies college. She was a secretary, a 5th grade teacher, and a counselor for young unwed mothers. She married again, to a man in Florida, but it lasted only five years when, after getting someone else pregnant, he asked for, and was given, a divorce.

In 1978, Bettie moved to the Los Angeles area to live with her brother, where she now resides in a senior's home. Despite her self-imposed exile and unbeknownst to her, the popularity of her work began a resurgence when various authors and researchers began to rediscover her work. The bondage work from her so-called "Dark Angel" period was especially appreciated and extolled in a retrospective collection of images in the book, "Private Peeks".

In 1991, USA Today did an article on her rediscovered popularity.

In 1992, after the popular TV show, "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous", located her brother, Bettie was eventually found at the seniors home where she now lives. She likes watching cable TV, reading, and sewing. She has since been interviewed by several magazines and by authors seeking to biograph her life. Some of these interviews were made available on the Internet as streaming audio clips.

In 1997, the Entertainment Channel, "E!", interviewed her, at age 73. In respect for her vow never to be photographed or filmed again, she appeared only in silhouette.

Now, with a life of its own, Bettie's legend continues break new ground. The very speed and depth of the resurgence of her popularity was a milestone that signaled the power and ability of the Internet to communicate information and social interests with record speed. Though a full thirty years since her career started, the strength and swiftness of Bettie's renewed popularity is unprecedented.

Although the uninformed observer, mistakenly judging her work by today's standards, might consider her work to be cheap or tawdry, it must be viewed in terms of the time in which she posed. It was the darkest of periods for sexual expression. The ignorant and oppressive efforts of McCarthy, Kefauver, and Robert Kennedy had set our social development back nearly a century, destroying countless careers in the process. Despite those dangerous conditions, Bettie openly modeled her unique form of spunky sexuality for photo clubs, Robert Harrison, Irving Klaw, Bunny Yeager, and countless amateurs.

She single-handedly advanced and popularized the naughty-but-nice, nylons and whips, beach and art nudes, and the pinup genres of sensual modeling. Her work has been the subject of glamour magazines, men's magazines, playing cards, greeting cards, trading cards, posters, comics, fan magazines, and countless web sites. Her popularity has even spawned modeling impersonators and a country and western song in respect of her being born in Tennessee. It is reported that even fashion designers, of the likes of Versace, Dolce, Gabbana, Oldham, have claimed her to be an inspiration in their work. If that weren't enough, the director of "I Shot Andy Wharhol", Mary Harron, is reportedly working on a Bettie Page biography. The leading actress is supposedly none other than Guinevere Turner, a leading lesbian poster model.

What more can we say other than, "Thank You, Bettie." And, for those who care, it would help Bettie's family to purchase a copy of her book, "Bettie Page: The Life of a Pin-Up Legend", available at most bookstores. That's the only thing she's made any continuing money from.

sindyloo · 12-13-2008, 01:06 PM

Thanks for posting this here as well!

Enjoy your Peace Dear! You earned it!

EvilJ · 12-14-2008, 12:27 PM

I just heard about this today while watching (of all things) "This Week with George Stephanopolous". I don't know if "devastated" is the right word to describe my emotion, but "deep an echoing shock" certainly fits the bill. We all knew Bettie was a ripe old age but she was, at the same time, eternal. Her images liberated not just a generation, but an entire sexual preference. She gave us a voice and an identity.

Let's remember something, people; while gay people may be an unfairly maligned sexual preference, we are the ultimate taboo between consenting adults. Even in this new millenium, almost the only portrayal of bondage in the media is of the creepy kidnapper who abducts and kills his victims until he is ultimately killed himself by the hero who has a monologue about how disgusting he was before doing it. I have never seen a single positive portrayal of a rape fantasist. I've seen mention, but never a portrayal.

Bettie gave us a voice by showing that BDSM was not necessarily disgusting or perverted. It was, in her pictures, sexy and cute and adventurous and adult and playful and liberating and everything else that makes fun. To those of you "anti-BDSM" people: if you think for one moment think that we rape fantasists aren't on the same lineal continuum as BDSM enthusiasts, you are delusional at best. Both groups find release in control and relinquishment of control. We are siblings. And Bettie let the world smile at us. Her impact on the sexual world was a peaceful crater of acceptance. I wish there were ten more of her. The pity is, there isn't even one.

Y'know... maybe "devastated" is the right word.

I'm agnostic, but I find myself hoping there is a heaven right now and Bettie is in there, smiling that toothy glamourous smile and blowing a kiss down on us as she makes the saints doubt their sainthood and inspiring the living to play the song "Pictures of Lilly" by The Who.

I've never been inspired to eulogize a celebrity, but she goes way beyond that to me. If I could be in love with someone I never met, it was her. I hope we never forget what she did for us all.

12-12-2008, 12:10 PM	#1
Ntense Privileged Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: Texass Posts: 688 Reputation: 541	R.I.P., Bettie Page as my post at Celboard is about to be buried under the spam, From www.bettiepage.com With deep personal sadness I must announce that my dear friend and client Bettie Page passed away at 6:41pm PST this evening in a Los Angeles hospital. She died peacefully but had never regained consciousness after suffering a heart attack nine days ago. She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality. She is the embodiment of beauty. Statement by Mark Roesler, business agent for Bettie Page Bettie or Betty? While it reportedly says "Betty Mae Page" on her birth certificate, "Bettie" is the form that she has always used since she was a child (such as for signatures), so Bettie is therefore the preferred spelling. However, whether due to oversight or for the sake of simplification, in her 1950's photos and films she was often billed as "Betty Page." So for Bettie or worse, today the two spellings are used more or less interchangeably. During one of Bettie's photo sessions with Jerry Tibbs, he suggested she cut her hair in bangs because of her high, prominent forehead. She followed his advice, resulting in the famous hairdo she always wore from then on. Bettie was meticulous about her hair for photo shoots -- she curled it at night and then brushed it extensively before sessions, often causing a delay. Bettie had learned to sew as a youngster, so she actually made her skimpy bikinis and many other costumes herself. She says, "I never kept up with the fashions. I believed in wearing what I thought looked good on me." Some of the lingerie was from Frederick's of Hollywood, and much of the fetish wear (such as extreme high heels, leather, and a metal cone-bra) was provided by the Klaw studios and may have come from the confidential customers who ordered the photos. In addition to appearing in about 50 "loops" (short films made by the Klaw studios), she danced in three feature-length burlesque films: Striporama (1953), Varietease (1954), and Teaserama (1955). Bettie once did a screen test in Hollywood, but never got a role in "legitimate" movies because she refused the casting couch, rejecting overtures from studio executives and Howard Hughes. In New York, she studied acting under Herbert Berghof and appeared in several off-Broadway plays and a number of TV shows, such as "The U.S. Steel Hour" and "The Jackie Gleason Show." Bettie Page: A Short Biography In an era in which sexual repression was high, Bettie Page pioneered and established the genres of pinup, glamour, and B&D modeling. In a blazing career that lasted less than a decade, it is claimed that she appeared in over 1,000 publications and had been photographed more than Cindy Crawford and Marilyn Monroe, combined. With larger-than-life looks, jet black hair and bangs, blue-gray eyes, a super thin waste, and a body most women would die for, she hit the photo scene in the 50's like a comet, and became one of the world's most photographed women. At her prime, Bettie was 5' 5-1/2" tall, weighed in at 128 lbs., and measured an captivating 36"-23"-35". Trivia buffs might care to note that she liked to drink Hires Root Beer and also played some piano and guitar. Born as Betty Page into an struggling family in Jackson, Tennessee, near Nashville, on April 22, 1923, Bettie (as she later preferred it to be spelled) was the second of child in a family of six. Her father often got into trouble and, when Bettie was only 5, got a young girl pregnant and was jailed for stealing a car. When her mother divorced him in 1933, Bettie found herself in a single-mother family in the midst of the depression. Unable to make ends meet, her mother was forced to place three of the children, including Bettie, in an orphanage. After about a year, she rejoined her mother but their living situation remained poor. Seeing education as a way to a better life, Bettie concentrated on studies and managed to graduate second in her high school class. Missing Valedictorian by only a 1/4 point, she went on to attend George Peabody College on a $100 scholarship and graduated with a BA in 1944. Marrying a boy she met as a student, she moved with him to San Francisco, where he entered the service and was shipped out. In 1945, while still in San Francisco, she met Art Grayson who convinced her to pose for some photos for newspaper ads. Grayson had also forwarded the photos to 20th Century Fox which landed her a screen test. Nothing further came from it when she refused to play the casting couch game with a studio executive. She was offered another test in 1946 but she refused it, which she later regretted, and moved to Nashville with her husband who had returned from the service. In 1947, seeking a better life, she left her husband and moved to Miami where she was offered a secretarial job for a man in Haiti. It ended a few months later when riots broke out there. With money from a Miami night club job, she moved to New York City to seek an acting career. Having been molested soon after her arrival, she return to Nashville, tried to resurrect her marriage, failed, and decided to return to New York City to try again. She worked on and off as a secretary in New York and unsuccessfully tried to get into summer stock theater in upstate New York. Around 1950, a photographer, Jerry Tibbs, spotted her in Coney Island. He created a portfolio for her and introduced her to the camera club scene. It was Tibbs who suggested she have bangs to complement her high forehead. At age 73, she still wears them. Although she was paid little or nothing, the resulting photographs were flogged to various magazines. It was then that Robert Harrison, the publisher of many men's magazines, saw her photos and the career that we now know her for had begun. Her first national exposure occurred about 1951 with a cheesecake picture in one of Harrison's many girlie magazines of that time. These magazines were characterized by no nudity, silly burlesque skits, and strippers or models in g-strings and pasties. In 1952, Bettie met Irving Klaw and his sister, Paula. It was as a model for their prosperous photo business, "Movie Star News", that the bulk of Bettie's countless photos were taken. Their work together lasted from 1952 to 1957. It was also during this period that Bunny Yeager, an art nude photographer and former model, photographed Bettie for her herself and for Playboy magazine. As a result, Bettie was the centerfold for the January, 1955 issue of Hugh Hefner's fledgling magazine. So popular had she become that even Howard Hughes gave her a private screen test. Bettie continued to work with both Yeager and the Klaws but it was the latter who shot her the most, producing thousands of images for just about every mens magazine, tabloid, paperback cover, post card, and calendar in existence. More importantly, they also made her queen of a new photo genre -- bondage and discipline. Posing in nylons, corsets, and bondage gear, as both dominitrix and submissive, she brought B&D imagery out of the closet onto the printed page. At the same time, but in far less volume, Bunny Yeager's work made Bettie the quintessential art nude model, with classic nude, beach bunny, jungle, and amusement park themes. The meteoric rise of career was quickly dampened around 1955, when Senator Estes Kefauver attacked the businesses of Irving Klaw. If that weren't enough, Robert Kennedy, then as Attorney General, joined the witch-hunt. As a result, Irving was forced to destroy countless negatives. Luckily, Paula Klaw secretly ignored the edicts and kept many of them, preserving for us the higher quality images of Betty that we have today. The images in Bunny Yeager's collection are still intact and available directly from her. Bunny was alive and well in 1997. As a result of the pornographic witch-hunts of 1955-1957, Bettie was subpoenaed to appear in court but was never called. In fact, Bettie was left to wait outside the courtroom till 1 a.m. before a janitor told her the hearings were over for hours. However, the dangerous attacks were close enough to home to cause Bettie to recede from the limelight. Coupled with an inability to lose her southern drawl, an acting career eluded her. Frustrated over only having been able to make a few tame strip flicks, she retired from the modeling around 1958, less than 10 years after her career began. Between 1958 and 1978, Bettie moved around a lot, living in Florida and in Chicago for a while. She worked at various jobs and attended a bible studies college. She was a secretary, a 5th grade teacher, and a counselor for young unwed mothers. She married again, to a man in Florida, but it lasted only five years when, after getting someone else pregnant, he asked for, and was given, a divorce. In 1978, Bettie moved to the Los Angeles area to live with her brother, where she now resides in a senior's home. Despite her self-imposed exile and unbeknownst to her, the popularity of her work began a resurgence when various authors and researchers began to rediscover her work. The bondage work from her so-called "Dark Angel" period was especially appreciated and extolled in a retrospective collection of images in the book, "Private Peeks". In 1991, USA Today did an article on her rediscovered popularity. In 1992, after the popular TV show, "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous", located her brother, Bettie was eventually found at the seniors home where she now lives. She likes watching cable TV, reading, and sewing. She has since been interviewed by several magazines and by authors seeking to biograph her life. Some of these interviews were made available on the Internet as streaming audio clips. In 1997, the Entertainment Channel, "E!", interviewed her, at age 73. In respect for her vow never to be photographed or filmed again, she appeared only in silhouette. Now, with a life of its own, Bettie's legend continues break new ground. The very speed and depth of the resurgence of her popularity was a milestone that signaled the power and ability of the Internet to communicate information and social interests with record speed. Though a full thirty years since her career started, the strength and swiftness of Bettie's renewed popularity is unprecedented. Although the uninformed observer, mistakenly judging her work by today's standards, might consider her work to be cheap or tawdry, it must be viewed in terms of the time in which she posed. It was the darkest of periods for sexual expression. The ignorant and oppressive efforts of McCarthy, Kefauver, and Robert Kennedy had set our social development back nearly a century, destroying countless careers in the process. Despite those dangerous conditions, Bettie openly modeled her unique form of spunky sexuality for photo clubs, Robert Harrison, Irving Klaw, Bunny Yeager, and countless amateurs. She single-handedly advanced and popularized the naughty-but-nice, nylons and whips, beach and art nudes, and the pinup genres of sensual modeling. Her work has been the subject of glamour magazines, men's magazines, playing cards, greeting cards, trading cards, posters, comics, fan magazines, and countless web sites. Her popularity has even spawned modeling impersonators and a country and western song in respect of her being born in Tennessee. It is reported that even fashion designers, of the likes of Versace, Dolce, Gabbana, Oldham, have claimed her to be an inspiration in their work. If that weren't enough, the director of "I Shot Andy Wharhol", Mary Harron, is reportedly working on a Bettie Page biography. The leading actress is supposedly none other than Guinevere Turner, a leading lesbian poster model. What more can we say other than, "Thank You, Bettie." And, for those who care, it would help Bettie's family to purchase a copy of her book, "Bettie Page: The Life of a Pin-Up Legend", available at most bookstores. That's the only thing she's made any continuing money from. __________________ Character is what you are in the dark... John Whorfin

12-13-2008, 01:06 PM	#2
sindyloo Privileged Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 2,178 Reputation: 34844	Thanks for posting this here as well! Enjoy your Peace Dear! You earned it! Last edited by sindyloo; 11-04-2009 at 04:18 PM.

12-14-2008, 12:27 PM	#3
EvilJ Privileged Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: The land of La-LA Posts: 300 Reputation: 11490	I just heard about this today while watching (of all things) "This Week with George Stephanopolous". I don't know if "devastated" is the right word to describe my emotion, but "deep an echoing shock" certainly fits the bill. We all knew Bettie was a ripe old age but she was, at the same time, eternal. Her images liberated not just a generation, but an entire sexual preference. She gave us a voice and an identity. Let's remember something, people; while gay people may be an unfairly maligned sexual preference, we are the ultimate taboo between consenting adults. Even in this new millenium, almost the only portrayal of bondage in the media is of the creepy kidnapper who abducts and kills his victims until he is ultimately killed himself by the hero who has a monologue about how disgusting he was before doing it. I have never seen a single positive portrayal of a rape fantasist. I've seen mention, but never a portrayal. Bettie gave us a voice by showing that BDSM was not necessarily disgusting or perverted. It was, in her pictures, sexy and cute and adventurous and adult and playful and liberating and everything else that makes fun. To those of you "anti-BDSM" people: if you think for one moment think that we rape fantasists aren't on the same lineal continuum as BDSM enthusiasts, you are delusional at best. Both groups find release in control and relinquishment of control. We are siblings. And Bettie let the world smile at us. Her impact on the sexual world was a peaceful crater of acceptance. I wish there were ten more of her. The pity is, there isn't even one. Y'know... maybe "devastated" is the right word. I'm agnostic, but I find myself hoping there is a heaven right now and Bettie is in there, smiling that toothy glamourous smile and blowing a kiss down on us as she makes the saints doubt their sainthood and inspiring the living to play the song "Pictures of Lilly" by The Who. I've never been inspired to eulogize a celebrity, but she goes way beyond that to me. If I could be in love with someone I never met, it was her. I hope we never forget what she did for us all.