Bettie Page

Bettie Page

Bettie Mae Page (born April 22, 1923 in Nashville , Tennessee , † December 11, 2008 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American fetish and nude model . She was best known for pin-up pictures in the 1950s, largely forgotten in the 1960s, and has been revered as a pin-up icon and sex symbol by various subcultures since the 1980s . She is considered one of the most photographed women of the 1950s, the first known bondage and fetish model, and a pioneer of the so-called sexual revolution . She was the inspiration for cartoon characters , films, and the development of New Burlesque .

biography

Childhood and youth

Bettie Page was born into a poor family as the second of six children to Walter Roy Page (1896–1964) and Edna Mae Pirtles (1901–1986). In their childhood, the family traveled across the country in search of work and economic stability. Bettie, who was sexually abused by her father , had to look after her younger siblings from an early age. Her parents divorced when Bettie was ten years old, and her mother sent Bettie to an orphanage for a year out of financial hardship .

As teenagers, Bettie and her sisters designed hairstyles, imitating their idols' makeup styles, and Page also learned to sew during this time. Both of these later proved useful in her career as she designed her own makeup, hairstyles, bikinis, and costumes. She was a very good student at Hume-Fogg High School and a member of the Debating Club, where she was judged to be "most likely successful".

She graduated from high school junior high in her class on June 6, 1940, and enrolled at George Peabody College with the aim of becoming a teacher. The following autumn she changed her subject; she was now studying acting in the hope of being discovered as a movie star. At the same time, she took her first job, doing paperwork for the author Alfred Leland Crabb. In 1944 she graduated from college with a Bachelor of Arts .

In 1943, Page married her former schoolmate Billy Neal shortly before he was called up for active service in World War II . In the following years, Page moved from San Francisco to Nashville, from there to Miami and then to Port-au-Prince in Haiti . After returning to the United States in 1947, she filed for divorce from Neal.

Career as a photo model

The camera clubs

After that she worked occasionally in San Francisco and Haiti. Looking for a job as an actress, she eventually moved to New York , where she initially kept her head above water with odd jobs as a secretary. In 1950, while strolling on the beach at Coney Island, Page met the police officer Jerry Tibbs, who was interested in photography. Page was ready to model for him. Her first pin-up portfolio emerged from the photographs taken by Tibbs.

In the late 1940s, men came together in so-called camera clubs , the purpose of which was to circumvent the existing restrictive legal provisions on the production of nude recordings . The clubs supposedly served the production of artistically valuable photographs; However, they were only a facade for the production of erotic and sometimes also pornographic recordings. When Page began working with photographer Cass Carr in glamor photography, she was already a well-known model in the camera club scene. Her uninhibited way of posing in front of the camera made her popular and her face quickly became known in the adult industry. In 1951 her pictures appeared in men's magazines with names like Eyeful , Wink , Titter , Black Nylons or Beauty Parade .

Collaboration with Irving Klaw

At that time she occasionally modeled for the photographer Irving Klaw , who sold photographs with bondage and sadomasochistic motifs by mail. Klaw suggested the bangs hairstyle to Page , which became her trademark and made reminiscences of Page easily recognizable in the decades to come. She became the first known bondage and fetish model through Klaw as Bettie Page - The Dark Angel . Klaw covered a gap with the Dominatrix pictures of the page with a whip, because such pictures were not available in the publicly available men's magazines of the Eisenhower era. Contrary to Klaw's claims, which were mostly for marketing purposes, Page himself was not interested in bondage or BDSM . The scenes that she portrayed as femdom with her sister, as well as the photographs of submissive or tied Damsel in distress (“Edelfräulein in need”) were set.

When the artists such as John Willie and Gene Bilbrew, who were driven out by Klaw, no longer just produced individual pictures, but produced entire series that could be viewed like picture stories, the step towards film production with Page was an obvious further development for Klaw. With her and other well-known stars from the pin-up and burlesque scene, such as Lili St. Cyr and Tempest Storm , Klaw produced the three underground films Striporama (1953), Varietease (1954) and Teaserama (1955). These three films were of particular importance for the spread of striptease in the prudish USA of the post-war period, as they reached and influenced far more people than the burlesque numbers that were common up until then in nightclubs or vaudeville houses. Bettie Page became an icon of catfight by working with Klaw . She worked on around 50 films for women wrestling, and there were hundreds of photos with wrestling poses.

Off-Broadway

While working with Herbert Berghoff in 1953, Page got a number of theater roles in New York's off-Broadway productions, such as Time is a Thief and Sunday Costs Five Pesos , and she made a few television appearances, including an appearance on the then popular Jackie Gleason Show . Although she was invited to several auditions at film companies in Hollywood , she failed because of her very strong southern dialect , which she was never able to take off despite intensive language training. In acting, she was unable to gain a foothold on stage or on the screen, her focus remained pin-up photography.

Collaboration with Bunny Yeager

In 1954, during one of her annual trips to Miami, she met photographers Jan Caldwell, HW Hannau and Bunny Yeager . As one of the most famous pin-ups in New York, she was booked by Yeager, former model and then aspiring photographer, for photo shoots in the now closed Africa USA Park in Boca Raton . The result was the Jungle Queen series with the most acclaimed photographs of her career, including the very popular nudes of Page with a pair of cheetahs. Page had designed the costumes with the classic leopard print himself.

As Yeager in 1955 some of the photos to the founder of Playboy , Hugh Hefner sent, this Page presented as Playmate before January of the month. In the same year she also won the title "Miss Pinup Girl of the World". While the careers of many pin-up girls were often limited to just a few months, Page was in demand as a model for years until 1957. Although she often posed naked, she never officially appeared in porn-related scenes.

Withdrawal from the public

At the height of her career, she withdrew from the public in 1957. There were about 20,000 pictures of her at the time, and she had appeared on more covers and magazines than Marilyn Monroe and Joan Crawford combined. Various reasons were given for their withdrawal. In one of her interviews between 1996 and 1999, she herself stated that she was too old.

After their retreat, Page turned to the evangelical revival movement . During one of her regular visits to Key West , she attended a service on New Year's Eve for the congregation that is now the Key West Temple Baptist Church . She found the ethnically mixed atmosphere very attractive and now regularly attended church services. After this conversion , she severed all ties with her previous life.

The years after the withdrawal

In the following years she attended various secondary Bible schools , including the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, the Multnomah School of the Bible, and a non-denominational congregation in Boca Raton, known as Bibletown . In the 1960s she wanted to go to Africa as a Christian missionary ; however, since she was divorced, this was refused. Before she settled in Nashville again in 1963, she worked for various Christian organizations. To gain access to missionary work, she married her divorced husband Billy Neal a second time, but the marriage was soon divorced. In addition to another failed marriage to Armond Walterson in the 1960s and her work in a Christian organization, there was no other public information about Page until the 1980s.

She returned to her beloved Florida in 1967 and married Harry Lear there. The marriage ended in divorce in 1972. Page left Florida in the late 1970s to live in Los Angeles with her brother. She lived there very secluded and was not aware of the cult that had developed around her in the 1980s. The resurgent popularity led to research into what had happened to Page after the 1950s. In the 1990 edition of the well-known Book of Lists , Page was listed as a former celebrity who had completely disappeared from the public eye.

In 1993, Page had a telephone interview with Robin Leach of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous , in which she told him that she was unaware of her popularity, that she was "poor and not famous." In another interview in the late 1990s she made it clear that she did not allow any recent recordings of herself to be published. Only in 1998 did she briefly change her mind and allow Playboy to print a photo in the August issue of the magazine. After that, she refused, for example, the Los Angeles Times for an article entitled A Golden Age for a Pinup ("A golden era for a pin-up girl") to allow the publication of current pictures again. She said she wanted people to remember her for who she was.

Page signed a contract with Chicago agent James Swanson. Having received almost penniless and without any license fees or royalties for her work, she fired Swanson after three years and moved to the Curtis Management Group, which also represented the rights of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe . Through this contract and the exploitation of her rights, she was now able to secure her financial independence.

The open question of her whereabouts in the years after her career was partially resolved in 1996 with the publication of the official biography Bettie Page: The Life of a Pin-up Legend . She describes Page as a straightforward person who faced opposition with his head held high and always looked forward and never back.

In 1996, Page allowed reporter Tim Estiloz an exclusive interview for NBC Real Life's short-lived morning show in connection with her own involvement in the publication of her biography. The interview aired showed photos from her private collection, while her voice could be heard talking about her career and telling anecdotes from her private life. At her request, her face was not shown during the interview. The interview was only broadcast once on public television, but is available on the Internet under the title REAL Bettie Page TV Interview - Her Life In Her OWN Words .

Grave of Bettie Page in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery

Another biography, The Real Bettie Page: The Truth about the Queen of Pinups , published by Richard Foster in 1997, tells a different, less fortunate story about her life after retreating from the public. Foster's book met with fierce opposition from Page fans, including Hugh Hefner and Harlan Ellison . Page made a statement that Foster's biography was "full of lies." The criticism was rooted in Foster's release of a police report from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's office that Page was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia . On the afternoon of April 19, 1979, she stabbed her landlord during a paranoid attack.

Page still shied away from the public and lived secluded and secluded in an unknown location in California. In mid-November 2008 she was hospitalized with lung problems. In early December 2008, she fell into a coma after having a heart attack. She died on December 11, 2008 in Los Angeles at the age of 85 after being unconscious for a week. She was buried in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery .

The rediscovery of the sex symbol

In 1976, Eros Publishing released A Nostalgic Look at Bettie Page , a look back at her 1950s photos. Between 1978 and 1980 the Belier Press publisher published four volumes of a photo collection entitled Betty Page: Private Peeks , most of which came from the private camera club photo sessions and introduced the Page to a new, but still small, following. In 1983, London Enterprises reprinted her recordings from the camera club scene, In Praise of Bettie Page - A Nostalgic Collector's Item .

In the early 1980s, Page became the model for the lover of the comic hero Cliff Secord in the series by the cartoonist Dave Stevens, which was later filmed as Rocketeer . In 1987 Greg Theakston started a fanzine called The Betty Pages , in which mostly anecdotes from her life, especially from the camera clubs , were told. For the next seven years, the paper aroused worldwide interest in Page. Her style, but above all her hairstyle, has been copied many times by women. After the media became aware of the enthusiasm for Page, a number of articles appeared about her. When almost all of her photographs were in the public domain, they were used to enhance the value of other products and monetized in the rising popularity surge.

In the mid-1990s, Page was portrayed on a television show by Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous , as well as by Entertainment Tonight . The editor of The Betty Pages , Greg Theakston, interviewed her for The Betty Page Annuals V.2 . In 1994, an illustrated book, authorized by Yeager, was published with a short version of the biography and around 100 photos by Page, and the illustrator Jim Silke reworked her photographs in 1995 in a large-format illustrated book. Dark Horse Comics then produced a comic series that portrayed Page's fictional, sometimes erotic, adventures. Eros Comics also published several editions with Bettie Page, the most famous edition being the ironic tale Tor Loves Bettie , which made her an affair with the part-time wrestler and actor Tor Johnson , who mainly worked for Ed Wood .

Tattoo inspired by Bettie Page

The appearance of the two biographies in 1996 and 1997, the interviews that followed, and the participation of Hefner and other celebrities in the discussion about their mental health increased public interest in Page. Also in 1997, E! : Entertainment Television's E! True Hollywood Story featured a portrait of Page titled Bettie Page: From Pinup to Sex Queen . In addition, several short films in which she appeared have been released on DVD, such as Bettie Page: Varietease / Teaserama , and a round-up of five of her short films, Betty Page in Bondage .

2003 published on the occasion of her 80th birthday, a number of articles in newspapers and magazines that reminded Page and illuminated their meaning for today's pop culture and sexual liberation, which the public interest even outside of them worshiping subcultures like the Rockabillys , the Emo scene and many fetishists were directed to the former model and sex symbol . In 2004 the biographical film Bettie Page: Dark Angel by Nico B. was released with the fetish model Paige Richards as Bettie Page. The film describes the last three years of her career in New York. With The Notorious Bettie Page , Mary Harron made a biographical film about Page in 2005, which tells her career from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s. The actress Gretchen Mol took on the role of the adult Bettie Page. In 2007, the guitar maker Halo Custom Guitars, Inc. and Page produced a limited series of 100 pieces. The guitars were handcrafted by Waylon Ford, painted by the artist Pamelin H. and signed by Bettie Page.

reception

Influence on the sexual revolution

Page became a public figure in the post-war years in the USA, which were characterized by restrictive moral ideas , among other things because of her informality in front of the camera and her uncomplicated handling of nudity . She appeared on television in a way that no other pin-up girl had done before and was hailed in the media as the queen of pin-up . The previously only tolerated pin-ups, whose importance had increased during the war years and the stationing of young men overseas, moved more into the public eye, and Page, who was predominantly known as the All-American girl ("the girl next door" ) was perceived by the public in the foreground. She thus became the prototype of a sexually permissive and yet innocent woman who paved the way for other women with strong sex appeal , such as Marilyn Monroe , to gain social recognition. Page, who perceived her influence on sexual liberation completely differently, said in an interview: “They say I'm a sex icon and the sexual revolution started with me, but I only posed naked. In any case, my sexual activity has never been less than during my seven years in New York. "

The photographs of her, especially the fetish and bondage recordings, which seem rather chaste from today's point of view, triggered a committee of inquiry in the Eisenhower era that dealt with what was then considered pornographic works and their pernicious influence on young people. Through this investigation, her nudes and her various fetishistic role models such as the jungle queen, maid , dominatrix or nurse came to the fore, but this did not change the positive perception in public opinion.

Cultural influences

The influence of her erotic style has become visible in many genres and subcultures, for example in the various comic characters, as well as in the rockabilly , psychobilly , gothic , punk or BDSM scene. In addition to cigarette advertisements and merchandising articles, some films refer to Page with scenes, texts or costumes, including Pulp Fiction , House of 1000 Corpses and The Crying Game .

Page has often been used as a motif in illustrations and comics since the 1970s , for example in the Jungle Betty series by Dave Stevens, the Clara Noche series by Trillo Maicas & Bernet or the character Poison Ivy , later filmed in Batman & Robin , by the author Robert Kanigher and the artist Sheldon Moldoff was created. Hundreds of copies of the photos and computer-aided post-processing by their admirers exist, some of the typical poses of pin-up photography by Page were used as tattoos , street art or as imprints on merchandising products. The reminiscences of Page are mainly the Bettie Bangs , her unmistakable hairstyle, common, while the poses and facial expressions often differ. Last but not least, the cult figure Emily Strange is modeled after her, as is the work of various artists, for example the pin-up artist Olivia de Berardinis and various fetish artists and photographers.

The New Burlesque artist Dita Von Teese was also inspired by Bettie Page

Numerous musicians have sung about Bettie Page, including Paul Spencer, who sang a tribute to her photographs on the album The Whole Shebang entitled "Bettie Page" , and the metal band Bile , on their album Sex Reflex (2000) in the song "Bettie Page “The glossy black hair of Pages is thought of. In addition, the Royal Crown Revue ( The Contender , 1998) with the track "Port-Au-Prince (Travels with Bettie Page)" referred to her life in Haiti. The Creepshow mentioned the sex symbol on the album Sell ​​Your Soul in 2006 with the line “She's a horrorbilly Bettie Page in the flesh” from “Psycho Ball And Chain”. The doctors dedicated the line of text "Please be my Bettie or Gwendoline" to Bettie Page in the song Mondo Bondage .

In addition to the homage in music texts, a number of compilations were put together, the selection of which fits the movements of burlesque or refers to the music of the 1950s. Examples are Betty Page: Danger Girl Burlesque Music or Back to the 50's: A Betty Page Tribute , both published in 1997.

Madonna in particular took up the suggestions of Page photographs in the 1950s again and again, for example the pointed metal brassiere or playing with fetish props, and both use these opportunities to shake bourgeois morality and gain popularity. Just like Page in the 1950s, Madonna gained not only male fans, but female fans as well. Page also repeatedly inspired fashion designers, for example Jean Paul Gaultier , and was one of the sources of inspiration for the rockabilly style.

Page's work was of great importance for the development of burlesque through striptease to New Burlesque . Her poses and her erotic-naive style as well as her appearance are copied by numerous pin-up models and new burlesque dancers, including Dita Von Teese , Immodesty Blaize and the modern pin-up models Suicide Girls . With page photographs and films, fetish and glamor have found a permanent place in the development of burlesque as stylistic devices. In this context, Dita Von Teese described Page "as the wind under her tassels."

Movies

In addition to a number of smaller productions from the early 1950s, films with and about the life of the well-known model as well as some new editions of her films, still in black and white, were made on DVD in the late 1990s.

Films with Bettie Page (some archive material)

• 1950: Teaser girl in high heels
• 1953: Striporama
• 1954: Varietease
• 1955: Teaserama
• 1998: Betty Page: Pin Up Queen
• 1998: Betty Page: Bondage Queen
• 1999: Playboy: Playmate Pajama Party
• 2001: Dance of Passion
• 2004: Playboy: 50 Years of Playmates
• 2003: Playboy's 50th Anniversary Celebration
• 2004: Striptease: The Greatest Exotic Dancers of All Time
• 2016: The Exotic Dances of Bettie Page (Amazon)

Films about Bettie Page

• 1998: E! True Hollywood Story
• 2004: Taboo: The Beginning of Erotic Cinema
• 2004: Bettie Page: The Girl in the Leopard Print Bikini
• 2004: Bettie Page: Dark Angel
• 2005: The Notorious Bettie Page
• 2012: Bettie Page Reveals All: the Authorized Biography
• 2013: Bettie Page - Godmother of Striptease. Documentary by Mark Mori, 2013, 58 min.

literature

• Charles G. Martignette, Louis K. Meisel: The Great American Pin-Up . Taschen, Cologne / London / Madrid / New York, NY / Paris / Tokyo 2002, ISBN 3-8228-1701-5 ( German , English , French ).
• Karen Essex, James L. Swanson: Bettie Page: The Life of a Pin-Up Legend . General Publishing Group, 1996, ISBN 1-881649-62-8 .
• Richard Foster: The Real Bettie Page: The Truth About the Queen of the Pinups . Carol Publishing Group / Birch Lane Press, 1997, ISBN 1-55972-432-3 .
• Olivia de Berardinis: Bettie Page by Olivia . Ozone Productions, 2006, ISBN 978-0-929643-25-0 .

Web links

Commons : Bettie Page  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Bettie Page in the catalog of the German National Library
• Bettie Page in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Bettie Page in nndb (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Playboy, January 1998: Kevin Cook's interview with Bettie Page My Story: The Missing Years ( Memento from November 11, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) in the Internet archive, original page no longer available online.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Official website of Bettie Page: Biography ( memento of February 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ), last accessed on December 17, 2011.
3. ↑ Various cover photos with Betty Page ( Memento from April 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), last accessed on May 13, 2008.
4. ↑ Evolver portrait by Irving Klaw: The Lightness of Shine , last accessed on May 14, 2008.
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Page no longer available , search in web archives: Stern.de report from April 17, 2003: The icon - Happy Birthday, Bettie! , last accessed on May 15, 2008.
6. ↑ Maria Elena Buszek: Pin-up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture . Duke University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-8223-3746-0 .
7. ↑ Rachel Shteir: Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show . Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-512750-1 , page 288 ff.
8. ↑ Werner Sonntag : Kampfes Lust. about the eroticism of body encounters in a duel; Description of a scene; when women fight and men watch: emancipation, stimulation, obsession? Laufen und Leben, Ostfildern 2002, ISBN 3-9802835-2-6 , p. 184.
9. ↑ ^{a b} Bettie Page in the Internet Movie Database (English)
10. ^ Photographs by Bunnie Yeager: The Jungle Queen .
11. ↑ ^{a b c} Reason Magazine, August / September 2007 issue: "Greg Beato: The Fetishist Next Door - The all-American appeal of Bettie Page " , last accessed on May 15, 2008.
12. ↑ ^{a b} NBC interview on YouTube | Youtube: REAL Bettie Page TV Interview - Her Life In Her OWN Words , last accessed on May 15, 2008.
13. ↑ Sex and Hopp - End of career by Bettie Page , Spiegel-Online of November 8, 2013, accessed on September 10, 2014.
14. ↑ David Wallechinsky and Amy Wallace: The People's Almanac Presents the Book of Lists - the '90s Edition . Little Brown & Co, 1993, ISBN 0-316-92079-7 .
15. ^ Karen Essex and James L. Swanson, Bettie Page: The Life of a Pin-Up Legend . General Publishing Group, 1996, ISBN 1-881649-62-8 .
16. ^ Richard Foster: The Real Bettie Page: The Truth About the Queen of the Pinups . Carol Publishing Group / Birch Lane Press, 1997, ISBN 1-55972-432-3 .
17. ^ Richard Foster: The Real Bettie Page: The Truth About the Queen of the Pinups . Carol Publishing Group / Birch Lane Press, 1997, ISBN 1-55972-432-3 , pages 120-132.
18. ↑ LA Times : Pinup queen Bettie Page dies on December 85 , 2008.
19. ↑ Bettie Page . In: Find A Grave , accessed March 24, 2013.
20. ↑ ^{a b} Cult Sirens: Bettie Page ( Memento from December 6, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), last accessed on May 13, 2008
21. ^ Stan Corwin Productions, Bunny Yeager: Betty Page Confidential . St. Martin's Press, 1994, ISBN 0-312-10940-7
22. ↑ Jim Silke and Lyn Silke: Bettie Page: Queen of Hearts . Dark Horse Comics, 1995, ISBN 1-56971-124-0
23. ↑ Jim Silke: Bettie Page: the glamor illustration of the 50s and its uncrowned queen . Writer and Reader, ISBN 3-929497-75-1
24. ↑ tv.com - E! True Hollywood Story: Bettie Page: From Pinup to Sex Queen. , last accessed on August 11, 2010
25. ↑ ^{a b} USA TODAY of April 23, 2003: Whitney Matheson: Happy birthday, Bettie! , last accessed on May 14, 2008
26. ^ Official website of the biopic Bettie Page: Dark Angel ( Memento of April 14, 2006 in the Internet Archive ), last accessed on May 15, 2008
27. ^ HALO Custom Guitars, Inc. ( Memento of July 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), last accessed on May 13, 2008
28. ↑ Los Angeles Times of March 11, 2006: Louis Sahagun: "A Golden Age for a Pinup"
29. ↑ Comics . In: ctv.es . Archived from the original on April 17, 2015.
30. ↑ Official website of Olivia de Berardinis , last accessed on May 15, 2008
31. ↑ Polly Staffles Hall of Fame: Bettie Page ( Memento of the original from April 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , last accessed on May 15, 2008  
32. ↑ Michelle Baldwin: Burlesque and the New Bump-N-Grind . Speck Press, 2004, ISBN 0-9725776-2-9
33. ↑ Straight of April 27, 2006: Mark Leiren-Young: Bettie Page role revealing , last accessed May 15, 2008
34. ↑ Bettie Page Reveals All! - Official Movie Site . In: Bettie Page Reveals All! . Retrieved September 26, 2015.

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on October 17, 2008 .