Bettie Page 1923-2008
The architects of our pop culture universe are leaving us behind. They are dying off, and it is something that truly saddens me. There is a myth of sorts called “The Rule of Three”. No, not the comedic Rule of Three that’s a principle in English writing that states that things that are listed in threes are inherently funnier. This ones not so funny. Well, sometimes it can be .No, this Rule of Three dictates celebrities must always die in groups of three. Last week was Forest J. Ackerman; this week was sadly the pin up goddess, Bettie Page. Who’s going to be the next? It better not be Stan Lee. Now Spike Lee I could live with. (I didn’t like Summer of Sam very much; and I didn’t even see Bamboozled) I looked up Wikipedia to see what they had for Bettie and it said this: “Bettie Page (April 22, 1923) was a former American model who became famous in the 1950s for her fetish modeling and pin-up photos. She was also one of the earliest Playmates of the Month for Playboy magazine. While she faded into obscurity in the 1960s after converting to Christianity and serving as a Baptist missionary in Angola, she experienced a resurgence of popularity in the 1980s and had a significant cult following. Her look, including her jet black hair and trademark bangs, has influenced many artists.” It sounded so sterile; I even read it out loud. It’s such a bland piece of text for someone who so alerted my sexual awakening and preference. Before I discovered Bettie Page there was no one. To this day I could fall for an overly tattooed, rockabilly girl with emotional problems quiet easily. And those girls owe everything to Bettie.
Bettie Page died on December 11, 2008. She was a model, but more importantly she defined the modern idea of a pinup. A friend’s father who came of age in the 50s said that back then every guy knew who she was, and no woman knew anything about her. Back then it was virtually unheard of for someone who looked like her to do bondage and striptease stag films, which then would have been considered pornography. Today she is much more than a model or Playboy Playmate or some hot girl with a riding crop (Name five Playboy Playmates from the last ten years – yeah, that’s what I thought); she is the very symbol of 1950s sex appeal. Then she faded from the spotlight for 30 years. Rumors spread about her disappearance. She took off with a rich sheik. She was murdered by the mob. She’s fighting crime while traveling across the country with her sidekicks, Elvis and Howard Hughes. In truth she tried her hand the domesticated married life which was a miserable failure. She would try it four times before calling it quits.
Truth is, Bettie was scared away from modeling, particularly the bondage style modelling, due to being called to testify in the the Kefauver Hearings of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, after a young man apparently died during a session of bondage which was rumored to be inspired by Page. (These same hearing would also nearly destroy the comic book industry) Aftert this Bettie became born again Christian, not knowing she had helped begin the sexual revolution of the 60’s (and idea Bettie scoffed at, saying she had less sex than ever during her modeling days) Two movies have been made about her glory days, The Notorious Bettie Page and Dark Angel. Not bad for someone whose last modeling session was nearly 50 years ago. Both movies steered clear of some of the more scandalous aspects of her life, like the fact that Bettie had once gone insane once and tried to kill her landlady because “God told her too.” Because of this, she was insitutionlized for 8 years and totally missed out on the whole Bettie Page revival.
The funny thing was that she almost never knew that she was a cultural icon if it wasn’t for two comic book artist. She was living a simple, quite life in a group home in Los Angeles in her late 50s completely oblivious to her cult status for the photos she took when she was younger. Greg Theakston, inker of choice to Jack Kirby, started a fanzine called, The Betty Pages. The publication recounted Bettie’s life, especially the camera club days. The magazine stoked the media fire-storm and made Bettie Page a cult figure. Dave Stevens created the comic book The Rocketeer and based the female love interest on Bettie. He discovered that she was still alive and tracked her down. Dave met up with Bettie and took her over to a Tower Records (That’s gone too, damn!) and showed her what the legacy that her photos began. Her image glossed the covers of magazines, lunch boxes and t-shirts. Women wanted to be her and men still wanted to do her. The most important thing that came to her mind was, why the fuck was she not getting paid for all of this? Dave, who became her friend, assisted her personally and helped her gain financial compensation from her work. In her final years, Bettie finally started to see some money from all the merch with her face and body on it. If only she could get a dollar for every woman who sports a Bettie Page hairdo. She’d have more mony than Bill Gates.
On December 6, 2008 Bettie Page was struck down by a massive heart attack. She was hospitalized and slipped into a coma. She was on continuous life support until she died five days later. Bettie has left this world but she will forever be remembered with a riding crop in hand, winking at the camera, and she will continue to break young hearts until the end of time.
