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12-12-2008, 03:13 PM
|  | Play it as it lays | | Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Tell her I'll be waiting in all the usual places.
Posts: 1,408
| | | Bettie Page, dead at 85.
I'm surprised this wasn't posted here. I didn't care much for her, but I know many of you do: Quote:
Bettie Page is dead.
She died yesterday at age 85 of a heart attack at an L.A. hospital.
Who the heck is Bettie Page, you ask?
Only the most famous pinup queen of all time.
She’s the saucy brunette who got her start posing for amateur camera clubs in lingerie, bathing suits, eventually buck naked. Then she moved into the more lucrative S&M scene and was photographed wielding whips and chains, wearing fetish fashions, corsets, garters and stiletto boots.
And this was in the '50s!
After her brief modeling career was destroyed by a national scandal and federal investigation into pinup porn, Bettie virtually disappeared from the public eye.
But her wholesome sexy image –- a brunet with short bangs and girl-next-door smile –- became iconic.
Hugh Hefner, who knew Bettie when she was young and when she resurfaced, told AP yesterday: "I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had a tremendous impact on our society. She was a very dear person."
Many people wonder how Bettie Page was found after being lost for so many years.
Here’s the scoop, untold until now. In the early '90s, after writing a cover story (June 5, 1991) for USA Today on the missing pinup, I happened to be having dinner in Washington, D.C., with Robin Leach ("Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous").
The subject of Page came up and I suggested that he have his TV show's office try to locate the missing pinup, who by now had become cult famous. Intrigued, Leach, who knew nothing about Bettie, asked dozens of questions about her. I answered as best I could and gave him all the material I had unearthed about her.
It didn’t take Leach’s crack team of reporters long (like weeks) before they'd found some of her relatives and eventually, Bettie herself, who wasn't really hiding, just quietly living in a trailer park in California, completely unaware of her cult status and all the money being made off her image. Leach ended up doing a show about her.
Thanks to one of her biggest fans, Dave Stevens (“Rocketeer”) and several other friends, Bettie was able to get some of the money due her.
I was lucky enough to meet Bettie in person in Los Angeles on two occasions while the book “Bettie Page: The Life of a Pin-Up Legend” was being written about her, by authors Karen Essex (“Kleopatra,” "Stealing Athena," "Leonardo’s Swans”) and James Swanson (“Manhunt”).
The first time I met her was when she and Dave stopped by my house for a few minutes. She had wanted to meet my poodle, Mina.
She was a bit rounder, a bit fuller around the middle, and her long hair with bangs was now completely gray She looked like someone’s grandmother. But she still had that wide smile and her very Southern accent.
And no, I didn’t take her photo. Somehow, it just seemed like it would be a bit crass and intrusive. Plus, she really didn’t want anyone to see her.
She preferred that people remember her the way she looked when she was young. But I do have a large B&W photo of her (the shot used for the cover of the book, at left) that she autographed for me.
The next and last time we met was at the book publisher’s home in Santa Monica for a dinner in her honor.
You may wonder what one serves a pinup legend? Why, her favorite dish, of course.
Spare ribs.
RIP, Bettie.
| My memories of pinup queen Bettie Page, dead at 85 | The Dish Rag | Los Angeles Times 
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12-12-2008, 03:26 PM
|  | Blessed are the forgetful | | Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: New York
Posts: 2,261
| | 
Awe, RIP.
Poor girl just wanted to be left alone in the end. I do love her, very much. 
__________________
Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be- George Orwell |
12-12-2008, 03:39 PM
| | Registered Member | | Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 121
| | | Aww this is really sad. RIP |
12-12-2008, 04:02 PM
| | Play it as it lays | | Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Tell her I'll be waiting in all the usual places.
Posts: 1,408
| | | She outlived many of her fellow icons and lead quite a full life, at least.
But just as how I felt with Paul Newman and Johnny Cash, there are those people that you feel are nearly immortal; it can be heart-breaking when they prove us wrong. |
12-12-2008, 04:03 PM
| | Banned | | Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 2,458
| | it actually was posted here. but its still so sad. | | Thread Tools | | | | Display Modes |  Linear Mode | 
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