Bettie Page born April, 22, 1923 was a American model who became famous in the 1950's for her pinup photos. She was referred to as the " Queen of Pinups", with her jet black hair, blue eyes. and trademark bangs she has influenced artists and women even today. As a cult figure, Page was most famous for the estimated 20,000 4-by-5-inch black-and-white glossy photographs taken by amateur shutterbugs from 1949 to 1957. The photos showed her in high heels and bikinis or negligees, bondage apparel -- or nothing at all. Decades later, those images inspired biographies, comic books, fan clubs, websites, commercial products -- Bettie Page playing cards, dress-up magnet sets, action figures, Zippo lighters, shot glasses -- and, in 2005, a film about her life and times, "The Notorious Bettie Page." It also has inspired many women to the sub culture of Pinup fashion.
Page was Miss January 1955, one of the earliest Playmates of the Month for Playboy Magazine. " I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality, taste in fashion, someone who had tremendous impact on our society." Said Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. Hefner described Page's appeal as "a combination of wholesome innocence and fetish-oriented poses that is at once retro and very modern."
A religious woman in her later life, Page was mystified by her influence on modern popular culture. "I have no idea why I'm the only model who has had so much fame so long after quitting work," she said in an interview with The Times in 2006. She had one request for that interview: that her face not be photographed."I want to be remembered," she said, "as I was when I was young and in my golden times. . . . I want to be remembered as the woman who changed people's perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form."
Bettie Page, the brunet pinup queen with a shoulder-length pageboy hairdo and kitschy bangs whose saucy photos helped usher in the sexual revolution of the 1960s, passed away December, 6, 2008 She was 85.
