After a four-week-long stay in the hospital and nearly half a lifetime hiding from her career as a 1950's pinup model, Bettie Page has passed away at the age of 85.
Her scandalous (for the time) photos in Hugh Hefner's Playboy magazine and the bondage mags of Irving Klaw helped to ring in the beginning of the sexual revolution of the 1960s. Of course she may have been unaware of that as she vanished, fighting mental illness and becoming a born-again Christian. She shunned interviews for years, refusing to be photographed in her old age.
In the 1970s and afterwards, she became a cult figure and once again experienced a rush of fame, in the form of comics, movies and posters. She remains one of the most beautiful and recognizable female pop icons of the 1950s and beyond. Rest in peace, Bettie.
I am saddened by her passing. She was truly a pioneer, proving that the feminine mystique could be sexy, smart, and powerful.
ReplyDeleteShe has often been imitated, by no one has ever quite captured exactly what she possessed.