DIARY - The Bettie Page
Date: 2008-12-14 10:56:05
Author: Pat Kent
I wanted to write this a couple of days ago when I first heard about Bettie Page's death at the age of 85 in California, but simply haven't had the chance due to the pressures of my "regular" job.
Sadly, Bettie died of complications following a bout of pneumonia and a heart attack which sent her into a coma from which she never regained consciousness.
Iconic is a much over-used term in this day and age, like genius and star, it has lost its meaning along the way, but, Bettie was without doubt THE iconic model for pin-up and comic artists around the world and was alledgedly the most photographed woman ever.
With her trademark "black bangs", her home-made costumes and her smile she graced many a "photographic" magazine back in the 50's. Forget her dalliance with the darker side of the modelling business she frequented, Bettie Page was the embodiment of a woman who really changed the nature of pin-up modelling, she achieved from it a cult status that many of todays so-called super-models could only ever dream of but never secure.
Earlier this year one of her greatest admirers and close friend, the comic artist Dave Stevens also died, his was another tragic loss; I "discovered" Bettie Page through Dave Steven's excellent artwork.
Bettie didn't have a truly easy or wonderful life, molested by her father as a child, the unwelcome focus of a US congressional hearing and in later years becoming destitute and totally losing her direction; even spending some time in a mental health institution. She also failed miserably to reap the benefits of her huge cult status, only seeing some financial reward when Dave Stevens stepped in to help her in the 1990's.
In her later years, and in stark contrast to her life as a model, she shunned the camera, preferring her fans to remember those images she left behind as a record of her modelling life. As kitschy as many of them were, they became truly iconic images of the pin-up genre and will, I suspect, remain the basis for the art of many an aspiring pin-up or "good-girl" [and some "bad-girl"] comic artist.
Some people may think that she not have been the most stunning looking woman in the world, but in her earlier images she displayed that "girl next door" quality that America seemed to crave for at that time and her images captured the moment of major change in a post-war America's newly devleoping pop-culture. From an innocent snap taken by an amateur photographer on a beach promanade Bettie Page the secretary, turned into America's most prominent pin-up queen ever.
She was born in Tennesee in 1923, she hoped to live an active life until she was 100, sadly she died in California in 2008. She didn't make it to 100, but her images will no doubt live for a lot longer.
Bettie Page RIP.
Pat Kent
PS If you're interested try and see her life story as portrayed in Workhouse pictures cinema release "The Notorious Bettie Page" which is also available on DVD.
© Pat Kent 2008 – All rights reserved.
Pat Kent exercises his right to be identified as the author