The Untold Story of Bettie Page: More Than a Pin-Up Queen

Bettie Page is buried in Westwood Village Memorial Park. It seems somehow appropriate that she is buried in the proximity of, but not particularly close to, Marilyn Monroe (and, by extension, Hugh Hefner). It almost reads as a natural endpoint for her life; she was and is a cultural icon, but one who exists more as myth than human, and about whose real life even her most ardent fans seem to know little. The short version is this: Bettie Mae Page was born on April 22, 1923, in Nashville, Tennessee. Her parents split when she was 10, and her childhood was marked by poverty and abuse. Bettie and her sisters, in typical fashion for the time, found escape through the movies and tried to emulate their favorite stars. She graduated salutatorian of her high school class and achieved a Bachelor of Arts degree from Peabody College in 1944. She was married for a few years, divorced, and eventually found herself in New York City, where she caught the attention of a photographer who suggested she would be a good pin-up model. But first, he suggested she cut herself some bangs to help hide her high forehead. Thus, the iconic Bettie Page look was born.

She spent the next decade or so posing, first for camera clubs, then for Bunny Yeager and Irving Klaw, the latter of whom she shot her infamous BDSM reels and stills with. She even managed to be one of the first centerfolds for Playboy. By all accounts, she was a natural and fun to work with, and soon enough, she was famous among photography circles. Eventually, her fame expanded beyond the camera clubs, and she landed some stage, movie, and TV work. She was the “Pin-Up Queen.”

Then she vanished.

Bettie retired from modeling in 1958 (partially due to some Senate hearings regarding the images that had been taken and disseminated by Klaw) and married again, though they would divorce five years later. She became a born-again Christian, attended a few Bible colleges, and even at one point attempted to become a missionary to Africa but was rejected for being a divorcée. She tried going back to college but dropped out. She was married twice more but was on her own again by 1972. And then came the hospitalizations. Bettie suffered a nervous breakdown in 1978 and was diagnosed with acute schizophrenia. She would eventually spend eight years under the supervision of the state of California, finally being released in 1992.

All the while, her fame had endured—quietly at first, but growing as the years passed—before well and truly surging in the 1980s. People never forgot the popular pin-up who vanished, and they shared her like the missionaries Bettie had once aspired to join. She herself was unaware that, even as she struggled and tried to rebuild her life over and over, people were painting her, re-releasing collections of her photos, putting her on calendars, and drawing on her to inspire new shoots, comic book characters, and even fanzines. As Bettie later put it, “I was penniless and infamous.” It wasn’t until her nephew started noticing all the products marketed using her likeness that her attention was brought to the phenomenon, and she emerged back into public life. Sort of.

Bettie was savvy, or perhaps vain, enough to realize that since a cottage industry had been founded on her youthful, exuberant appearance, it would serve her better to maintain the illusion. Thus, from the time she came forward until her death in 2008, Bettie Page, once one of the most photographed women in the country, did her best to prevent any further public pictures from being taken of her. In the mind of popular culture, Bettie would forever be that twenty-something bombshell with the sausage bangs and the bright smile, untouched by the ravages of time.

And this might be why she endures the way she does today. It’s easy to idolize or fantasize about someone when you only have a mythical version of them. When you don’t know the dark and sad details, or you don’t have to be confronted with the reality of their inevitable decline, they exist as the ultimate form of escapism—human enough to connect to but unreal enough to be kept on a pedestal. And what a pedestal it is. Bettie has touched so many aspects of our culture, frequently without even being credited for it. Even apart from all the previously mentioned creations, she has been reflected on the runways of New York and Paris, in music videos, and even in her own biopic, The Notorious Bettie Page. One would be forgiven for not being sure at first glance whether she was a real person or a crafted character for whom someone holds the copyright.

But the reality is that she was a real person, with all of the experiences and sensations that entails. And it begs the question: what are all her legions of “fans” potentially missing by not knowing the real woman behind the bondage gear and bikinis? Is that two-dimensional image enough, or does it magnify her legacy to talk about the three-dimensional woman who existed beyond it?

For my part, knowing about the woman herself has enhanced my appreciation of her. Rather than some unattainable goddess I could never hope to relate to, let alone emulate, knowing about her life—tragic though it was in places—has allowed me to connect to her as a woman. A woman who struggled and failed and was hurt, just like me. A woman for whom her beauty was both an asset and a liability, as many women are all too familiar with. And a woman who, despite her setbacks and missteps and tragedies, persevered in the end and kept going when many would have given up. Yes, she was beautiful, but she was also funny, smart, savvy, and resilient. She was a survivor.

In the case of Bettie Page, there is quite literally more than meets the eye.

This article has been featured in...

Twisted Pulp Magazine Issue #40