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BETTY PAGE, THE LIFE BEHIND THE LOOKS
PART 1
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I cannot possibly have a website about pinups and vintage art style without one woman. Betty Page. The woman known as the"queen of pinups", is almost certainly the first person most people will think of when you mention pinups or vintage style, and it can be claimed that without her much of popular culture we know and love would never be. Think the suicide girls, Katy Perry, Madonna and Dita Von Teese ... would they be who they are today if Bettie had not done her thing first?
The official Bettie Page website describes her this way "With locks as dark as midnight and a smile as bright as day, Bettie Page was much more than a beautiful pinup model, she was simply the best. A legend as much today as during her modeling days" too true
Her body was as near to natural perfection as it is possible to be in my humble opinion, and in the opinion of most who have ever seen her. Mind-blowing curves the likes of which are not seen these days. I always aspired to Betty Page from the shoulders down and Greta Garbo from the shoulders up, but there are Hundreds...no probably thousands, of women (and men) around the world who have made her distinctive look their own, and to every single one of us modern pinups she will be sadly missed.
This image; My portrait of Betty Page in leopard print bikini.
Betty Mae Page was born April 22 1923 in Nashville, Tennessee. She had both brothers and sisters and at a young age had to take the responsibilities of caring for her younger siblings. Her parents divorced when she was 10 years old and after her father was imprisoned, apparently for stealing a police car!, Bettie and her two sisters spent a year in an orphanage. During this time, Page's mother worked two jobs to try and make ends meet, by day as a hairdresser and washing laundry at night.
As a teenager, Betty and her sisters tried different DIY makeup styles and hairdos imitating their favourite movie stars. She also learned to sew, making her own clothes. These skills proved useful years later for her pin-up modeling career, when she did her own makeup and hair and made her own bikinis and costumes for photoshoots. These are things I also have had to learn in order to get the exact look and fit I want, and I would recommend it to anyone after the vintage style. During her early years, the Page family traveled around the country in search of financial stability. A hard life for any child.
But despite this Betty Page was a good student, a member of the debate team and voted "Most Likely to Succeed" by her classmates. She graduated high school in 1940 with a scholarship to George Peabody College, with the intention of becoming a teacher. She graduated in 1944 with a bachelor of arts degree. However, in a dramatic turnaround, the next autumn (fall) she began studying acting in New York, hoping to become a movie star. At the same time, she got her first job, typing for author Alfred Leland Crab. It was on a break from this typing job that she was seen by a photographer who asked her to pose. This they say was the start of what she would become.
In the late 1940's a scene movement known as 'camera clubs' was formed as a means of getting round the law's stance on nude photography. These clubs existed, or were meant to exist, to promote artistic photography, but many were simply making pornography...is anyone surprized?!. Betty Page entered the world of glamour photography as a popular camera club model, working initially with photographer Cass Carr. Her natural uninhibited way and beauty made her a big hit. Her name and image became quickly known in the erotic photography industry, and form 1951, her image appeared in Men's magazines like Wink, Titter, Eyeful and Beauty Parade.
  (Click the image to buy the Bettie Page Irving Klaw films on DVD from Barnes&Noble)
From 1952 through 1957, Her most infamous time, she posed for photography legend Irving Klaw (and his sister Paula who is usually forgotten) for his range of mail-order photographs. His photography and short films featured pin-up, bondage or S&M themes, making Betty the first famous Fetish model. Klaw also used Page in dozens of his short black-and-white 8mm and 16mm "specialty" films which catered to specific requests from his clientele. These silent featurettes showed women in their lingerie, rolled stockings and skyscraper high heels acting out fetishistic scenarios of abduction, domination, and slave-training with bondage, spanking, and elaborate leather costumes and restraints. Page has said that Klaw would not pay the models for 'regular' pinup shots unless they also did fetish stuff too. Page alternated between playing a stern dominatrix with a whip and a helpless victim bound hand and foot, and was equally believable in either role. Klaw also produced a line of still photos taken during these sessions. They were advertised in the adds sections of the popular pin-up girl magazines that Bettie already appeared in. Some have become iconic images, such as his highest-selling photo of Page shown gagged and bound in a web of ropes from the film Leopard Bikini Bound. Although these underground features had the same crude style and under the counter distribution as the pornographic films of the time, Klaw's all-female films (and still photos) never featured any nudity or explicit sexual content. This could be the very reason why the images have endured and remain so popular, making them stand out from the norm. Though he was arrested for 'distributing pornography' at the time and many of the images were destroyed or banned for years. How things have changed kittens!.
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner selected a photo of Bettie that was sent to him to be playboy's January 1955 issue 'playmate of the month'. The most coveted title of the centerfold set. The now famous image shows Page wearing only a Santa hat, kneeling by a Christmas tree holding an ornament and playfully winking at the camera. Playboy was just 2 years old at the time and Her successful relationship with the magazine, and its female photographer Bunny Yeager, continued from there. She stated herself In a 1998 interview with Playboy, when commenting on her career:
“ I never thought it was shameful. It felt normal. It's just that it was much better than pounding a typewriter eight hours a day, which gets monotonous. ”
And Hugh Hefner said of her to the Associated Press that "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" .
(Click for a One year subscription to playboy magazine.)
For what Betty Page did next, and what we as modern pinups can learn from the legend click to go to Part 2 of the betty page story
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Some more vintage style and pinup art articles you may enjoy:
Get the pinup look every day
Get the Betty Page look
Vintage Clothing Sizeing Guide
1950s fashion
Seamed Stockings
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