Today is a gloomy, gloomy day.The absolute Queen of Pin-ups, the Godmother of Cheesecake Modeling, the short-bang trendsetting and asfixiating beauty Bettie Paige is no longer alive.
She died this morning at a Los Angeles Hospital following a heart attack. She was 85 years old.
If I deeply mourned the loss of Cyd Charisse and Dorian Leigh earlier this year, my heart is aching and grieving the death of Bettie Page. Here are eight reasons why:
1. She is the first woman I researched when testing my own sensuality and sexuality. And I am sure she is the first woman modern day rockabilly girls and pinup followers look up to, when making the transition from cute to catty, from gloss to red lipstick, from flat hair to raven bangs, from sitting on a chair to posing on a chair and from experimenting soft porn to taking a liking for bondage.
2. She is one of the few people in her line of work who is able to disappear for nearly 30 years only to return as a cult classic, an inspiration to a much younger generation and a money-making genius. You see, in 1957, in the height of her career when most garages and male-oriented workplaces had a poster of Bettie hanging on a wall, she disappeared. She apparently suffered mental conditions, got married and divorced three times, lost all of her money and suddenly recovered from everything after becoming a born-again Christian.
3. Fact: She inspired the director of my all-time favorite Action movie to create the female protagonist with a Bettie Page look: Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction.
4. Fact: She was photographed more times than Marilyn Monroe and Cindy Crawford, combined.
5. She and I share a high school memory: We were both voted "Most Likely To Succeed".
6. She was actually named in a scandalous investigation regarding elected officials involved with pornography.
7. She made some of her most popular and skimpy costumes and bikinis featured in pictures that have circled the world.
8. She was known to offer quotable quotes during interviews and conversations, including some of my favorites --
* "Being in the nude isn`t a disgrace unless you`re being promiscuous about it. After all, when God created Adam and Eve, they were stark naked. And in the Garden of Eden, God was probably naked as a jaybird too!"
* "I never kept up with the fashions. I believed in wearing what I thought looked good on me."
* "I was not trying to be shocking, or to be a pioneer. I wasn`t trying to change society, or to be ahead of my time. I didn`t think of myself as liberated, and I don`t believe that I did anything important. I was just myself. I didn`t know any other way to be, or any other way to live."
* "I never was the girl next door."
Rest in Peace, Bettie Page...
