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Born on April 22, 1923, in Nashville, Tennessee, Bettie Page was the second of Walter Roy Page and Edna Mae Pirtle's six children.

At first Page posed for camera clubs, frequently in the nude, because the photographs were not to be published. In 1951 her image appeared on the cover of men's magazines with names like Eyeful, Wink, Titter, Black Nylons, or Beauty Parade. At the same time she posed for photographer Irving Klaw for mail-order photographs with a Pin-up, bondage or sado-masochistic theme, making her the first famous bondage model.

During one of the annual pilgrimages to the sun, sand and surf she adored, Bettie Page met Bunny Yeager in Miami, Florida in 1954. At that time Page was the top Pin-up model in New York, and Yeager a former model and aspiring photographer. Bunny signed Page for a photo session at the now closed African wildlife park Africa USA in Boca Raton, Florida. The “Jungle Bettie” photographs from this shoot are some of her most celebrated and include nude shots with a pair of cheetahs who were named Mojah and Mbili. The leopard skin patterned “Jungle Girl” outfit she wore for the shoot was made by Bettie herself.

After Bunny Yeager sent shots of Bettie Page to Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, she was featured as Playmate of the Month and centerfold for Playboy magazine in its January 1955 issue. Bettie also became one of Hefner's obsessions. When Page was almost forced to file for bankruptcy, it was Hefner who bailed her out.

In an industry where the average career of a model was measured in months, Page was in demand for several years, modelling until 1957. Although she frequently posed in the nude, she never appeared in any scenes with explicit sexual content. When Howard Hughes, movie maker and billionaire, sent her a letter asking to meet her, she declined.

The reported reasons for her departure from modelling work are varied. Some authorities state she was burnt out and her marriage to Armand Walterson in 1958 was the cause, but she'd quit modeling long before the ceremony. Others mention the “Kefauver Hearings” of the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, which ended Irving Klaw's bondage/S&M mail-order photography business.

In any case, shortly after her marriage to Walterson, she experienced a conversion to Christianity on December 31, 1958, and severed all contact with the prior life. For many years, the last known facts of her life were her divorce from Walterson in the early 1960s, and that she was working as a secretary for a Christian organization.

Today, Bettie Page is enjoying her private life with her family, but she will always be the "Queen of Pinup."

Filmography

Striporama
Teaserama
Varietease
Irving Klaw Bondage Classics, Volume I
Irving Klaw Bondage Classics, Volume II
Bettie Page: Pin Up Queen (Cult Epics, 2005)
Bettie Page: Bondage Queen (Cult Epics, 2005)

Film biopics

2004 - Bettie Page: Dark Angel
2006 - The Notorious Bettie Page

Bette Page Posters