Bettie Page dies at 85; pinup queen played a key role in the sexual revolution of the 1960s and later became a cult figure (LA Times)
Dec 12th, 2008 by Viviane
By Louis Sahagun
7:37 PM PST, December 11, 2008
Bettie Page, the brunet pinup queen with a shoulder-length pageboy hairdo and kitschy bangs whose saucy photos helped usher in the sexual revolution of the 1960s, has died. She was 85.
Page, whose later life was marked by depression, violent mood swings and several years in a state mental institution, died Thursday night at Kindred Hospital in Los Angeles, where she had been on life support since suffering a heart attack Dec. 2, according to her agent, Mark Roesler.
A cult figure, Page was most famous for the estimated 20,000 4-by-5-inch black-and-white glossy photographs taken by amateur shutterbugs from 1949 to 1957. The photos showed her in high heels and bikinis or negligees, bondage apparel — or nothing at all.
Decades later, those images inspired biographies, comic books, fan clubs, websites, commercial products — Bettie Page playing cards, dress-up magnet sets, action figures, Zippo lighters, shot glasses — and, in 2005, a film about her life and times, “The Notorious Bettie Page.”
Tags: Bettie Page
Betty Page had class. She had an almost unbelievably beautiful face, a natural grace, easy smile, voluptous, toned body, an instinct for timeless, sexy apparel and a priceless conveyance of tongue-in-cheekness — thereby avoiding the sense of self-importance of lesser practitioners. She was like the Cary Grant of erotica. May her memory live on.
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