"I want to be remembered as a woman who changed people’s perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form."
Said Bettie Page, who posed for a lot of photographs, but would not let anyone take her picture after she got old. But isn't age natural too? And is pinup nudity natural? And if it's natural nudity that you think is so important, what's with the bondage?
Bettie Page has turned that final page. Death. It's natural too. And there will be no photographs of that either.
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She definitely had a body that was decades ahead of it's time.
Smoking.
Bondage? Unnatural? Heaven forfend!
Unlike most pinups, Betty had that actors gift of showing delight!
I loved that movie recently out about her. I thought she was very interesting.
She lived an interesting life.
I am glad she didn't want to reveal herself in later years. It makes her more exotic and mysterious.
I will likely be doing the same when I get old only doing interviews with a cloud over my face.
Most folks don't know that after she put down her whip, she became an evangelical Christian.
"I will likely be doing the same when I get old only doing interviews with a cloud over my face."
Ever see that Maximilian Schell documentary "Marlene"?
I liked the married Klaw couple in the movie that had the mail order catalog Bettie posed for.
She was broke for quite awhile living only on social security but it was nice to hear that she received some of the royalties from her resurrection.
A true American comeback story. It brings a tear to your eye.
I have seen that Althouse.
Of course, I love Marlene too.
There is something about those strong, interesting, smart women that me likey.
But there is something a little sad about them not wanting to be seen in their later years.
I will likely be doing the same when I get old only doing interviews with a cloud over my face.
Just write a book. You can call it Pinching a Loaf and Walking the Clumbers: A Day in the Life of Titus
OMG Hoosier. That has a bestseller ring to it.
I will be posing on the back cover with a bag over my head on the lou with my rare stuffed clumbers on each side of me.
Shows to go you that you can't judge a book or a woman by the cover. She had the courage to keep on keeping on until someone cared for her and not just used her. She had to learn the difference, as did Marlene.
OMG Hoosier. That has a bestseller ring to it.
Just remember where you got the idea. I want at least an acknowledgement in the preface.
I only learned today that nudity in its natural form includes whips.
Trey
LOL, Trey.
She was stunning.
What idea Hoosier?
What idea Hoosier?
Your book title!
I only learned today that nudity in its natural form includes whips.
You poor deprived boy. The things you missed out on.
Once you reach that level, then you can move on to the more transcendental forms like whipped cream and strawberries.
"Ann Althouse said...
Ever see that Maximilian Schell documentary "Marlene"?"
If it's the one that played on Encore last year, then yes. I think that was Schell narrating. His voice, when combined with this subject matter, was hypnotizing. I loved the way he pronounced "Mahrleeneh Deh-Tree-cahh".
I was also astounded by just how much she withdrew from general society in the end. I thought she passed away a very long time ago, before I was born even, because I never heard about her as a kid in anything other than the past tense. But as it turns out, she died the year I was supposed to graduate from college. Somehow, I missed that news.
It's interesting to compare and contrast these two women - Dietrich and Page - with the current holders of those "niches" of celebrity. I wonder which European actress I'd say holds the one that Marlene Dietrich used to hold. Monica Belluci, perhaps, just because of the overt sexuality? Similarly, I wonder who'd hold Page's niche today. So many models to choose from. Would it be one of the perennial swimsuit models, just due to popularity and "pin-up" status? Like, say, Heidi Klum? Or would you need to veer into the more "naughty" areas and pick someone from there? Say, perhaps, Dita Von Teese?
I am sorry Hoosier I don't know what you are talking about and I don't know anyone name Hoosier.
Now let me get back to my book.
You know, I never got the whole Bettie Page cult. She was cute, I will grant you that, and certainly a refreshing change from the dead-eyed, hard-edged women usually found in a lot of 40s-50s S&M porn (and I've seen enough to judge), but she just left me cold.
I am glad she found happiness of a sort later on - and "The Notorious Bettie Page" is a funny, touching movie - but the whole "Bettie Page the golden girl" is, I think, based more on the latter-day drawings of her by Olivia, Jim Silke, Jeff Pittarrelli and others, not necessarily on the Klaw movies and Bunny Yeager photos.
And speaking of "I want to be remembered as I was," in 1974 Joan Crawford appeared at a party for Rosalind Russell in the Rainbow Room. The next day she saw the horrible photographs of her in the society pages and snarled, "if that's how I look, they won't see me anymore." And they didn't.
Nearly twenty years ago I was, ahem, friends for a brief period with an very attractive exotic dancer.
By coincidence, about a week ago I saw a vintage magazine from about the same time on sale at eBay with her on the cover and in the centerfold. So, I bought it for old time sake, just to remember.
I didn't recognize it it by the title, but it turned out to be a leg/foot fetish magazine. By no means offensive by skin magazine standards (and you had to really "read the articles," as they say, to pick it up), but a theme I've never identified with.
Then I started to remember... why it was the friendship ended so abruptly.
I am sorry Hoosier I don't know what you are talking about and I don't know anyone name Hoosier.
Now let me get back to my book.
That's ok Titus. I'm used to being cast off like a worn out sock once my usefulness is over. It is my lot in life.
If I had feelings, they'd be hurt.
That's why I'm glad I'm a conservative. Otherwise I'd be a miserable, whining, nancy boy like Michael and Alpha.
It's tough being a broad, no doubt about it. Her tits stop pointing north and that's the end of the golden time.
I want to be remembered as I was when I was young and in my golden times.
Good for her. She could have pioneered MILFdom, but she chose not to.
RIP Bettie Page
The whip she poses with emphasizes the sexuality of her nudity. She is naked not to take a bath but to engage in sex--and even the sex is a few clicks beyond the Good Housekeeping Approved model. She has a good natured, innocent face and a killer body. Like all great pin-ups, she expresses the polarities of Virgin-Whore simultaneously. Betty's smile is Princess Leia in a white, vestal gown and in the slave-slut outfit of Jabba the Hut. You can imagine her performing acts of kindness in a lewd way and vice versa.....She apparently had a troubled, unhappy life. She got very little out of her beauty. But she left behind some images of beauty that would break Botticelli's heart.
Don't hold back, tell us how you really feel, William. ;^)
Yes William, yes! A little louder a little lower and to the left!
RIP Bettie. You can see a lot of her styles imitated by the rock-a-billy girls around here.
Hmm. Was Betty Page the inspiration for the old saying "Don't get the Pages all stuck together"?
The death of a great pin up diminishes all mankind. Never ask for whom the bell tolls; ask, rather, who rang the bells....Compare the look of Betty Page versus Paris Hilton. Is there anything about sex that Paris doesn't know? Betty looks like there are many joys to discover in this brave new world....Most of my energies nowadays are devoted to ending world hunger. However, it is my considered opinion that it would be a lot easier to rub one out with Betty Page than with many of today's girls.
First, let me just say that William totally nails (so to speak) the late Bettie Page's appeal.
TMink: "I only learned today that nudity in its natural form includes whips."
That's the great thing about human sexuality: it, in its natural form, includes whatever our fevered imaginations can come up with... which is a lot. I'm reminded of a passage in Umberto Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum" in which the protagonist notes that the human mind can compose two things that are, gold and a mountain, to create something that is not, a golden mountain.
Yeah, leave it to me to start thinking about Umberto Eco when reading about Bettie Page. On the other hand, I have a feeling that Eco would appreciate it.
Betty Page is
defunct
who used to wear six-inch heels
naked
and flash a tied-up grin at the camera justlikethat
Mother of God
she had a beautiful body
and what i want to know is
how do you like your raven-haired sex kitten
Mister Death
She apparently had a troubled, unhappy life. She got very little out of her beauty. But she left behind some images of beauty that would break Botticelli's heart
She was molested as a young girl, and used her unattainable sexual beauty to taunt men and prove her control over them.
She had serious mental health issues, a common thing among those working in and/or exploited by the sex trades.
NYT: "Ms. Page was the most famous pinup girl of the post-World War II era"
They seem to have forgotten one Marilyn Monroe.
Who paid her way through college?
I liked the married Klaw couple in the movie that had the mail order catalog Bettie posed for.
Weren't the Klaws brother and sister?
I find it hard to be offended by pictures of Betty.
“Nature isn’t natural.” — Bob Dylan
Titus-Marlene wasn't quite as cloistered as PR would lead you to believe. She was pretty active right up to the end. She just didn't want to be photographed.
I give Bettie a hattip...with a clip from Teaserama!
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/business/media/11youtube.html?em
That's too bad that she didn't want to be photographed. Too much emphasis on youth. I hope to live to be old enough that there are family pictures of me completely withered up like a raisin.
Said Bettie Page, who posed for a lot of photographs, but would not let anyone take her picture after she got old. But isn't age natural too?
Yes, but it isn't sexy.
Bettie Page's death was announced on the front page of the New York Times' website. The article said that she helped pioneer the sexual revolution.
I guess I was wrong when I posted about the back seat of automobiles being the frontier of that particular revolution
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