1950s pinup model Bettie Page dies in LA at 85

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LOS ANGELES – Bettie Page, the 1950s secretary-turned-model whose controversial photographs in skimpy attire or none at all helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution, died Thursday. She was 85.

Page was placed on life support last week after suffering a heart attack in Los Angeles and never regained consciousness, said her agent, Mark Roesler. He said he and Page's family agreed to remove life support. Before the heart attack, Page had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia.

"She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality," Roesler said. "She is the embodiment of beauty."

Page, who was also known as Betty, attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure in bikinis and see-through lingerie that were quickly tacked up on walls in military barracks, garages and elsewhere, where they remained for years.

Her photos included a centerfold in the January 1955 issue of then-fledgling Playboy magazine, as well as controversial sadomasochistic poses.

Page mysteriously disappeared from the public eye for decades, during which time she battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian.

After resurfacing in the 1990s, she occasionally granted interviews but refused to allow her picture to be taken.

"I don't want to be photographed in my old age," she told an interviewer in 1998. "I feel the same way with old movie stars. ... It makes me sad. We want to remember them when they were young."

More at link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081212/ap_en_ot/obit_bettie_page;_ylt=AqM916X7DR5Mw9YMT.z86Las0NUE
 
I guess she left the modeling business in 1957 and pretty much disappeared living a pretty quiet life for decades.
For a while no one knew if she was even still alive.
Talk about a modern iconic image.
Much hotter then Marilyn IMHO.
 
This is sad. She was definitely an icon never to be forgotten as many people to this day still borrow her look and she is tattooed on many people. I do think she is hotter than Marilyn Monroe. She never surgically altered herself. She was curvy, voluptuous and not skinny. She had no shame in her body and that is how everyone should feel.
 
Bettie remained friends with Hugh Hefner in her old age. I saw a picture of her at one of the Playboy Mansion parties in the last decade and, contrary to her comments about not wanting her picture taken so that her fans would remember as she was, she was still beautiful.

RIP, Bettie. As long as guys look at pictures of hot women, you will never be forgotten.
 
I liked the movie that was made about her with Gretchen Mol, it showed her whole life. What an Icon she was. RIP Betty!
 
I can't believe the tragic twists her life took after she was out of the public eye. I read an article about her in Time Magazine and was blown away by her sad story. She spent a great deal of her later years in and out of jail and mental institutions.
 
Yeah, she had some real hard times.She was pretty well done with the biz after 1957.
Its strange how her iconic persona very much took on a completely seperate life.
Like this perpetually young doppelganger leading a complete parallel but seperate existance.
I cant even imagine what that must have been like for the real Bettie who aged like the rest of us especially considering the path her life had taken.
 

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