Dark Angel

She became one of America's most demanded pin-up and fetish models of the 1950s. She was Playmate of the Month in the January 1955 issue. In that same year she won the title of "Miss Pinup Girl of the World". In 1957 she ceased modeling. Although it may involve the Senate hearing into her bondage photos, the reasons for her departure vary, but essentially she went on to have the normal up and down life of any average person. She went, by choice, into obscurity. 

She was not forgotten. It took time, but her image and her movies, kept circulating, and eventually something was suddenly realised. That over the generations, as cultural perceptions changed in society and politics, as the tastes in media and entertainment developed, as generation added another generation and another, her image endured. That seemingly out of nowhere, she had become a post-modern idol.

She became a new poster, she became a t-shirt, she became a car panel decal, she became a tattoo, a fanzine, she became a deck of playing cards, a doll, a statue, she became a video and then a dvd, then a download. Artists had come to idolize her image. Dave Stevens turned her into a comic character, which in turn became the most iconic female image of lowbrow comic inspired art. She proceeded to inspire artists of different disciplines. Most prominent being Olivia De Berardinis who created new fantasy images of her, all iconic, that have become posters and a best selling art book.

Models and actresses were inspired by her look, numerous doing photo shoots, from porn stars like Jenna Jamison to academy award winning actresses like Renee Zellweger. She has influenced Madonna, The SuicideGirls, fashion lines, burlesque revival shows and fetish balls. Perhaps the person who has done the most to promote her to the modern mainstream is Dita Von Teese, especially in her hugely successful book Burlesque and the Art of the Teese/Fetish and the Art of the Teese. In 2005 there was the biopic The Notorious Bettie Page. She is still being impersonated and paid tribute in magazines like Playboy and Vogue.

But what was really cool about this person? That though this rediscovered fame came as a surprise to her, this ordinary person thought it was rather neat. She had no shame about her past, no recriminations, no want to turn her back on it. She did request no photographs of how she looked in her later years. She wanted her image to be of the past and not to be connected to a current reality. She wanted that image to remain forever as we see it today.

And that image, that person, has become one of the icons of 20th Century pop culture.

Who was she?

Who is she?

She is Bettie Page.

Bettie Page April 22, 1923 - December 11, 2008