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Bettie Page

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Bettie Page in a pose from the 1950s.

Bettie Page is tied and spanked in an image from Bizarre magazine.

Bettie Page (1923 - 2008) was an American model and actress. She was born April 22, 1923 in Nashville, Tennessee, and became famous in the 1950s for her fetish modeling and pin-up photos.

Due to her jet-black hair she was also nicknamed "Dark Angel." She was one of the most photographed models of the 1950s. She appeared in hundreds of girlie magazines and photography journals and posed nude for private "camera club" sessions (but did not do any sexually explicit photos). Page also became the best-known BDSM and fetish model of the 1950s. Through the American photographer and filmmaker Irving Klaw, one of the first fetish photographers, Page became the first famous bondage model.

She appeared in countless fetishistic spanking photos as the over-the-knee or bound and gagged victim as well as the stern disciplinarian. She often posed as a corset-clad dominatrix in high heels or leather boots brandishing a whip or riding crop. She also acted in dozens of Klaw's silent 16mm bondage/spanking videos, again as both submissive and dominant. For today's viewers, her work, half a century old, has a nostalgic, vintage touch.

Despite the risque nature of her photos and films, Page had an appealing, girl-next-door aura that made her accessible (and popular) regardless of the setting or subject matter. This came from her innocent, nonjudgmental attitude about posing in the nude or in bizarre fetishistic costumes. She saw nothing depraved or immoral about her modeling work and regarded it all as harmless fantasy material.

Her modern sensibility (which was shared by Klaw) was in direct conflict with the conservative and reactionary mentality of the 1950s. The negative publicity from the 1957 Kefauver Hearings on pornography led to the early retirement of both Klaw and Page.

Page died on December 11, 2008 in Los Angeles, aged 85.

[edit] Filmography

Striporama (1953)
Varietease (1954)
Teaserama (1955)

Bettie Page: Dark Angel (2004) is a Cult Epics direct-to-disc biopic that recreates six lost films that Page made for Klaw. The story concentrates entirely on the five-year period that Page worked for Klaw as a model.

The Notorious Bettie Page (2005) is a biographical film that stars Gretchen Mol as Page. It covers the twenty-year period from her childhood in the late Thirties to her retirement from modeling in the late Fifties. Most of the story centers on the 1952-1957 period when she worked for Irving Klaw and recreates several of her bondage photoshoots and films-loops.

Bettie Page: Bondage Queen (Cult Epics, 2005) is a collection of 28 of Irving Klaw's bondage film-loops from the 1950s. Half of them feature Page as a stern domme or a bound and spanked slave. These are brief, 16mm black-and-white silent featurettes with added music and narration. This DVD is a reissue of the two-volume 1984 video Irving Klaw Bondage Classics from London Enterprises.

Bettie Page: Pin Up Queen (Cult Epics, 2005) is a compilation of her burlesque dances and skits from three color features by Klaw (Striporama, Varietease, Teaserama) plus a dozen black-and-white film loops. The last one, "Pin-up Beauties Fight", has energetic wrestling and spanking.

Bizarro Sex Loops (Volume 4) features Page and two other models in "Bondage Rough House Battle." This long-running series of vintage underground BDSM shorts from the 1950s to the 1970s is produced by Something Weird Video.