Celebrating Bettie Page On Her Birthday! 4/22 The model that shocked a nation! NSFW
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Celebrating Bettie Page On Her Birthday! 4/22 The model that shocked a nation! NSFWHappy Birthday Bettie! Bettie Page was the most photographed model of the 20th century- until the Senate and courts ordered all her pictures to be destroyed! NSFW
First I want to urge you to watch this 17 minute video on Bettie Page, who she was and what happened to her. This will set the stage for what follows. Bettie Page: The Queen of Pinup Bootlegs are the most misunderstood part of pop culture. Take for example Shakespeare. Shakespeare never had one script with an entire play. He refused to publish them in his lifetime. He had in his will that his plays were never to be performed again. Can you imagine how different the world would be if his plays died with him? His first officially published works, THE FOLIO was done by his producers after he died! Bootleggers were mainly from 3 groups in his era. One group was criminals, one was followers of Catholic King James who had been kicked off the Crown for being Catholic, one was Shakespeare nerds’ kind of like Star Trek fans today who prized themselves on the accuracy of their bootlegs. The first bootleg of HAMLET has the line, "To be or not to be. Married." These kinds of errors are easy to explain. Take a quill, a bottle of ink. Put on a Shakespeare movie or play on Youtube, and then without stopping it write the words as fast as you can! For added accuracy do it sitting on the ground outside. The gang versions were the sloppiest, the Catholics using his plays to raise money for the cause were much more accurate and the nerds topped them all. However, they did not always all do the same plays. This would lead scholars who did not know the history of bootlegs to wonder if others had written the plays. No, it's just that surviving bootlegs were wildly different because there wasn't any shorthand then so accuracy wasn't always a concern. What does this have to do with Bettie Page? Because as you will soon see, she is famous today because of bootleggers.
It is interesting to note how copyright law came to be in England in Shakespeare's time. The Catholics were printing pamphlets arguing their case that Catholics could serve in government and become royalty. These were illegal, and if you were caught with them or publishing them you went to jail. It was decided to pass a law that all publications had to be presented to the government for copyright. If your pamphlet or book was pro- Catholic- you were arrested on the spot. If a pamphlet or book was found that had no copyright, you were arrested and jailed! Copyright began as a way to stop free speech!
Ever see or hear of a silent film named NOSFERATU? Murnau and his film studio had ripped off Bram Stoker, the author of DRACULA , the family sued. The courts ordered all versions of the film and all prints to be destroyed. This was done in front of the police.  But someone kept a print. Several years later the film began being shown in the United States. Then across Europe. NOSFERATU only exists because someone ignored a court order and saved the film.
Bettie Page: The Maverick Queen
I first saw a photo of Bettie Page at a comic book convention at the age of 13. I was mesmerized. Here was a woman who seemed to be looking directly at me, the girl next door with her sexuality fully in bloom. Who was she? I asked and was told her name but little was known about her since she disappeared after her photos were banned by the government.
What?
That photo I saw at a comicbook convention began my introduction to burlesque, striptease, belly dancers, bondage/sex games, heels and stockings, I mean that photo changed my life. Powerful, beautiful sexual women became my quest, lucky for me the pill was out and free love was the fad!
I would go on to do plays about her, a film and have lectured on her. If you would like to know about one of the plays I did on Bettie (I did 3 and many more on burlesque) Click the underlined link : Read about one of my Bettie plays here A friend of Bettie's went to Tower Records to buy a relative a gift and was shocked to see a large standup of Bettie, models to assemble, calendars, her pictures on CD's. The woman left without making her purchase and brought Bettie with her back to the store.
I had the chance to talk to her a few times and took it. She still had the Southern accent that cuts through you like a hot knife on warm butter. She still hadn't wrapped her mind around the idea that many women look up to her today and even emulate her style and look. (Bettie made almost all of her clothes right down to the swimsuits). She had read the play I had written, and I sent her a video of the play. She liked it and pointed out where I was wrong in the information. She understood that was because at the time of writing it, she was still in hiding.
Maybe the word hiding is too strong a word. She had moved on, dealt with the disgrace and public humiliation she was subjected to and lived long enough to see those children whose parents condemned her, embrace and appreciate her. Here are the films that were thought to create juvenile delinquency:  Here you can hear Bettie’s own voice: Striporama (1953) Intro & Bettie Page Scene Here is Bettie in a full length Burlesque show and she is with Tempest Storm- another trailblazer (this film was also made by Irving Klaw) Teaserama (1955) Full Movie Always in our hearts Bettie Page.
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© 2024 Michael Flores
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