What do you think?
Rate this book
Bettie Page: The Life of a Pin-Up Legend
The ultimate girl-next-door, and one of the most popular Playboy centerfolds, Bettie Page challenged the conservative 1950s, posing as a fierce dominatrix, and earning both a cult underground following and a Senate Committee investigation. This book chronicles Page's life and career, telling the incredible story of a woman who has left an indeliable mark on the history of popular culture. 500 photos.
Hardcover
First published February 1, 1996
2 people are currently reading
390 people want to read
About the author
Karen Essex
21 books378 followersI'm the author of RUN, DARLING, KLEOPATRA, PHARAOH, LEONARDO'S SWANS, STEALING ATHENA, DRACULA IN LOVE, AND BETTIE PAGE: LIFE OF A PINUP LEGEND--All featuring iconic women—powerful women that seduced the world. I am an active screenwriter and an award-winning journalist, dividing my time between Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Europe, where I soak in the atmosphere while writing historical fiction.
Follow me on Substack; History. Sex. Power. https://karenessex.substack.com/subsc...
Or join our chat group on Goodreads, Ask Karen Essex. http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/5...
I love hearing from you, Gentle Readers.
Follow me on Substack; History. Sex. Power. https://karenessex.substack.com/subsc...
Or join our chat group on Goodreads, Ask Karen Essex. http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/5...
I love hearing from you, Gentle Readers.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 7, 2013
This book is a great halfway house between coffee-table picture book and serious biography: while it excels at the former, within its restrictions it makes a damn good stab at the latter too.
Bettie Page was (and still is) enigmatic: it was the 1950s and there was the girl-next-door's sparkling eyes and smile in leather corsets, whips and ball-gag. She's the only pin-up of her generation still remembered, and yet her photos were only available in under-the-counter photo sets and fetish magazines. She was a model photographed almost exclusively by amateur "shutterbugs" at photgraphy-enthusiast's groups, or in bondage at the Irving Klaw studio. And then, after the police closed the Klaw studio, in 1957, after just 7 years of modelling, she disappeared - so completely that not only could nobody find her, she didn't even know until the early 90s what an iconic image she'd become. So why on earth has her image lasted so long?
This book was the first to be written with Bettie's full co-operation. The authors spent a week interviewing her in Los Angeles and we get the image of a girl who had nothing to hide. Despite sexual abuse at the hands of her father, and a hugely serious sexual assault by a gang of men (this was before she started her modelling), she retained a vibrancy, a sparkle, an ability to take the world as it came and an almost innocent approach to sexuality. "I was happy as a lark when naked" she says at the end of the book and it's that that still draws people to her: other models of the time pouted and gazed to the middle distance, whereas Bettie stared into the camera with that wide smile as though inviting the viewer into what she saw as a huge lark - the sexually free girl next door.
But Bettie Page is only "Bettie Page" because of her underground fetish work - she was a beauty, sure, but she'd just have been the best of those models of the time, if she hadn't become the dark-haired, be-fringed, leather-clad, whip-holding, hog-tied, ball-gagged, hairbrush-spanking angel of dark fantasies - and the cherry on top, was that Bettie always looked as though she was having a ball, never a victim but always a willing participant. Yet her pictures are never pornographic, never more than softest core (at most, you see nipples) and as a God-fearing southern Belle it's unlikely that we'd have got to see Bettie, had she entered the same modelling world 15 years later when "teasing" was no longer allowed.
So, if you're at all interested in Bettie Page, the phenomena or the real woman, this book is hugely recommend. The writing is insightful (although I could have done without the hagiography from the modern fashionistas at the end) but the main reason to buy this book is for the hundreds and hundreds of photos of Bettie - Bettie naked, Bettie bound and gagged, Bettie in ludicrously high heels, Bettie in bikinis (bikinis she designed and made herself - designs stolen from her and sold without her permission by just a couple of the many people willing to make money from Bettie's image and notoriety), Bettie's candid moments and everyday snapshots with family and friends and just relaxing about, Bettie rollerskating around New York in stockings with a Gorilla dressed in a US Sailor's uniform! (I kid you not).
Bettie Page was (and still is) enigmatic: it was the 1950s and there was the girl-next-door's sparkling eyes and smile in leather corsets, whips and ball-gag. She's the only pin-up of her generation still remembered, and yet her photos were only available in under-the-counter photo sets and fetish magazines. She was a model photographed almost exclusively by amateur "shutterbugs" at photgraphy-enthusiast's groups, or in bondage at the Irving Klaw studio. And then, after the police closed the Klaw studio, in 1957, after just 7 years of modelling, she disappeared - so completely that not only could nobody find her, she didn't even know until the early 90s what an iconic image she'd become. So why on earth has her image lasted so long?
This book was the first to be written with Bettie's full co-operation. The authors spent a week interviewing her in Los Angeles and we get the image of a girl who had nothing to hide. Despite sexual abuse at the hands of her father, and a hugely serious sexual assault by a gang of men (this was before she started her modelling), she retained a vibrancy, a sparkle, an ability to take the world as it came and an almost innocent approach to sexuality. "I was happy as a lark when naked" she says at the end of the book and it's that that still draws people to her: other models of the time pouted and gazed to the middle distance, whereas Bettie stared into the camera with that wide smile as though inviting the viewer into what she saw as a huge lark - the sexually free girl next door.
But Bettie Page is only "Bettie Page" because of her underground fetish work - she was a beauty, sure, but she'd just have been the best of those models of the time, if she hadn't become the dark-haired, be-fringed, leather-clad, whip-holding, hog-tied, ball-gagged, hairbrush-spanking angel of dark fantasies - and the cherry on top, was that Bettie always looked as though she was having a ball, never a victim but always a willing participant. Yet her pictures are never pornographic, never more than softest core (at most, you see nipples) and as a God-fearing southern Belle it's unlikely that we'd have got to see Bettie, had she entered the same modelling world 15 years later when "teasing" was no longer allowed.
So, if you're at all interested in Bettie Page, the phenomena or the real woman, this book is hugely recommend. The writing is insightful (although I could have done without the hagiography from the modern fashionistas at the end) but the main reason to buy this book is for the hundreds and hundreds of photos of Bettie - Bettie naked, Bettie bound and gagged, Bettie in ludicrously high heels, Bettie in bikinis (bikinis she designed and made herself - designs stolen from her and sold without her permission by just a couple of the many people willing to make money from Bettie's image and notoriety), Bettie's candid moments and everyday snapshots with family and friends and just relaxing about, Bettie rollerskating around New York in stockings with a Gorilla dressed in a US Sailor's uniform! (I kid you not).
February 18, 2010
I'm a huge Bettie Page fan. I guess it's because she did what she damn well wanted to do, regardless of what the social mores of the time dictated, but she wasn't doing it *because* she was told not to, or to make any big statement to the world. She was just having a good time and doing work that she enjoyed. So what if that was letting guys take pictures of her in her skivvies (or less). Go on with your bad self, Bettie!
I thought this was an interesting history, told by Ms. Page herself, and including a lot of early-life photos and stories.
I thought this was an interesting history, told by Ms. Page herself, and including a lot of early-life photos and stories.
February 15, 2013
Loved the 1996 hardcover- still looking for it as it seems to have 'vaporised' during one of my moves. This book, while flawed is an essential (well,,'top ten') entry to any sentient person's collection. I used to keep it and one of ( the late) Doctor William Maple's books on coffee table.
October 14, 2021
Really joyous!
Read
February 5, 2015Ayer, en vez de seguir resumiendo y estudiando me puse a ver "Bettie Page Reveals All", la primera vez que escucho la historia de la insuperable pin-up no habrá ninguna igual, no habra ninguna desde su propio punto de vista, sus propios recuerdos.
Y wow Que mujer! Una de las pocas estrellas auténticas, de esas que eran más personas que mitos; una mujer real, no una mera fantasía. Una persona,tal cual se la veía en las fotos: Pura libertad, pura sonrisa...
(Bue, al menos hasta sus años posteriores y lo que le pasó después.)
Siempre que escuchaba hablar de ella- del mito de la modelo furor- lo dicho, las interminables alabanzas, me sonaban a exageración, a pura fantasía alrededor de alguien que en realidad era misterio. Pero no, la adoración y la fascinación son bien merecidas. Es imposible no enamorarse de Bettie Page. Es imposible no sentir esa fascinación. Y no por una mera cuestión de belleza--la apariencia y ese flequillo icónico cualquiera puede imitarlo. Tiene más que ver con la autenticidad que mencionaba previamente, el juego, la felicidad casi inocente que radiaba en las fotos.
Su vida es digna de repaso, sus palabras entristecen, emocionan y fascinan.
Y wow Que mujer! Una de las pocas estrellas auténticas, de esas que eran más personas que mitos; una mujer real, no una mera fantasía. Una persona,tal cual se la veía en las fotos: Pura libertad, pura sonrisa...
(Bue, al menos hasta sus años posteriores y lo que le pasó después.)
Siempre que escuchaba hablar de ella- del mito de la modelo furor- lo dicho, las interminables alabanzas, me sonaban a exageración, a pura fantasía alrededor de alguien que en realidad era misterio. Pero no, la adoración y la fascinación son bien merecidas. Es imposible no enamorarse de Bettie Page. Es imposible no sentir esa fascinación. Y no por una mera cuestión de belleza--la apariencia y ese flequillo icónico cualquiera puede imitarlo. Tiene más que ver con la autenticidad que mencionaba previamente, el juego, la felicidad casi inocente que radiaba en las fotos.
Su vida es digna de repaso, sus palabras entristecen, emocionan y fascinan.
Read
February 13, 2010photography
Want to read
October 28, 2010There is a good movie about Bettie called The Notorious Bettie Page starring Gretchen Mol (2005).
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews