Bettie Page , the 1950s pin-up model who helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution , has died .
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bettie page 1950 pin-up model help set stage 1960s sexual revolution die
Bettie Page , the 1950s pin-up model who helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution , has <m> died </m> .
Bettie Page , the 1950s pin-up model who helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution , has <m> died </m> .
She was 85 .
Her agent , Mark Roesler , said Page died yesterday at a Los Angeles hospital after suffering a heart attack on December 2 .
She never regained consciousness .
Page , who became religious and suffered depression in later life , spending years in a mental institution , inspired the 2005 film The Notorious Bettie Page .
She became a cult figure for magazine photographs of her bikinis and see-through lingerie , which were tacked on walls across the US .
After resurfacing in the 1990s , she occasionally granted interviews but refused to allow her picture to be taken .
`` I do n't want to be photographed in my old age , '' she said in 1998 .
`` I feel the same way with old movie stars ...
It makes me sad .
We want to remember them when they were young . ''
Her photos included a centrefold in the January 1955 issue of the then fledgling Playboy magazine , as well as controversial sadomasochistic poses .
The latter helped contribute to her mysterious disappearance from the public eye , which lasted for decades and included years during which she battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian .
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner said:
`` She was a remarkable lady , an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality , taste in fashion , someone who had a tremendous impact on our society .
She was a very dear person . ''
Roesler said Page had been in hospital for three weeks with pneumonia and was about to be released when she suffered the heart attack on December 2 .
Her career began in October 1950 when she took a break from her job as a secretary in a New York office to take a walk along the beach at Coney Island .
An amateur photographer named Jerry Tibbs admired the 27-year-old 's firm , curvy body and asked her to pose .
Looking back on the career that followed , she told Playboy in 1998:
`` I never thought it was shameful .
I felt normal .
It 's just that it was much better than pounding a typewriter eight hours a day . ''
Nudity did n't bother her , she said , explaining:
`` God approves of nudity .
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden , they were naked as jaybirds . ''
They cut her hair into the dark bangs that became her signature and posed her in spiked heels and little else .
She was photographed with a whip in her hand , and in one session she was spreadeagled between two trees , her feet dangling .
`` I thought my arms and legs would come out of their sockets , '' she said later .
Moralists denounced the photos as perversion , and senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee , Page 's home state , launched a congressional investigation .
Page quickly retreated from public view , later saying she was hounded by federal agents who waved her nude photos in her face .
And she said she believed that , at 34 , her days as `` the girl with the perfect figure '' were nearly over .
She moved to Florida in 1957 and married a much younger man , after an early marriage to her high school sweetheart had ended in divorce .
Her second marriage also failed , as did a third , and she suffered a nervous breakdown .
Born on April 22 , 1923 , in Nashville , Tennessee , Page said she grew up in a family so poor `` we were lucky to get an orange in our Christmas stockings '' .