Las Vegas Weekly

December 11, 2008 · 8:26 PM

Breaking News: Pinup queen Bettie Page, 85, passes away in L.A.

By Robin Leach

My artist friend Olivia in the Bettie Page store in Planet Hollywood. She and I both befriended Bettie.

Photo: TVT

After being rushed to a Los Angeles hospital for a heart attack two weeks ago, pinup queen Bettie Page died tonight. She was 85.

It was in the 1950s that she shot to fame with her sexy and suggestive lingerie and bikini photographs. Hugh Hefner included some of her S&M play fetish photos in his January 1955 edition of the newly born Playboy magazine. He always described her as the woman who set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution.

Bettie was a secretary before she became a model, and in those days of no royalties, thousands of her photos and versions of her image appeared worldwide in publications and on products for which she received no payment. Eventually, she retreated from public view and hid from everybody until I spent three months tracking her down and found her living in impoverished conditions in a California trailer park.

We ran an audio-only interview with her on my old show Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous because she wouldn’t go on camera in an overweight condition. “I want them to remember me for how I looked back then and not like this now,” she explained.

We reunited her with a lost family, and her attorney brother set about claiming royalties from everybody who had used her image without her permission. That was back in the days well before YouTube and podcasts, but I’ll see if I can find our original video and audio story and if it’s possible upload it to YouTube.

Hef helped with generous payments for follow-up stories and a salute pictorial to her. Bettie lost weight, and she and I were invited to the Playboy Mansion to celebrate her return from oblivion.

I was thrilled when a retail boutique in the Miracle Mile at Planet Hollywood opened in her honor with a line of her yesteryear fashion styles. My friend artist Olivia, who based many of her illustrations and interpretations on Bettie’s pinup poses, also befriended her.

Now we have only the memories left. A lot of people will be sad this evening at her loss. We send our condolences to her family and friends, but know that with continuing Bettie Page tribute nights and look-alike contests worldwide, her memory -- and legacy -- will remain for a long time to come.

Click HERE for The Associated Press story on Bettie's passing.

Click HERE for the Cinema Blend story that cites yours truly.

And click HERE for a tribute by Elizabeth Snead of the Los Angeles Times.

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