Bettie Page was a model and pin-up girl who rose to fame during the fifties. She developed a cult following for being the first pin-up girl to take part in fetish modeling.
Bettie Page was born in Kingsport, Tennessee on April 22nd, 1923. Her parents divorced when she was ten, and she briefly lived at an orphanage with her sister. Bettie Page graduated from Hume-Fogg High School and attended Peabody College where she first became interested in acting. She obtained a bachelor's degree from Peabody then married a former high school classmate of hers. She ended up divorcing him two years after he returned from World War II and moved to New York City to try and start an acting career. During the fifties she became successful modeling in New York camera clubs, and appeared in magazines such as "Beauty Parade", "Eyeful", "Wink" and "Black Nylons". She became the first well known bondage model as a result of mail order photographs she had taken by Irving Klaw. She also gained the support of Hugh Hefner, and was one of the first Playboy magazine Playmates of the Month in 1955, two years after the magazine first came out.
In the late fifties, despite great and ongoing modeling success, Bettie Page left the world of modeling. It is unclear what caused her to stop modeling or what she has been doing during the years since. As of 2007, she is still alive and in her eighties. In 2003, a photograph was taken of her with Hugh Hefner, so it is possible to see what she looks like now. Because she wasn't photographed and disappeared so completely for such a long time, her legend has remained strong in American consciousness.