Bettie Page (1923-2008)

You’ve probably already heard the news by now, but, after being hospitalized earlier this week with pneumonia, 1950’s pin-up queen Bettie Page died yesterday in Los Angeles at the age of 85. Now, I’m not the world’s foremost authority on Miss Bettie Page, but all I know is that every cool girl at Harbor High School wanted to be her and every dude I knew wanted to, well, let’s just say “date” her.

Though she gave up her modeling and acting career in the late fifties, Page’s ginormous resurgence in the 1980’s coincided with my teenage years and let me tell ya, she made a huge impact on me and my brother. Aside from her obvious physical “gifts”, the thing we really dug about Page is that she was so freaking “girl next door” cute.

Even in her most lurid bondage pics Page had that cutie pie smile that told you she was in on the joke and that as soon as she finished spanking or whipping her playmate on the couch she was gonna cook you up a mean meatloaf or something. And best of all, Page was a real woman, with real curves, who looked like she enjoyed the car-hop window at Bob’s Big Boy almost as much as I do. Seriously…how could I not love the woman?

Like I said above, I don’t know much about Page’s personal life — and no, I haven’t seen that “Notorious Bettie Page” biopic, but that’s mostly because I can only stomach Gretchen Mol in very small doses — so, maybe Page’s life off-camera was a train wreck. But based on her iconic pics, I gotta say, the lady had it going on, big time.

And if I had a nickel for every hip, rockabilly chick in high school and college who stole Bettie’s style, well, shit, I’d have a lot of frigging nickels. Simply put, if Greta Garbo was “The Face” of the 20th Century, then you can bet your ass that good old, cornfed Bettie Page was “The Bod”.

Rest in peace, Bettie Page, we’ll miss you…