Marilyn Monroe lived her later days in a drug-induced haze that she felt she could not escape, ultimately killing herself. Bettie Page got out at her own discretion. Where's the Bettie Page postage stamp?
 Not too long ago I was made to watch an entire episode of Melrose Place.
Now, I suppose it's terribly hip to claim that you've never seen it, but Melrose can be a fairly entertaining hour if you completely clear your mind of all figments of reality and have a magazine on your lap at the same time. It also helps if your wife has control of the remote.
Anyway, in this particular episode I was intrigued by the following quantum leap of logic: Julie Newmar, playing herself (!), fends off the flirtatious business pitch of Andrew Shue (an "actor" who is mesmerizing in his complete lack of charisma) only to be won over later in the episode when Shue's character retrieves for Newmar an envelope containing blackmail material that another management agency was holding over her head in order to make her work for peanuts. Newmar deftly plays the role of indignate star throughout.
Remember, this is Julie Newmar playing herself in the Melrose universe. Even less credible than the notion that little-boy Andrew Shue might appeal in any way to the best Catwoman ever is the fact that Newmar is being blackmailed in this episode with.....racy old pinup photos! The release of these photos would somehow ruin Newmar's comeback.
Yeah. And Demi Moore's income is constantly threatened by the gynecological pics she posed for before meeting Bruce Willis? I think not.
Newmar should have insisted on script approval. I sincerely doubt that she loses any sleep over her pin-up years. This is a woman who is not in need of rescue.
The "rescue fantasy" is undeniably present-and arguable vital-in the story and appeal of America's Official Sex Symbol, Marilyn Monroe. Many men (and women) view her tragic life with pity and a farcical sense that things could have been different if they had met her. "I could have seen inside of you," the fantasy goes, "and I could have made you whole. I would have let you become Norma Jeane again."
But no one really could, or would, "save" her. Not the physical Joe Dimaggio; not the cerebral Arthur Miller; not the connected Frank Sinatra; not either sainted, powerful Kennedy brothers. Marilyn Monroe was not interested in reverting to the self she had shed like a cocoon, though she seems to have yearned for the less strenuous aspects of her pre-Marilyn days. Yes, "Candle in the Wind" is a sad song, but personal trades and deals too numerous to log here were made along the way to the establishment of Marilyn's legend. There was no flag waving for rescue; she was ambitious, pragmatic, and made choices based on the "fame at any cost" mind set we now associate with her faux-protege, Madonna.
Marilyn married and divorced with frequency, abused pharmaceuticals, went through over a dozen abortions (according to the relatively reliable Gloria Steinem in her text to the coffee table tome Marilyn) in the bad old "back alley" days when those procedures were truly life threatening. The story ends when she--barring any further revelations regarding those spunky Kennedy boys-commits suicide. She is now honored on United States postage.
BETTIE PAGE: THE LIFE OF A PINUP LEGEND ($40, 288 pgs. Karen Essex and James Swanson, General Publishing Group; limited signed copies available from Glamourcon, Inc. for $54 by calling 206/821-1760, or via the internet, Glamourcon@aol.com) is the long-awaited story of a very much alive woman who could be referred to as the anti-Monroe-but you won't be seeing Ms. Page on a stamp in this lifetime.
 The image is familiar; black hair, bangs, a disarmingly genuine smile and/or campy look of stern sexuality. Bettie Page is perhaps the most well-known unknown personality in the history of American popular culture. After a heydey during which she was the sought-after pin-up subject in the business, Bettie Page the person simply disappeared into obscurity while Bettie Page the object d'art cemented itself into America's foundation. In the intervening decades, a cult of personality built around her even as the mystery regarding her whereabouts deepened. It was almost as if she was able to effortlessly peel off the ripe public aspect of herself and leave it behind, growing in her absence, while she lived on relatively unscathed.
Unscathed, but also uncompensated for the booming business generated by her image. In and around 1992, Page's family contracted lawyer James Swanson to re-direct a rightful percentage of monies created by Bettie Page merchandise toward Bettie herself, living at that time at a very modest economic level. Swanson was told that he had no need to contact nor meet Ms. Page, but a bit of gentle lobbying convinced her that he and Karen Essex could help write the story of her life, hence The Life of a Pin-up Legend.
Swanson and Essex enjoyed the full cooperation of Ms. Page, and the narrative is imbued with the confident, straightforward, unapologetic, utterly charming personality of a person unimpressed with herself. "If I am remembered today, it is because you, the reader, see something in me that I never saw in myself," she writes in a handwritten preface to the book. "I didn't think of myself as liberated, and I don't believe that I did anything important. I was just myself. I didn't know any other way to be, or any other way to live."
As revealed in The Life of a Pin-up Legend, Bettie's endured an early life replete with jarring betrayals and disappointments: A philandering father sexually abused her; her mother was threatened by her daughter's youth and beauty to the point of expelling her from their home; and, in the first of many near-misses, Bettie was edged out of being high school class valedictorian-and receiving a full college scholarship-by a quarter grade point. As she began to search for a career, her commitment to salvaging a hurried-into wartime marriage forced her to skip a Warner Bros. screen test. Perhaps most tragic of all, Bettie was sexually assaulted mere days after arriving in New York to pursue work as an actress. None of these incidents appear to have produced any bitterness or self pity in Bettie, and they are recalled in a matter of fact manner which belies, above mere acceptance, a palpable sense of sincere forgiveness.
In 1950 Bettie began modeling for "camera clubs" while working as a secretary in New York. Anything but self-conscious about her body, Bettie recalls her first nude session with the nonchalance most people would use to describe their first ride in a car with automatic windows. It wasn't long before she came to attention of professional pin-up photographers, and the rest is history.
It's worth noting that Bettie did the bulk of her work when she was in her early- and mid-thirties, unfazed by any notion of age limitation. Her chronological maturity surely contributed to The Look: a confident, exceedingly likable sexuality the like of which has never been duplicated before or since. There's something wholesome about even her most unwholesome pin-ups; it always looks like Bettie is having fun. You don't want to rescue her-you want to buy her an ice cream cone (what you want to do beyond that is your own business; I'm a married man). Except for the bangs (a suggestion made by a photographer), Bettie's image-The Look-was wholly created and maintained by Bettie herself, right down to sewing her own outfits. Who can argue that she shouldn't collect some manner of royalties from the countless products bearing her likeness?
A surprising revelation in The Life of a Pin-Up Legend concerns Betties current relationship with photographer Bunny Yeager. Those of us who've seen the books and trading cards with Yeager's name on them and Bettie's pictures inside can't help but find offensive the fact that Yeager did not cooperate with the creation of this book. Her response to Bettie's personal request for photos brought the following appalling response: "What has Bettie Page done for me lately?"
Ms. Yeager, I suspect that you have effectively bought yourself a boycott of materials bearing your name.
In startling contradiction to the astounding cross-generational appeal of Bettie's image-clothed or unclothed-are the Irving Klaw "bondage" photos that eventually roused the ire of the Kefauver Committee. Though there is no nudity in any of the Klaw material, the appeal of their "girl in peril" theme is simply hard to fathom in the context of modern sensibilities. Is this a "rescue fantasy" kink, or something darker? Legend has it that Klaw custom-shot these pics for a "high ranking government official" who then allowed Klaw to sell the results; of course, when these shots dribbled down to the common man via under-the-counter sales and mail order, the government (through Kefauver) stepped in to preserve our great nation's puritan soul. Bettie describes the Klaw sessions as nothing but fun, all done under the watchful eyes of the protective Paula Klaw-truly a situation and attitude unique to its time period. The depths of cruelty we as a nation have seen in the period between those innocent days and now preclude viewing a photo of a trussed up woman without a sense of disturbance.
"Harmless" as they were, the Klaw photos eventually forced Bettie into retirement from her pin-up career as she began to suffer from Kefauver's guilt-by-association intimidation tactics. It's this stage of her life-the step backward into obscurity-that reveals Bettie's reward for her consistent integrity up to that point; she was beholden to no one (despite brushes with Hefner and Hughes), kept her personhood intact, made no "success at any cost" pacts, and was able to simply walk away alive and whole. No rescue needed.
The Life of a Pin-Up Legend is a warm look at a positive person who lived proactively and without regret. Though the financial rewards were not always-if ever-there for her, Bettie emerged from a public career with ownership of herself, if not her catalog of pictures. With new books surely on the way and an HBO movie about her life in the works, Bettie Page will soon become a household name. But she will not become the subject of a United States stamp, because Bettie Page did what Elvis couldn't, Marilyn wouldn't, and James Dean just didn't care to do. Bettie Page kept herself alive. Bettie Page kept herself.
Despite her humility, I like to think she lives today with at least a hint of the fact that she accomplished something astounding.
(c) 2002 John Michlig
Bettie Page Part 2: Who is the Real Bettie Page?
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