Bettie Page

Bettie Page was a former Playboy Playmate and fetish model whose 1950s pin-up work turned her into a cultural touchstone decades later. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, as the second child in her family, she spent her early years moving around the country as her parents sought steady work. When she was 10, her parents divorced, and she and her sister lived in an orphanage for a year. During her teens, she and her sisters copied their favorite actors by experimenting with makeup and hairstyles and learning to sew; those skills later let her craft her own costumes and looks for photo shoots.

After high school, Bettie received a $10,000 trust fund and enrolled at George Peabody College, hoping to become a teacher. She shifted to studying acting the following fall and took a job typing for author Alfred Leland Crab. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Peabody. The year before she married Billy Neal, he left for World War II. She traveled to San Francisco, Nashville, Miami, and Port-au-Prince, Haiti, then filed for divorce from Neal in November 1947.

Her modeling career spanned 1951 to 1957, during which she worked as an adult model, centerfold, exotic dancer, fetish model, and Playboy Model. She became Playboy's Playmate of the Month in January 1955. After retiring, she faded into obscurity, but a cult following emerged in the 1980s. She passed away on December 11, 2008, at age 85, with her death attributed to pneumonia or a myocardial infarction.