Emulated by woman of all ages, like a sex symbol of the underground, Our Lady of Kinky Fun, at 74 years old, Bettie Page is still the polar opposite of uptight – and she’ll teach you something about relationships, too. Bettie agreed to be interviewed by Jeffrey Goldsmith in the late 1990s.
JG: Were you just wild for the camera, or really wild?
BP: I guess you could say I was wild for the camera. I felt so free and uninhibited when I was posing. I guess today it could really be misconstrued for wild.
JG: So you don’t think you were really wild?
BP: No, no. I don’t understand how you can call my widow dancing, wild. They were very tame. All I did was wiggle around. I don’t even think I did any bumps and grinds. Maybe little tiny ones, here and there. By today’s standards they were very tame.
JG: Single Spark Pictures is going to make a feature film about the story of your life. Do you like the idea?
BP: Oh, sure why not? It kind of makes me laugh a little, though. I don’t think my life was interesting enough to make a full length movie about it. Besides, in the mainstream, they don’t know me from Adam and I don’t think a movie would sell.
JG: Do you have any problem with the idea that sex sells?
BP: No, I don’t. After all, sex is an important part of our lives and should not be kept hidden in a closet somewhere. If people were not so uptight, sex wouldn’t be such a big seller.
JG: I guess that’s true. Why do you think some people are uptight?
BP: I think they’re afraid of letting themselves go and relaxing and telling the other person that they’re having sex with or attempting to have sex with what to do to please them. I think they’re afraid or too shy to tell them. Parents don’t even teach children about sex and how to take care of themselves or teach them anything about it. Even today they don’t. Years ago, of course it was much worse. Mum was the word for a parent to ever say anything to a child about sex.
JG: I think probably because their parents are embarrassed.
BP: Probably so.
JG: My wife wondered if you thought you contributed to the sexual revolution in the sixties?
BP: Now I figure maybe I did. Not because I was rebellious or into peace and love or into hippie stuff. You know why I think people equate me with the sexual revolution? Because I wasn’t uptight. As far as nudity and sex was concerned, I did what I felt like doing no matter what other people thought. That’s what must make me stand out.
JG: And today? We have sexual freedom and AIDs simultaneously. Doesn’t it seem like there’s a contradiction?
BP: I pray there’s a cure for AIDS very soon. In my eyes, sexual freedom and responsibility to the body go hand in hand. I don’t believe in being promiscuous. I never did. I don’t believe in having sex with every Tom, Dick and Harry who comes along. I had to love a man or at least like him a lot, before I would go all the way with him. Nine-tenths of the time I just indulged in heavy petting.
JG: So one-tenth of the time…?
BP: Well, I haven’t had much actual intercourse as people seem to think I have. In fact, those seven years I worked in New York as a model I had less sex then than anytime in my life. Three years of that time I was going with an actor who didn’t even turn me on sexually. We were like brothers and sisters. We even went on a long trip up through New England and up into Canada and the Gaspay Peninsula, New Foundland, and Novia Scotia and we slept in pup tents or in the car, just like a brother and sister. Once in awhile maybe a couple of kisses but I just didn’t feel attracted to him. I think he was undersexed.
JG: When was your first kiss, Bettie.
BP: I was 16 when I was kissed for the first time. It was during rehearsals for the senior play, Barclay Square. Ed Hushey and I had the leading roles as husband and wife. Late one afternoon, I let him take me home. After we got off the bus we walked up the hill and explored the old wicked house up there. All of a sudden he grabbed me and kissed me. A big thrill went all over me and I kissed him back. We didn’t stop with just one kiss, either. But we didn’t do anything drastic.
JG: Well, how did you start posing?
BP: I was about 10 years old when I began to pose in a game with my sisters. We called it Playing Program. One of us would call out the name of someone and the other person would have to act like it. Say, Hula Dancer, for instance. Then I would break into a hula, swinging my hips from side to side and singing La Cucaracha, of all things. I loved that game. Goldie or Love, my sisters, always asked me to mimic poses of movie stars whose pictures came out in the Sunday newspaper.
JG: And when were you first photographed or filmed?
BP: In October, 1950, I was walking on the beach out at Coney Island late one afternoon. The beach was practically deserted. I saw this good looking black fellow wearing little blue trunks doing his exercises on the beach. I went and sat out near him and watched him for about half an hour. When he put his clothes on he came over to me and he said, “Have you ever done any photographic modeling?” I said, “No.” He said, “I think you’d make a good pin-up model.” He said, “Here’s my card. I’m a Brooklyn policeman but I have a studio, and photography is my hobby.” He said, “I’ll make up a portfolio for you free of charge if you’ll pose for me so you can take it around to the photographers.” So, I went the next Monday. He had a couple of bikinis that I posed in. But he stuffed my bras with Kleenex. I thought it looked ridiculous. And you can tell that there’s something in there besides me. I don’t know why he did it, but he did.
JG: Well, how would you define sexiness?
BP: That’s a hard question. I think a sexy woman is one who has a pretty face and a well rounded figure and who wears revealing clothes that show off her good body to the best advantage. I never think of men as being sexy, only women.
JG: Do you think your image is sexy?
BP: I never thought of myself as being sexy at all. I just tried to make myself as attractive as possible and keep my body in good condition. I have always spoken openly about sexual matters. Frankly, I have no problems telling a girl she has lovely breasts either, if I think she does. Nobody else can explain why a particular person turns you on and another does not.
JG: I guess that’s true. I can’t tell you why I married my wife.
BP: I can’t tell you why I married two of my three husbands. I let it pass. Chalk it up to poor judgement.
JG: Speak for yourself, Bettie. ( WE LAUGH) Anyway, in your opinion, who is the sexiest woman who ever lived?
BP: Perhaps it was Marilyn Monroe. I’m referring to her outward appearance. I’ve been told she was no great shakes as a lover.
JG: Who told you Marilyn Monroe wasn’t a great lover?
BP: I’ve heard that all my life from a couple of actors who knew her that I met in New York. They said that she was nothing in bed, but Marilyn Monroe was a world renowned figure. Everyone knew of Marilyn. I wasn’t nearly that well known. I’ve said before that I think I had better legs than she did. Her breasts were much prettier than mine. She had it all over me in the upper stories.
JG: Did you feel like that you have power over men because of the way you look or the way you posed?
BP: Not really. I sometimes used to imagine that the camera was a man I desperately wanted to seduce. That’s all. But I never thought my pictures gave me any power over man or anything like that. That never entered my mind.
JG: No, when I look at your face in this photograph that you sent me, I almost see a kind of innocence or sweetness more than anything.
BP: That’s what people keep saying. They say that at one moment I made them think of the girl next door and the next, of a fallen woman. That that showed in my face.
JG: Do you think you’re the girl next door or a fallen woman?
BP: Neither one. I’d say I’m in between.
JG: Sounds like a good position. Do you have any unfulfilled dreams, Bettie?
BP: Nothing I can really complain about. Sometimes I wish I had been able to have children. I always wanted two boys and a girl. I tried to become pregnant during two of my marriages, but no luck. The doctors kept telling me I had a hormone imbalance, whatever that means. And I couldn’t have children.
JG: That’s very sad.
BP: Well, with my third husband I had a ready made family. He had two boys and a girl. It’s just that the children’s mother, his ex-wife Pat, lived only a mile from us. The woman never liked anything I did with those children. And she would call me up at 4: 00 and 5: 00 in the middle of the night and cuss me out because of something the children had told her when they’d go to visit her every other weekend. So, I got out of the marriage after five years. Unfortunately, right after I divorced Harry, she married another guy and moved to Tampa. If she had met the man and married him at the beginning of my marriage to Harry, we would have been able to make it.
JG: You’re still angry about that.
BP: Well, I’ll never live it down I guess.
JG: She sounds like a psycho.
BP: Oh, I know.
JG: Well, how is your life now?
BP: It’s pretty quiet and peaceful, I’m glad to say. I’m a homebody now. I care an awful lot about my health these days. I’m into anti-aging and longevity. I would like to live to be 100.
JG: Thank you very much for the interview, Betty.
BP: You’re quite welcome. Thank you for putting me in your magazine.
