Bettie Page is a Christian, but you won't find any web pages other than mine that promote her as such. And that's an indictment against Christianity. Miss Page left her career as a pinup and artist's model, indeed she was one of the most photographed women in the world, to become a Christian missionary. In the unforgiving community of evangelical Christianity, where a previous divorce severely limited her options, Miss Page hid the truth about her modeling career and the truth about her childhood and youth. Miss Page had been sexually molested by her father, sexually assaulted by her mother, and sexually brutalized by a group of men that had kidnapped the young model in New York.

Looking for acceptance among Christians, a place where she hoped she might be loved for who she was, she was instead subjected to the petty meddling of busybodies obsessed with her marital status. Hoping to give to others, to help those less fortunate than herself, Miss Page was disqualified due to her divorce. What would these people have thought had she ventured to share the whole of her past?

Looking at Bettie Page's pictures, and her dancing in the two Irving Klaw burlesque videos, Varietease and Teaserama, it's difficult to miss the irrepressible joy that radiates from Miss Page's face. It's this joy, this pure unselfconscious delight, that makes Bettie Page an icon adored by men and women alike. Miss Page was very, very good at what she did.

It must have been difficult, if not impossible, to deny the skill and artistry she had attained to try to fit into the Christian world. If modeling and dancing were ways that Bettie Page contextualized and gained power over the sexual abuses she suffered in the past, Christianity could have been a way to contextualize and order her other choices. Instead Christianity served only to deny and repress a part of Bettie that should have contributed to her sense of uniqueness.

It comes as no surprise that Bettie Page could not reconcile her past with her Christian life, and that this conflict resulted in violence and mental illness. The Christian church is ill-equipped to deal with real problems, to even recognize real problems. Any Tom, Dick, or Harry preacher will prescribe Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, and then act shocked and surprised when an Andrea Yates or a Deanna Laney snaps and kills her kids.

Richard Foster details Miss Page's hospitalizations, her petty and serious crimes, and incarcerations in The Real Bettie Page | The Truth About the Queen of the Pinups. I won't belabor the facts here. What I will do is review Miss Page's attempts to fit into the Christian community.

Bettie Page and Christian Culture

Kefauver

Though most of the prudery that Miss Page was subjected to cowered behind a cross, some of it came wrapped in the American flag.

Senator Kefauver performs with his wife Maureen, and a donkey

Senator Estus Kefauver, a Democrat from Bettie Page's home state of Tennessee, made his political career battling the evil of comic books and Irving Klaw's bondage photographs, for which Bettie Page had posed. Many believe it was the subpoena to appear before the Senate that frightened Miss Page into abandoning her modeling career.

Bettie Page was taken to church as a young girl, but it wasn't until she ended her modeling career that she seriously turned to religion. In Key West, Florida, on a lonely New Year's Eve in 1958 Miss Page was drawn to a service in what is now The Key West Temple Baptist Church. Reverend Morris O. Wright was the pastor then, and he led Betty to Christ that night. Pastor Wright is still active in the church, preaching against homosexuality, and writing occasionally for The Flaming Torch, an independent Baptist publication. Wright became a pastor while spending a year in jail for killing a man in an automobile accident.

At the time Miss Page attended the Wright's church it was known as The Latin American Baptist Temple, an interracial service, rare for the pre-civil rights era. Bettie Page was drawn to a mixed race environment. She had worked briefly as a secretary in Haiti, and was deeply moved by the poverty she saw. Her friends were from all walks of life, including gays and blacks. Indeed, it was a black man, Jerry Tibbs, a policeman and photographer, who suggested to Bettie Page that she cut her bangs in what has become her trademark style.

Bettie Page attended three Bible colleges. As a girl she had been an excellent student, second in her class. She would have been class valedictorian qualifying for a full college scholarship but the requirements conflicted with her school's theater performance, in which she was involved. Bettie Page also worked on the school paper. After high school she put herself through college earning a degree in education and later attended graduate school, ending her studies a couple of history classes shy of a master's degree.

BIOLA

The first Bible college Miss Page attended was BIOLA, the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, founded by Lyman Stewart, the president of Union Oil. Its interracial mission must have appealed to Betty, "For the teaching of the truths for which the Institute stands, its doors are to be open every day of the year, and all people, without reference to race, color or class will ever be welcome to its privileges." Miss Page moved from BIOLA to the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago where she studied briefly.

Multnomah Bible College

She later attended Multnomah, near Portland, calling these "...the happiest years of my life." While attending school there Bettie Page volunteered at The Louise Home, a home for unwed mothers. It was the Mission Board at Multnomah that rejected Bettie Page because of her divorce.

Bettie Page spent a short time at a Christian retreat in Boca Raton known as "Bibletown." In its current incarnation it is known as The Boca Raton Community Church. Now completely sanitized, in Bettie's time it had a reputation for being "nonsectarian and interracial."

Bettie Page | The Legacy

Lucha Va Voom

In Los Angeles a lovely group of women have joined together as The Velvet Hammer to recreate for a contemporary audience the burlesque of Miss Page's day. Closely associated with Lucha VaVoom, a lusty homage to Mexico's professional wrestlers, and Los Angeles car culture, Velvet Hammer enthusiastically embraces an art form that repudiates sameness and cultural sanitation. A gander at the beauties of Velvet Hammer will show that more than a few have adopted Bettie Page's trademark bangs. Interviews with the women of the Velvet Hammer and excerpts from various acts and events may be viewed in the DVD Velvet Hammer Burlesque.

Page fans are waiting anxiously for the release of Mary Harron's "The Ballad of Bettie Page," produced by Harron's Killer Films in collaboration with HBO. Former model Gretchen Mol will portray Page. Harron is known for her work on Homicide: Life on the Street, I Shot Andy Warhol, and the astringently comic American Psycho. Lily Taylor of Household Saints, and Tara Subkoff, one of the principal designers of the fashion line Imitation of Christ, also have roles in the film. Victor Slezak plays a "Miami minister," possibly Morris O. Wright.

An early Velvet Hammer invitation - an homage to Bettie

I don't know what Miss Page's current religious affiliations are. My hope is that she has found acceptance and peace. Many, many people wish for her well being and happiness and are grateful for the legend and legacy of the joyous pinup queen. Should Miss Page wish to chat or correspond with Miss Poppy she will be assured a sympathetic, respectful, and confidential ear.

Miss Poppy Dixon: Jesus, Bettie and Me, an interview