Bettie Page Reveals All Page #4

I've seen her work

with some very shy newcomers,

and actually help them out.

Bettie would suggest something,

"How 'bout this one,

how 'bout this one,

how 'bout this one?"

And that way she would get

him out of his shell.

Bettie is sexuality in

it's sparkly, cleanest,

most beautiful,

charming, smilingest.

But there was some discussion

about the kind of women

that would do camera club shoots

because primarily they were

nude, totally nude shoots.

And Bettie would say,

"Whenever there was a shoot

that I was attending,

where things started getting

sketchy, I got out of there."

Everybody would have liked

to date Bettie Page,

but nobody made the moves.

Are there any boyfriends of

Bettie that you know of,

that you've talked to

her that you know of?

I talked to a lot of guys,

not only photographers,

but her lovers.

Charles West was one of them.

Apparently met her

through a camera club.

He did a notorious series

of photographs with Bettie.

One day, a Saturday,

she and I were walking

down 5th Ave. at

Rockefeller Center.

She wore that same tight

translucent sweater.

We were on our way to a shooting

session in the Time Life building.

You should have seen the swiveling

heads, both male and female.

My God, wasn't she beautiful.

Gorgeous.

My photos were taken

very privately,

I never intended for any

of them to be published.

God gave her a lovely

body and she knew it.

As a model, she used

it to full advantage.

Her body was absolutely

without blemish,

and everything

exactly right in proportion.

And that was the same with her face,

and you put the two together,

and you had just about

the perfect woman.

There was also a very sheer

pair of white panties.

Also, super long black

opera length gloves.

She was absolutely pure,

plain and natural.

And of course she shows up

that way in her photographs.

And I just think you see

the real girl there.

No one ever dominated Betts,

either physically

or psychologically.

She was her own person and she never

could have mistreated anyone.

Yes, she and I made love.

And she was marvelous.

She's an extraordinary creature.

My memories of Betts

are ever present.

Nudity back then was,

was very unusual.

That was '52,

a time of restrictive sexuality.

You talked to your

friends in college even,

and the fellow who had

been sexually active

was the unusual guy.

Know when and how

you're going to say "no".

Take the case of the girl who

finds herself in this situation.

Say, is anybody else hungry?

How about it you two, couldn't we

go someplace for something to eat?

I was on my way into

the army at that time,

on my way to Korea eventually.

So I thought it was a time

to have a little bit of fun.

We were upstate New York on a farm.

But maybe this have been

your first opportunity

to see a woman without

much clothes on?

Ah, that's not a bad guess.

The photographers all sort

of gravitated to Bettie Page.

You were drawn as if by a magnet.

She lit up the place.

I don't think anybody

can really explain

why some people have

that kind of charisma.

It was kind of a

revolution for me really

to see that openness.

Somebody went to

the police about it,

some old fogy no doubt,

went to the police and said

we were running around in

the woods nude out there.

And here came a squad car.

Calling car 6 and 7 eighths,

car 6 and 7 eighths.

Here they are coming

with drawn guns,

coming on a bunch of photographers.

I mean, what were we going to do?

I mean, this is absolute nonsense.

And they said, "Also, take the

pictures out of your cameras."

I opened the back of the camera.

The counter, which may have been,

say on film number 5,

well, I snapped back to zero.

I immediately closed the

camera and thought to myself,

why not try to keep

what films I have in the camera.

And I showed it to one of

the deputies and I said,

"Look, you see, the

counter's on zero,

but to tell you the truth I

have a new roll in there,

I'd rather not expose it

by opening the back."

I said, "Okay if I

keep it that way?"

And he said sure.

But I didn't come upon the idea

of holding onto those photos

until I saw it snap back to zero.

The charming thing was that

a little kitten wandered by.

And she picked it up,

and she held it to her breast.

I found that exquisite.

And I did take a picture of that

but half of it was destroyed.

One of the deputies said something,

which was rather nasty,

but I do remember her saying,

"Don't you talk to me like that.

I won't have it."

And I think she had more courage

than the dozen and a half

photographers that were there.

They decided to charge the

guys for disturbing the peace,

and the girls for

indecent exposure.

She was just terribly

offended by it.

Bettie says, "I'm not indecent.

I will not plead guilty to that."

And we sat there in the anteroom,

outside the court

room for five hours.

Bettie demanded that this

release form be rewritten

so that it didn't say

"indecent exposure".

And the judge warned us

never to come in his county again.

Her being put in jail

because she was posing,

making a living, gave

her pause for thought.

She really had never considered

that it could happen to her.

And in fact, it was an alarm

to wake her up to the fact

that a lot of people did not

like what she was doing.

On Friday, we shall continue the

investigation of the relationship

of pornographic materials

to delinquency.

In the 1950s,

the repression was coming

from the government.

And it also involved Kefauver

and his investigations,

in terms of pornography and crime.

You couldn't sell in many places

a magazine that had

the kinds of nudity

that we see in a modern Playboy.

That was considered going too far.

I never had any bad feelings

about posing in the nude

or semi-nude outfits.

I found out I could make more

money posing in two hours

than I'd make all

week as a secretary.

All the girls who worked

for Robert Harrison

would end up posing

for Irving Klaw.

He had a big business,

he and his sister Paula,

selling movie star pictures

before they got into, locally,

shooting models in New York.

And one of the cameramen

brought her in and said,

she's a super model,

she works well,

and she's a love, give her a shot.

And we did. You should

have seen her then.

The long black hair

and always smiling,

giggling and whatever, she

was so great to work with.

She loved posing.

Irving Klaw, he was

a real sweet fella.

He was a big fat chubby guy.

And he was sort of short

and he was almost bald.

But he was so nice.

He never made any passes

at the women or anything.

They would bring food there,

sandwiches and all for us.

They were always very

generous about that.

He got some of the ideas

from some of the customers.

And he would sort of

talk to me about,

"What do you think of this and

what do you think of that",

and between the two of

us we'd figure it out.

In some of her earliest

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