Bettie Page Reveals All Page #6

And I thought, the holiday

season will be coming up soon.

And I had this little

white Christmas Tree.

And I had her pose,

kneeling on a white shag rug.

I didn't know that Bunny Yeager

was going to send pictures to

Mr. Hefner for Playboy Magazine.

She was Miss January of 1955,

but Bettie had a fame

that kind of coincided

and predated her

appearance in Playboy.

You know, that little

Santa Claus hat

and I'm winking, and I'm

sitting on my knees

with a little Christmas Tree

ball covering "you know where".

She had a very unique look and

also a very unique attitude.

Back in New York,

you couldn't work for Irving

without doing about an hour or

an hour and a half of bondage,

or you didn't get paid.

Bondage, I'm noted for being

the number one bondage

queen, they call me.

Most of the work came

from requests he would

get in the mail,

from doctors, lawyers,

businessmen,

men up in high society even,

wanted all of these things.

One was a big official

in the government

and one guy was a big lawyer.

Are either of these

guys still alive?

No, I don't think so.

So you care to say who they were?

No. Promises.

The guy came in with all

the rubber outfits.

And there was leather.

There's a big leather

fetish out there.

Men wanted her with the boots on.

Pay for it, bring the

costumes, we'll do it.

For some reason,

men like to see girls,

one spanking the other one.

Why, I don't know.

And they liked to see

women helpless, tied up.

I never thought it was

anything strange.

Bettie had not been exposed

to this type of culture.

She was instructed that

this is what the job was.

To her it was acting.

Which she enjoyed doing,

which is why her bondage stuff

is just so terrific,

because she's acting.

She's making believe

that she's terrified.

For the most part, anybody

in a bondage photograph is

just going on like

half-assed, hardly doing it.

Bettie was acting.

Paula, she was the only

one that ever tied us up.

She didn't hurt us, she was

very careful about it.

She felt safe with me being there.

Don't hurt the babies, you know.

Some of the pictures looked

like I was really being hurt.

There was only one time

that I was ever frightened.

Some guy, some lawyer I think

he was, wanted me tied up.

And my feet were off the

ground about six inches.

I thought my arm holes were going

to pull out of the sockets.

And I said, "Hurry up,

it's hurting me."

And they kept shooting me

from all kinds of angles.

And finally they let me down.

And Irving later told me that

those pictures sold more

than any picture

that he'd ever sold

of movie stars than anybody else.

About two months later...

I was doing a little

16mm wrestling movie.

I heard something pop.

I couldn't straighten out

my right knee at all.

Finally, I called a doctor.

He said, "It'll be about

a six inch scar."

He said, "You won't be able to do

your pinup modeling anymore."

I was lying in bed

feeling very unhappy

at the thought that I wouldn't

be able to model anymore.

And all of a sudden,

I heard a man's voice

just as loud and clear as

you'd hear any human talk.

He said, "Bettie, you can

straighten out your knee. Try it."

And within a couple of seconds I was

able to straighten out my knee.

I knew immediately it

was the voice of God.

She was the girl next door.

Just so good, and went

to church on Sunday,

that women identified with,

that they liked the idea

that they could exude sexuality

and not be thought of as a tramp,

that she's playing a role,

whether it be dominatrix

or the girl next door,

and it was never demeaning

at any point whatsoever.

The craziest request I ever had,

this guy wanted me to pose

in a black leather pony outfit

that he sent to Irving and Paula.

I had to get on all

fours like a horse,

and my head covered

up with this hood on.

I said, "Well, how would he even

know who was under there at all?"

You couldn't even see my face.

We died laughing about it.

And some we turned away.

Well, there were no

nudes, that's number one.

If there were men in the

pictures, it was pornographic.

And we didn't want to sell

anything that was pornographic.

These two guys came to me and said,

"Bettie, we want you to testify against

Irving Klaw as a pornographer."

I said, "What are you talking about?

Irving never even did nudes."

They'd come in with

search warrants.

They took a bunch of stuff.

They took a lot of the photographs

and negatives of the models.

They confiscated our mail and

we were getting bad publicity.

Repercussions from the

New York hearings

have been nationwide, with

contempt and perjury citations

indicated by the committee.

Now there's supposed

to be a young boy,

I think he was 17 years

old, somewhere in Florida.

The Kefauver committee

was blaming me

for contributing to

juvenile delinquency

because this boy killed himself looking

at one of my bondage pictures.

What would I have to do with that?

Sir, I direct your

attention specifically

to page 3 of this publication,

showing a young lady trussed up.

And ask you to look

at that picture,

with her arms tied behind

her back, her mouth gagged.

There is a definite connection

between this sort of

thing and his death.

They made me come

down to the courthouse,

and they had me sit

outside the courtroom

while they had Irving on the stand.

Mr. Chairman, our

investigation reveals

that Mr. Klaw is one of

the largest distributors

of obscene, lewd,

and fetish photographs

throughout the country by mail.

I decline to answer

under the Fifth Amendment

of the Constitution.

Well, Mr. Klaw,

I must warn you that

I'll have you cited for contempt.

Do you still refuse to answer?

I decline to answer.

Would that be sufficient or should I say

it all the way through, Mr. Kefauver?

We're not asking any quarter

nor giving any quarter, Mr. Klaw.

Those creeps.

Ol' Kefauver and his committee.

I told them, "I'm not testifying

and lying about Irving Klaw."

I said, "I don't care. You

can't force me to do it."

I said, "I won't do it."

But we also went before the judge.

And the judge said, "You

want to keep your freedom,

you have to destroy

all the negatives."

I said that was wrong.

We have every right to do

and print whatever we like.

We're not hurting anybody.

And so I was the one that was

in charge of chucking it away.

But I didn't.

We did hide them, until we

were sure that the courts

would throw it out

and agree that this

was not pornography.

I kept the ones I know I could

sell, just the ones with Bettie.

I knew one day these

were going to be famous.

She was able to sneak

a few of mine away

that they didn't know about.

Nearly all three-fourths

of his pictures

that he had taken in his

movie star photos and all,

they were all burned.

And it just ruined the poor man

and put him in bad health,

and he ended up dying.

I always thought,

live and let live.

Let anybody do what they want to do

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