Bettie Page Reveals All Page #8

And then finally in August of 1999,

my wife and I drove

out to California

and met Bettie face to face.

We spent a lot of time

talking about the Bible,

because she loved the Bible.

And I enjoy reading the Bible too,

so we just had a good old time.

And then to think, you know,

here I'm just a guy

collecting old magazines

and kind of becomes infatuated

with this pinup girl from the '50s,

and to think that this

could materialize

to the point that I get to meet her,

her family, her sisters, her brothers.

Now, did your family know

that you were a pinup model?

They never said a

word to me about it,

never commented about it

and nether did my mother.

One time, I was looking in her

closet when she was gone to work,

and I found a whole big stack

of Robert Harrison's

pinup magazines,

with my pictures marked

and the pages turned down in it.

Never said a word to me, one

way or another about it,

never even mentioned it

and I didn't either.

She was living way out in

the fringes of Los Angeles,

you went any further, there

was no more humanity.

And she explained that she'd

had some difficulties

and that she was on

Social Security.

Now, when you walked away

from the modeling career,

you never really looked

back at it, did you?

I didn't want to be bothered.

I'd rather be incognito,

like I am nowadays.

After I left New York,

I went back to Florida,

and I just wanted to enjoy the

sunshine and do something else.

I started up with my old

boyfriend Armond Walterson

that I had dated in 1954

when I was in Florida

posing for Bunny Yeager.

He was going with Margaret.

As soon as I called him up

he dropped Margaret

like a hot potato

and started dating me.

Every Saturday night,

we'd go to the drive in

and we would sit in the

car and make love.

We didn't watch the

movies half the time.

When I met him, he didn't

even know how to kiss.

I taught him everything he knew.

He learned fast though.

Two months after the wedding,

I realized that I made a mistake.

All we had in common was movies,

sex, and hamburgers.

If ever I've been stupid

about anything in my life

it's where men are

concerned about marriage.

Here's what broke it all up.

This was the beginning

of New Year's 1958.

We got into a big argument

because he wanted to go and

get drunk with his buddies,

and I wanted to go dancing like

I'd been in the habit of doing

on New Year's Eve,

so he left at about

20 minutes to 12.

And I went walking

out White Street.

And I saw a little

church over there,

and heard music, singing.

It had a white neon cross

over the top of it.

And I just had to go, like

somebody had me by the hand,

I had to cross the street and

go in there, I'm telling you.

I knew it was the Lord, nobody would

ever convince me it wasn't him.

I stood back there and

cried about all my sins.

I thought God disapproved of

me doing nudes, you know.

I didn't think anything about

the fetish and the bondage

for Irving, but I had to do that.

But I thought maybe He looked down

on me for posing in the nude.

That's what I was telling

the pastor, and he said,

"Have you ever done anything

as bad as the apostle Paul?"

I said, "What did he do?"

I didn't know the Bible.

He said, "Well, he had

the Christians murdered.

Have you ever done

anything that bad?"

I said, "No, of course not."

He said, "Well, God forgave him

and made him the greatest

missionary of all time.

He can certainly forgive you for

posing in the nude, don't you think?"

And I received the Lord

Jesus as my savior

and I turned my life

over to the Lord,

and went to Bible schools

for three years.

They were very strict, you know.

I always loved dancing.

I couldn't even go dancing,

couldn't even go to the movies.

The only movie I was

allowed to attend

during those three years

was The Ten Commandments.

I wanted to be a missionary.

I thought God wanted

me to be a missionary.

But you know, when I graduated

and I went to a mission board,

they would not take me

because I had been divorced.

To some Christians, especially

the fundamentalists,

being divorced is worse than

having committed murder!

They got me to believe that I

would be out of the will of God

if I didn't go back and

lead my first husband

to the Lord and marry him again.

Well, I led him to the Lord and he

prayed with me to receive Jesus

and I thought he was sincere

and I married him again.

One month I was in his house.

The man would not even

have sex with me.

And I see him, I said,

"What's the matter, Billy?"

He said, "Well, you're filthy.

You've still got a venereal disease."

I said, "Where did you ever

hear anything like that?"

He said, "Everybody knows it."

I said, "Everybody's a liar, I've never

had a venereal disease in my life."

Well, do you know, he

grabbed me by the throat,

I mean, he was choking me.

I was finally able to get his hands

off enough to scream out loud,

"Billy, if you kill me, God

will never forgive you!"

He let go, and he got up

and went in his room.

The man almost choked me to death.

But that was the worst thing

that ever happened to me.

I almost lost my life over it.

I had the thing

annulled right away,

since it was never

consummated sexually.

After I spent a year and a half

working on a masters

degree at Peabody,

I just lacked four credits

now, getting the masters,

and I just got tired of studying.

So I left Nashville.

I went back to Miami and I

started going dancing again.

And one night I saw

this handsome fella.

She didn't look like a model

of any kind, you know.

She's just a healthy

looking young lady.

Well, not so young,

she was in her forties,

but just looked like a nice person.

So I went out on the floor

and asked her to dance,

and she says, "Certainly,

I'd love to dance with you."

So we danced and we danced,

we danced all night.

She was the most

unpretentious person

that I have ever met.

I called her the next day

and we were inseparable.

He was divorced.

He says, "I have two

boys and a girl."

I said, "Two boys and a girl,

that's what I always wanted."

Well, I couldn't have

children, I tried for years.

But I was attracted to

Harry from the word "go".

I just wanted to be with him

and to make love to him.

I didn't know a thing about her.

We went out on this pier,

and I was looking

through the post cards

and I saw this post card and

I looked at that post card,

and I looked over at her and

I looked at the card again.

It was Bettie.

It says, "Wow! We alligators

have such fun in Florida."

She told me that she modeled a lot.

And she told me she

never posed nude.

It didn't make any

difference to me.

The people on the beach,

their heads would

turn and follow us,

not me of course, but they would

follow us walking along the beach.

We got married on

Valentine's Day 1967

with his three children as

witnesses to the wedding.

I had a nice new home for Bettie

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes