Bettie Page Reveals All Page #9

and the children, everything

was set up perfect, you know.

And then we had an

addition put on the house

with a cement roof on top,

and then I had a three foot

wall around the top of it,

she'd sunbathe in the

nude up there sometimes.

He was a hard worker.

Harry was a good

provider, a good lover,

now, he was one of the best

lovers I ever had in my life.

And he was very considerate of me,

always thinking of my

pleasure before his own.

I'm not anymore, but I

was a very good lover,

and she was a very good lover.

We enjoyed thrilling each other.

Oh, by the way, that leopard

skin robe, you know.

She still had that.

And in the morning she'd put it on,

and in the evening she'd put it on.

It just turned me wild when I saw her

walking around with that thing on.

Well, the children were just

as sweet and nice to me

during the months

that I dated Harry.

But soon as I moved into the

house, everything changed.

His ex-wife,

she was so jealous of

me with the children,

and she called me up at 4:00 in

the morning and cussed me out.

It was getting on my nerves,

I wasn't getting any sleep,

and I was very unhappy.

So I stuck it out for five years.

I started losing my love for Harry

when he wouldn't make

those children mind me

or do anything I asked them to do.

She wanted to start

going to church again.

And the whole family

went to church together.

We went Sunday morning, Sunday

night, Wednesday evening.

I mean, it got to be like sort

of a fanatic thing, you know.

I could see it in her eyes.

We'd go to church and

she'd blast out singing,

not boisterous or anything

but real loud voice singing.

Tears came down her cheeks,

and she'd get real emotional.

She was so obsessed with

things of the Lord.

Why should I stop her if...

if she wanted to go and serve God,

or the Lord, or be a missionary.

I got divorced on January 17, 1972,

then I went to Bible Town,

which is 70 miles up near

Boca Raton, Florida.

While I was up there,

I started imagining

that I was hearing somebody talking

to me on my tape recorder,

and I thought I was

really listening

to God and the angels

and the devil.

I lost a lot of weight

then, I wasn't eating

because they were keeping

me awake talking all night.

It had built up in my mind so

much that my mind snapped.

She had caused some

kind of a disturbance.

The police called me

and asked me if I could

come up and pick her up.

I put her out there in my,

I think it was my bedroom,

and I slept on the

couch at the time.

I thought I owed it to her.

What would happen if

I kicked her out?

And the state of Florida in no

way is good to mental illness.

And I tried to get

her going in places

and they wouldn't bother with her.

She had lost it, there's

no doubt about it.

Bettie called us into

the living room,

me and my son Larry and Brad,

called us over by this

picture of Jesus Christ,

with a knife in her hand.

She said, "If you take

your eyes off him,

I'm going to cut your guts out."

Whoa, you know, here I was.

I could read Bettie pretty good

and I felt safe that she wasn't

going to do it right then.

I said, "Bettie, I've got

to go to the bathroom,

I've got to relieve

myself real bad."

So I went back into the bedroom,

picked up the phone,

called the Hialeah Police.

I let the cop in the front door.

Bettie went peacefully,

with a blank look on her face.

I ended up having a nervous

breakdown and hearing voices,

and had to go to the

hospital because of it.

They took me to Jackson

Memorial Hospital.

They have on the fifth

floor a psychiatric ward.

I was just there two months.

They gave me this

horrible thorazine.

I felt like I had sparks and

things going in my head,

and you feel like you're

going to die right after,

for an hour or two after

you take the thorazine.

But it knocked the voices

right out of me though.

She was completely

medicated all the time.

Now, when she was

getting treatment,

do you know if they gave

her any shock treatment?

I think she had two.

Jimmy, one time he came up to the house

after Bettie was with me awhile.

He said, "I'm gonna take Bettie

back to California with me,

we're gonna get a place,

we're gonna live together,

we're gonna get a

house or something."

California, it's a

very liberal state,

and their mental facilities

are the best in the world.

Jimmy and I were close

when we were growing up.

I didn't have any money hardly.

I had just enough to get

to California at the time.

Jimmy was supposed to

meet her in California,

didn't show up.

That's why she got in trouble.

She was trying to get rent

receipts from her landlord.

She was hearing voices,

I guess telling her to do

some pretty awful things.

And she thought it was the

devil speaking to her.

And she did tell me,

"I had a knife and I was

upset with my landlady,

and I wrestled her to the

ground and I straddled her,

and I told her that I was

going to cut her up."

The lady did not die.

The lady got cut pretty

severally on her hand.

Bleeding, blood everywhere.

Obvious that the lady

needed stitches.

She was stabbed like

20 or 30 times.

She pleaded insanity to this charge

of "attempt to commit murder"

and this assault so they then

put her away for ten years.

You talked to the

psychiatrist, I think it was,

three times a week

for half an hour.

And you went to groups, mostly

group therapy as they call it.

You just talked about why

or what caused you to

have your breakdown,

and I was put on something

called Novane and Artane.

She had never hinted about any

of the trouble with the law,

any of the mental institution

years, any of that.

I didn't think it was something

anybody would want to hear about.

And it was not anybody's business.

A lot of people still look down on you

if you've had a nervous breakdown.

They still thinking like they did

a hundred years ago about it.

Bettie's the one

that paid the price,

spending 9 or 10 years

at Patton State

in a horrible, horrible situation.

I learned that she was

paranoid schizophrenic.

That's an enormous cross to bare.

And whereas she had her parents

to thank for her

amazing good looks,

it was a mixed blessing

because her parents

were also responsible

for this genetic predisposition

towards paranoid schizophrenia,

plus her mother didn't want her,

and her father molested her.

Those are heavy

burdens to deal with.

She was probably one of the

most strong willed people

anyone's ever going to meet.

And she'd admit that

she had fallen down

but she was going to renew,

with great enthusiasm and optimism

that this time she

would get it right.

I told her that anytime

there's anything she needs,

that there are thousands of people

who would just do anything for

her if they had the chance.

The one who really did the

most for her was Dave Stevens,

to the point of she would

call him to go out

and bring her food or

take her to the doctor.

I took her into Tower Records

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