Recommended double-feature on Amazon
Bettie Page Reveals All (2012) dir. Mark Mori
Documentary about the pinup model who became more famous through late Boomer nostalgia than she had been in her modeling years.
Much of the documentary focuses on the modeling years, her rise, the infamy that came with it, including the social shaming of being arrested. Several people she worked with were interviewed and to a one appear to have loved her and loved working with her. Apparently, as a kid she loved movies and along with her sisters would recreate poses from the movie magazines, which ended up being early preparation for modeling, though her career comes across as less planned than one lucky contact after another pushing her along. Her success and eventual iconic status stemmed in large part because her pleasure at modeling comes through and her pictures exude playfulness, good humor and enjoyment of her own sexuality.
But what a sad life before and after modeling. Page narrates (though you never see the older Betty; she preferred to let the old images stand in for her), and early on her sex addicted father apparently mistreated her and her sisters, her mother left him and took her kids and they lived in poverty, her first husband came back from WWII ragingly possessive and jealous (sounds like PTSD) and even tried to kill her after she left him. Post-modelling career, what sounds like around the onset of menopause, she began hearing voices (actually, there was some of that previously) and was eventually diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. Eventually she received help and seemed to settle into a retired, quiet life.
Concludes with acknowledgement by many artists (notably Olivia de Berardinis and Dave Stevens) and later models (Laetitia Casta, Shalom Harlow, Rebecca Romijn, others) about her influence. Which leads to …
Dave Stevens Draw to Perfection (2022) dir. Kelvin Mao
Stevens was an illustrator, comic book and pinup artist, best known for The Rocketeer and its later film adaptation; he also worked on the story boards for Raiders of the Lost Ark. He was also smitten with Bettie Page’s pictures --I don't recall the documentary saying when he came across them -- and her image featured in a great deal of his work, notably as the Rocketeer’s girlfriend, to the point where she was almost more center stage than he was.
If you’re interested in comic book creation and popular art, this should be catnip, but for a guy who spent most of his time working alone in a room, his life had some interesting highlights in part because of the range of people he interacted with. Those include the creative forces behind the movie -- Danny Bilson (writer), Joe Johnston (director) -- and also Brink Stevens, to whom he was married briefly and who acted as model and muse, before going on to her own career as a B-movie actress (they met at an early ComicCon), and with whom he remained close even after divorce. Maybe it was her interest or maybe it was shared with her by Stevens, but you can see Page’s influence in how Stevens presented herself as a model.
Why go on about Page? Because Stevens eventually tracked her down – she was living not too far away in the L.A. area – made her aware of her impact on artists and models, worked to get her fees for use of her image (he was the first to pay her), and became a good friend who looked after her. Ironically, he died before she did, but her final years were probably a lot easier because of his efforts.
Includes interviews with family, friends (Thomas Jane, etc.), co-workers (Danny Bilson, Glen Murakami, etc.) and models (Jewel Shepard, etc).
I found these documentaries both sad and oddly heart-warming. Stevens comes across as an insecure but talented artist, a perfectionist, maybe a little sexist, but mostly a sweet, if flawed, guy, just as Page comes across as in some ways a little ahead of her time, and who was at core a decent, sweet person afflicted by poverty and mental illness. That Page found in him a friend and protector, and Stevens found in her a muse and friend, … well, it seems almost a Hollywood (if melancholic) ending.
