| Femmes Fatales | Jun 13 2024 |
Above: a fun shot of strawberry eating burlesque dancer, nudist, actress, and all around public figure Blaze Starr, made by Bunny Yeager on the set of Blaze Starr Goes Nudist. It dates from 1962.
| Femmes Fatales | Feb 20 2024 |
| Intl. Notebook | Jan 2 2024 |
Cheesecake postcards were widespread during the mid-century era, featuring many famous and semi-famous models, but Bettie Page appeared on so many that she's now her own industry of vintage collectible mailers. We've run across many interesting examples, so we thought we'd share a few for your enjoyment today. Above and below we present a group culled from auction sites showing the revered model in her usual mode of dress—not much. The same shots were used on multiple cards. In the last she's posed with regular collaborator, Florida based photographer Bunny Yeager, who appears with Page and a couple of exotic cats on the last card. Most if not all of the shots were made in Florida, despite an allusion to Hawaii and a reference to Washington. As always, Page will return.
| Musiquarium | Dec 4 2022 |
That being the case, we'll highlight a story Thompson occasionally told about Frank Sinatra, the hipster gadabout of the mid-century, who came to see her one night at the Cork Club in Miami. He was with Ava Gardner, and after the show invited Thompson to join them at their table. The Cork, being in the deep south, didn't allow black performers to sit at the tables, let alone with white companions. But Sinatra being Sinatra, the rule crumbled, at least for the night. Thompson greatly appreciated that. And the jazz world appreciated her. She was a trailblazer. She lived a very long time, long enough to receive many overdue tributes, before finally dying just two years ago of COVID-19. 
| Vintage Pulp | May 7 2014 |
| Hollywoodland | Dec 12 2008 |
The legendary Bettie Page has died in the hospital after a heart attack earlier this week. The photo above, by Bunny Yeager, shows Bettie at her most beautiful and lively, the way she should be remembered.
| Intl. Notebook | Dec 6 2008 |
85 year-old former pin-up queen Bettie Page was hospitalized in Los Angeles this week after a heart attack and is critically ill. Page rose to fame as an erotic model during the 1950s, posing for scores of magazines, and appearing in more than fifty short films. She worked extensively with sister and brother publicity team Paula and Irving Klaw, who sold Page’s material from their firm Movie Star News. In 1955, Irving Klaw came under investigation during the U.S. Senate’s Kefauver Hearings, which were a politically motivated attempt to draw a link between pornography and juvenile delinquency. Under pressure, Klaw shuttered Movie Star News, and Page’s modeling career ended.
Page dropped from public view, spent time as Christian missionary, and married twice more (she had wed and divorced twice already). In 1979, Hollywood’s Belier Press reprinted some Page photos from private camera club sessions for which she had posed in 1950. The shots rekindled interest in Page, and in time a full-blown web-cult formed. In 
2005 a motion picture entitled The Notorious Bettie Page was released by HBO with Gretchen Mol in the lead role. The film received wide acclaim, and further cemented Page’s legacy.
As one of the first mainstream nude models, Page is credited with helping usher in the women’s movement. At that time frank depictions of female nudity were considered empowering, and Page’s popularity, as well as her special gift for embodying nudity as a natural state, dovetailed with the movement’s goals. Photographer and fellow pin-up Bunny Yeager, who shot the Modern Sunbathing & Hygiene cover above, offered an opinion in 1956 about Page’s appeal: “The first thing I noticed was that for some reason when she’s nude she doesn’t seem naked. [snip] Bettie’s attitude toward her lovely, healthy body is the essence of nudism.”
Today, millions of fans are hoping health returns to Miss Page.
