In this section of the site, we’ll single out celebrities who deserve more in depth uncoverage…and gradually reveal more and more about them throughout the month—culminating in the rarest and usually never-before-seen revelations that only the Sleuth has unearthed!

The women chosen will generally be in the news at that particular time, either because they’ve just come out with a hit film, they’ve just “come out” {as loving the ladies}, or perhaps they’ve just gone out {to the great beyond}!

Such is the case with our first Spotlighted Celeb–who better to inaugurate a site dedicated to finding long-hidden revelations than that long-hidden heroine of millions of men’s fantasies, the legendary BETTIE PAGE !

This gorgeous “Ghost of Christmas Past” didn’t quite make it to her 86th Christmas, succumbing to a heart attack two weeks shy of 2008’s Noel. “My biggest regret,” Bettie admitted a year before she died—a measure of her fame was being pictured (along with Paul Newman, Tim Russert and Bernie Mac) on AOL’s “In Memorium” review of the year—”is that I didn’t answer that telegram to be a movie star at Warner Bros.” The young starlet rejected both a screen test and honcho Howard Hughes! “I’ve heard that even Marilyn Monroe went to bed with one of them at 20th Century Fox (arranged by her smitten agent Johnny Hyde), in order to get into the movies,” Page dished. “If I had wanted to do that, I might have been a movie star in 1948!” Ironic then, that 60 years later Bettie was laid to rest at Westwood Memorial Park within sight of Marilyn’s famous wall crypt (top left in the right rear)!

Since this is our very first Celeb Spotlight, let’s conclude by revealing these rare debuts from “The All-Time Queen of the Pinups” … her very first: pinup pose (at 15); modeling composite (from San Francisco in 1945); visit to New York City (1947, who’d have guessed?!); professional headshot; studio pose (holding her shirt closed); tentative topless exposure; and full nude–accidentally exposiing her pubic hair (totally forbidden at the time)!

LEARNING THE ROPES

“I was trying to be the Valedictorian in high school,” Bettie Mae Page recalled, “because if you were first in your class you would win a 4-year scholarship to Vanderbilt University. I was beat out by one quarter of a point—all I got was a $100 scholarship to George Peabody teachers college in Nashville.” Our salute to the Salutatorian of Hume-Fogg High, Class of 1940, shows Bettie was also voted “Most Likely to Succeed” by her classmates, who left her “nothing” in the class will because “she already has everything.” Alas, she had too much—when she tried teaching 5th and 6th grade, Miss Page was all the rage: “I couldn’t control my students, especially the boys. They would make cat calls at me.” Gee, wonder why…

Though she’d later go on to inspire lunch boxes and dolls in her image, the teacher-turned-typist admits: “I was never the girl next door.” Especially after she moved…to the Big Apple…and was spotted strolling the beach at Coney Island in October 1950 by NYPD cop and amateur photographer Jerry Tibbs. “He gave me his card,” Bettie shrugged, “and offered to make up a portfolio for me free of charge.” But not free of hassle: “I didn’t like what he did with my breasts. He had me stuff Kleenex inside the bikini. I didn’t need the Kleenex.” But she did need “a look”…which Tibbs came up with: “Jerry said I had a very high protruding forehead, and that I’d look good with bangs. I’ve been wearing them ever since.” He also had her wear some mild fetish attire in one shoot–which caught the attention of “New York’s pin-up and bondage king,” Irving Klaw … and that was all she rope.

The only thing I find upsetting,” Bettie later revealed, “is that they keep referring to me as the Queen of Bondage. The only bondage posing I ever did was for Irving Klaw and his sister Paula,” she made clear {the trio became “like family”}. “Usually they would shoot 4 or 5 models every Saturday. He wouldn’t pay for the regular pictures unless we did some bondage. So I did the bondage shots to get paid for the other photos! And that was the only reason I did it. I never had any inkling that way {liking to be tied up}. You had to do the bondage or you didn’t get paid!” And how much was Page paid for these 4-hour sessions? “Eighty dollars” {Paula Klaw recalled it was $100 “with a tip”}. And here’s the best tip of all: Sleuth got to know Paula quite well in the ’80s and ’90s…and she gifted him with many rare original prints she and her brother had taken of Bettie in bondage. So let’s share, shall we?

“Irving was a wonderful man,” the model who made him famous felt {the notation at bottom right of this original indicates it was the 357th shot they printed of “BP”}. “For years it was rumored that he and I were involved, but that was ridiculous”—besides, she quickly became the “love object” of Klaw’s anonymous benefactor , known only as “Little John”! And “Paula was one of the nicest women I’ve ever known in my life—bar none {Lili Taylor played her in the 2006 film The Notorious Bettie Page}. Only Paula was allowed to tie us up. She never tied any ropes too tight.” Knot ever?!

The bondage sessions “were safe and relaxed,” Bettie remembered…and in those days when models “took a coke break,” it was much more innocent. The only time it wasn’t, she was genuinely afraid: “I had just one bad experience,” the model moaned in her deep Southern drawl, “when I was tied spread-eagled between two big wooden beams with my arms up and out and my legs spread and then my feet were about 6 inches off the ground and before they got through taking what seemed like umpteen pictures, I thought it was gonna pull the sockets right out of my shoulders. And I started hollering, ‘Hurry up, I’m hurting!’ Later, Irving Klaw told me that those pictures of me spread-eagled off the ground sold more than any pictures he ever sold in all of his years of selling pin-ups and even movie star pictures, those things of me in agony,” she laughed.

Otherwise, Bettie was “delighted to admit” the bondage sessions were “a ball” … make that ball gag! “It was fun {a real sight gag. Much like this rarity of Page playing a reel Lucille Ball gag!} I got a kick out of it {floored with legs reared up}. But I never thought those pictures would have such a lasting effect.” With no END in sight…

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