LOS ANGELES -- Bettie Page, the 1950s secretary-turned-model whose controverisal photographs in skimpy attire or none at all helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution, died Thursday. She was 85.
Page suffered a heart attack last week in Los Angeles and never regained consciousness, said her agent, Mark Roesler. Before the heart attack, Page had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia.
She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality, Roesler said. She is the embodiment of beauty.
Page, who was also known as Betty, attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure in bikinis and see-through lingerie that were quickly tacked up on walls in military barracks, garages and elsewhere, where they remained for years.
Page mysteriously disappeared from the public eye for decades, during which time she battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian.
After resurfacing in the 1990s, she occasionally granted interviews but refused to allow her picture to be taken.
"I don't want to be photographed in my old age," she told an interviewer in 1998. "I feel the same way with old movie stars. ... It makes me sad. We want to remember them when they were young."
http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/entertainment&id=6551892This to be very sad. Bettie Page, to me, was like Marilyn Monroe to other people. I just found her whole life to be facinating and I sort of regret not being old enough to have actually been able to be around when all this took place. I know I will miss her, weird as it might sound. My thoughts and prayers are with her family right now.
RIP Bettie Page April 22 1923- December 11, 2008
You RARELY see real feminine beauty like Bettie Page and Marilyn Monroe anymore..it's quite sad. 
