Pin-up icon Bettie Page dies

Dec 12, 2008, 14:50 GMT

Los Angeles - Bettie Page, the 1950s pin-up icon whose saucy poses first brought nudity into mainstream America, has died aged 85.

'With deep personal sadness I must announce that my dear friend and client Bettie Page passed away at 6:41 pm PST (0241 GMT Friday) this evening in a Los Angeles hospital,' her agent said in a statement, late Thursday.

'She died peacefully but had never regained consciousness after suffering a heart attack nine days ago. She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality. She is the embodiment of beauty.'

Page, defined by her shoulder-length hairdo and revealing photos, was a secretary in New York when she was discovered on a Coney Island beach in 1950 by an amateur photograph. She quickly became a sought- after model.

She went on to become one of the most famous American women of the 1950s, featuring as one of the first celebrity models in Playboy magazines and in thousands of other photos that showed her in negligees, underwear, bondage apparel or nothing at all.

In later years her image appeared on playing cards, posters and hundreds of commercial products, as she came to symbolize a curious mix of sensuality, sexuality and a bygone era of innocence.

Her appeal was described by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner as 'a combination of wholesome innocence and fetish-oriented poses that is at once retro and very modern.'

Page disappeared from public view in 1960 and even served as a missionary in Angola. Her later life was marked by depression, violent mood swings and several years in a state mental institution, where she was diagnosed with acute schizophrenia. But she re-emerged again in recent years, even becoming the subject of a 2005 feature film, The Notorious Bettie Page, in which she was portrayed by actress Gretchen Mol.

Page's three marriages all ended in divorce and she had no children.