Reviewed by Gary Meyer
(4/12/00)

In 1954, Bunny Yeager met Betty Page in Miami during one of Page's annual pilgrimages to the sun, sand and surf she adored. Page was the top pin-up model in New York at the time and Yeager an aspiring photographer. They hit it off and Page agreeably posed although Yeager could only afford a $5 fee. They had a lot in common. Yeager had started out as a model herself, taking camera courses at a vocational school to learn how to shoot self-portraits for her portfolio. Both were expert seamstresses, sewing their own bikinis. Bunny Yeager never intended to become a top professional glamour photographer. Betty Page never intended to become a legend.

Bunny Yeager had been dubbed "The Prettiest Photographer in the World" by US Camera in August of 1953. The title eventually paid off in increasing prestige and opportunities. Her famous seasonal shot of Page, decked out in a Santa hat and a wink, was bought by Playboy for $100 for their January 1955 centerfold. This was a more innocent time. Pin-up was not pornography and girlie pix weren't gynecological. Full frontal nudity simply wasn't published and photos revealing pubic hair were prohibited from the US Mail. Introduction author Buck Henry had to resort to under-the-counter transactions with Times Square newsies to acquire amateur camera club shots of the girl-next-door American icon in all her glory.

Acting had been Betty's dream, but Hollywood and then Broadway had rejected her due to her immutable Nashville accent and possibly her muscular build. She never looked like she needed a leading man to lean on. She was more Daisy Mae than Marilyn Monroe, powerful, not plaintive. Her regimen was ascetic: natural foods, neither tobacco nor alcohol, frequent workouts at the health club, long swims. She once beat several Navy men in a swimming race, much to their chagrin. On a long despairing walk on a Coney Island Beach in 1950 or so, she stopped to admire the exercise routine of a handsome NYC cop and amateur photographer, who asked her to pose for him and subsequently suggested she grow bangs to hide her prominent brow. By 1957, when she mysteriously disappeared from the spotlight, she had become the hottest babe in the world.

The arc of her fame led from the camera clubs to the men's magazines to Irving Klaw, whose Movie Star News still offers glossy 8x10s of the thousands of shots his sister Paula took of Betty. Some Paula Klaw photos are included here to document Betty's alter egos as vamping dominatrix, spanker, spankee and burlesque victim of baroque bondage. And to prove that Madonna did not invent the cone bra.

Though the Klaws were scrupulous about excluding nudity from their all-female ropes-and-lingerie tableaus to the extent of girding the models’ loins in double panties, their B&D sideline was targeted by a Senate subcommittee trying to link pornography and juvenile delinquency. This witch-hunt was led by coonskin-cap wearing Estes Kefauver (D, Tennessee); the "protect the children" attack on free speech did not originate with the Internet. Betty has always maintained that none of her photographs, not even the nudes, were pornographic, which she defined as depiction of sex acts or open-legged shots, the so-called "split beaver."

Yeager brings out the best in Betty Page in her ideal milieu, the beaches of Florida, her skin a flawless suntanned sheen, her infectious joy lighting up that thousand-watt smile even brighter and her natural intimacy with the camera making you swear you were there. Betty cavorts about an amusement park and the shoreline, playful, puckish, clowning with some seaweed, mugging on some kiddie rides, blazing with energy and abandon. It's no act. The book's climax is eight shots from the famous boat series, Betty au natural on deck offshore. In several, her eyes are closed and she's reveling in the pleasure of the waves, the salt air and the sunlight warming her beautiful form.

Yeager's camera worships the primal power of the female archetype. Page is no simpering playmate, docile and submissive to mundane male fantasy. She is Venus only on her own terms. She is Eve before the apple. She has no shame. She is feared as Lilith -- also cravenly accused of threatening children -- but she is Astarte, the Earth Mother, the Goddess.

Betty once claimed to be "happy as a lark, stark naked." These photographs are not about sex but about exuberance, the sheer, physical delight of corporeal existence. She is in her favorite place, doing what she loves best, her magnetic vitality transporting us all. The secret of Betty's appeal isn't mysterious. She found perfect pleasure in simply being alive. And she gave it to us all.