The Real Bettie Page: The Truth About the Queen of the Pin-ups: The Truth About the Queen of Pinups [Paperback]

I was in two minds about reading this book, having discovered that Bettie herself maintains that it is (in part at least) a fabrication and an infringement on her privacy. The fact that the book deals with the 'missing years' of Betties life, including her alleged descent into mental illness and arrest for attempted murder during this turbulent period, left me with the uncomfortable feeling that the author was simply cashing-in on the subject's mis-fortune with a sensationalist piece of journalism.
However, having suspended my misgivings and read the book I have to admit that it is indeed a valuable insight into the life of the so-called Queen of the Pin-Ups. The author's decision to bring out into the open the facts that Bettie would rather ignore turns out to be a wise one and, despite what Bettie herself may think, the book left me feeling nothing but sympathy for her.
I recently read a transcript of a live web-chat which Bettie did a few years ago in which she asked fans not to "look down their noses" at her because of the revelations in this book. She need not worry. I for one have gained even more respect for her for going through hell and coming out the other side.
The writing itself is nothing special and it would have been a far superior book had it had Bettie's approval and co-operation but it is still certainly worth purchasing.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Queen of Pin-ups. This book has it all. From childhood, through her modelling career, to her arrest and self-imposed solitude, and everything in between. This is an intriguing and sometimes tragic read. My only complaint would be that there arent enough pictures of the devilishly gorgeous Miss Page but, then again, I suppose you can never have enough pictures of Betty Page!

Foster's book is, in the truest sense of the term, a bombshell. An easy read and a tough book to put down, except to come up for another gasp before you dive back down again, fans of la Page may want to curse Foster for bursting their bubble...or expanding the myth of the Queen of Curves. I consumed it in an evening along with a massive bowl of popcorn and a lot of tea; the 1972 mugshot alone is worth the cover price of $22, but Amazoned at $15, I got a lot of "wows" for the price of a pizza. Onward: Exploited, cheated, lied to and deceived, Bettie Page emerges not so much as an icon as much as a victim...and Foster is the messenger being shot at because he bears the news: the image of Page as we know it is far more complex than we knew. Page was not, as her earlier book paints, a good girl from a happy family doing naughty photos and disappearing discreetly. Instead, Foster's book shows her as an almost perennial victim from the sexually abused child to the trusting client of one bad promoter or lawyer after another. While Playboy's article seemingly comes to her defense, Foster points out that her issue of Playboy is the second most-requested issue in the magazine's history...and Page got all of $20 for it. When an attorney sued an unauthorized producer of Page materials without her consent, the judge found in favor of the producers and she was left with $85,000 in legal fees; another in a long string of slaps from another low-life. Ironically, in a January 1998 Playboy article, Page calls Foster "a devil" when he may be one of the few straight-forward men she's encountered in her life. One might point to countless cases of abuse victims attacking the people who've come to help them, and that may be the case here. Foster dug deep to produce a newsworthy, terrific read; he did not produce one of the dozens of Bettie Page videos, recordings, books, cigarette lighters or junk that gets listed in he book's epilogue, nor does he throw a single criticism of the numerous web sites devoted to Bettie. Foster's book is definitive investigative writing. Now the uncomfortable question that Page followers will have to face is whether our lust for Bettie is fandom or a further contribution to her continued victimization.