Quotes By Bettie

“[Jerry Tibbs was] the one who got me wearing bangs. For years I had my hair parted down the middle in a ponytail, tucked down around the sides. But he said to me, ‘Bettie, you’ve got a very high forehead. I think you’d look good if you cut some bangs to cover it.’ Well, I went and cut the bangs, and I’ve been wearing them ever since. They say it’s my trademark.”

“I was never one who was squeamish about nudity. I don’t believe in being promiscuous about it, but several times I thought of going to a nudist colony.”

“I was never the girl next door.”

“The only person I did bondage for was Irving Klaw and his sister Paula. Usually they would shoot four or five models every Saturday. He wouldn’t pay for the regular pictures unless we did some bondage. So I did bondage shots to get paid for the other photos.”

“I love to swim in the nude and roam around the house in the nude. You’re just as free as a bird!”

“I don’t know what they mean by an icon. I never thought of myself as being that. It seems strange to me. I was just modeling, thinking of as many different poses as possible. I made more money modeling than being a secretary. I had a lot of free time. You could go back to work after an absence of a few months. I couldn’t do that as a secretary.”

“My favorite actress of all times is Bette Davis in Dark Victory. I have seen it six or seven times and I still cry.”

“I like being outdoors. I like to go cavorting in the nude in the forests. It is just another world. To take sunbaths in the nude.”

“Sex is a part of love. You shouldn’t go around doing it unless you are in love..”

“Paula was one of the nicest women I’ve ever known in my life-bar none. Only Paula was allowed to tie us up. She was very gentle, caring and considerate. She never tied any ropes too tight. She was very sweet.”

“I never kept up with the fashions. I believed in wearing what I thought looked good on me.”

“It makes me feel wonderful that people still care for me… that I have so many fans among young people, who write to me and tell me I have been an inspiration.”

Quotes About Bettie

“Bettie Page is the Queen of Pin-ups. the model of the century, yet she remains one of its best kept secrets.”
— Playboy Magazine

“It suggested forbidden fruit as well as apple pie.”
— Playboy Magazine on Bettie Page’s beautiful smile

“She became, in time, an American icon, her winning smile and effervescent personality apparent in every pose. A kinky connection was added by Irving Klaw’s spanking, fetish and bondage photos, which became part of the Bettie Page mystique; they were playful parodies that are now perceived as the early inspiration for Madonna’s excursions into the realm of sexual perversion.”
— Hugh Hefner

“I miss Bettie Page. I’ve been missing her since the last time I photographed her in 1954.”
— Bunny Yeager

“She was the best model because she not only had perfect facial features, but a great body and wasn’t ashamed to show it. It was impossible to take a bad photo of her. Bettie Page was always ready for the camera’s eye.”
— Bunny Yeager

“Bettie Page is the greatest pinup
model that ever lived.”
— Art Amsie

“There has never been a bad photograph taken of Bettie. There’s no such thing as a bad photograph of Bettie Page”
— Art Amsie

“She was happy. She was exhilarated being out there and just having a lot of fun and taking a good photograph, that fabulous torso, and that cute, little, pert, pixie, frisky face, the girl next door.”
“She transcends all time.”
— Art Amsie

“Bettie had a lot of charisma and she enjoyed doing it. She had fun.”
— Paula Klaw

“All you have to do is put on the Bettie Bangs and everybody automatically knows what it means.”
— Olivia De Berardinis

“There’s never been anyone like Bettie Before. Monroe had Harlow and Detrich, she had all of those blonde bombshells, but there was nothing like Bettie. She was the first icon of her nature.”
— Olivia De Berardinis

“She expressed sexual liberation. Also sexual experimentation I think she represents, self-gratification for women.”
— Olivia De Berardinis

“Her attitude, her eyes, that’s the most important, the steam that rises from them. That’s the most important thing to me. She has magic. Some people have it.”
— Olivia De Berardinis

“I’ve watched her become the biggest icon of them all. Up there with Monroe.”
— Olivia De Berardinis