The iconic pin-up model Bettie Page has died at age 85, after reportedly slipping into a coma following a heart attack. As an aspiring actress living in New York in the 1950s, Page attracted the eye of an amateur shutterbug and off-duty cop named Jerry Tibbs, who compiled the shots that made up her first modeling portfolio. She soon became a popular subject at "camera clubs" and in the pages of low-rent cheesecake magazines. She became best-known for the photo sessions and short films she did for Irving Klaw, a photographer who might have been named by Charles Dickens who ran a mail-order business peddling pin-up material that was largely pitched to the underground fetish market, including bondage enthusiasts. Page's most memorable work was probably shot by the model turned photographer Bunny Yeager, who photographed Page, looking tanned and happy, on the beaches of Boca Raton and, at a Florida wildlife park, wearing the leopard skin bikini that was to become to Page's image what black tie and tails was to Fred Astaire's. It was Yeager who brought Page to the attention of Hugh Hefner, resulting in her appearing as Playboy's centerfold for the issue of January 1955.

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