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The world's most famous pin-up icon Bettie Page is a greatinspiration to me!According to PLAYBOY magazine, Bettie Page is "the Queen of Pin-ups. the model of the century, yet she remains one of its best kept secrets."Mention her name to most, you get blank stares. Mention her name to some, you get a knowing look that rocks the room! As more and more people are learning, Bettie Page is a timeless legend, and also a conundrum, even to herself.For those who understand who Bettie Page was, no explanation is necessary; for those who don't, maybe no explanation is possible. Why? Because Bettie Page was and remains an underground phenomenon, a puzzling "bad girl next door" cult figure - sort of our collective guilty pleasure. Since she was PLAYBOY'S Miss January of 1955, one might think her time has come and gone. Not so. Bettiemania is huge and growing. Fashion designers copy her. More and more supermodels are inspired by her style and heart-breaking great looks. How many hundred Bettie Page Web pages are there, out there?The girl with the trademarked black bangs, fabulous killer curves, and sweet smile, grew up loving movies, and dreamed of a film career. She should have been the next Marilyn Monroe. But her story is an impossible incursion of near misses, bad luck and lost opportunities. Full of contradictions, some have called her "The Dark Angel," for good reason, and for more reasons than one. Sometimes Bettie Page's puzzling persona both attracts us and repels us at the same time. In New York she drifted innocently into modeling, posing for camera clubs. That beautiful smile "suggested forbidden fruit as well as apple pie," said PLAYBOY. The charm, the appeal, the danger, the allure of those sensational photos is beyond what words can convey. Without imagining the consequences on any conscious level, Bettie found that her provocative cheesecake photographs during the period of 1950 through 1957 violated all manner of sexual taboos and finally invoked a United States Senate Committee investigation.Bettie Page never gave interviews, not even when her silent photos were ubiquitous. And then this pin-ultimate pin-up was gone -- vanished from view. Like Garbo, like James Dean, like Jean Harlow. It was a mystery. Had she died? Was she hiding? No one knew. Fantastic rumors abounded. Nearly four decades passed.Eleven years ago the truth was revealed. While battling some fierce inner demons, the legendary Bettie Page had quietly, secretly fled New York and given her life to Jesus Christ. And incredible as it may seem, as yet another riddle in her complicated life, all this time Bettie Page was completely oblivious of her own profound impact upon America's sexuality and pop culture, not to mention the thriving industry that had arisen around her celebrated image. We celebrate Bettie Page! Pink Cadillacs,palm trees,cocktails...