Sexual revolution icon Bettie Page dies at 85

Sexual revolution icon Bettie Page dies at 85

LOS ANGELES — Bettie Page, the 1950s secretary-turned-model whose controversial photographs in skimpy attire or none at all helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution, died Thursday. She was 85.

Page suffered a heart attack last week in Los Angeles and never regained consciousness, her agent Mark Roesler said. Before the heart attack, Page had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia.

“She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality,” Roesler said.

Page, who was also known as Betty, attracted national attention with magazine photographs of her sensuous figure in bikinis and see-through lingerie that were quickly tacked up on walls in military barracks, garages and elsewhere, where they remained for years. Her photos included a centerfold in the January 1955 issue of then-fledgling Playboy magazine, as well as controversial sadomasochistic poses. The latter helped contribute to her mysterious disappearance from the public eye, which lasted decades and included years during which she battled mental illness and became a born-again Christian.

Actor Van Johnson dies

NEW YORK — Van Johnson, whose boy-next-door wholesomeness made him a popular Hollywood star in the ’40s and ’50s with such films as “30 Seconds over Tokyo,” “A Guy Named Joe” and “The Caine Mutiny,” died Friday of natural causes. He was 92.

Johnson died at Tappan Zee Manor, an assistant-living center in Nyack, N.Y., said Wendy Bleisweiss, a close friend.

With his tall, athletic build, handsome, freckled face and sunny personality, the red-haired Johnson starred opposite Esther Williams, June Allyson, Elizabeth Taylor and others during his two decades under contract to MGM.

He proved to be a versatile actor, equally at home with comedies (“The Bride Goes Wild,” “Too Young to Kiss”), war movies (“Go for Broke,” “Command Decision”), musicals (“Thrill of a Romance,” “Brigadoon”) and dramas (“State of the Union,” “Madame Curie”).

During the height of his popularity, Johnson was cast most often as the all-American boy. He played a real-life flier who lost a leg in a crash after the bombing of Japan in “30 Seconds Over Tokyo.” He was a writer in love with a wealthy American girl (Taylor) in “The Last Time I Saw Paris.” He appeared as a post-Civil War farmer in “The Romance of Rosy Ridge.”

More recently, he had a small role in 1985 as a movie actor in Woody Allen’s “The Purple Rose of Cairo.”

Today’s birthdays

Actor Dick Van Dyke is 83. Actor Christopher Plummer is 79. Actor Robert Prosky (“Veronica’s Closet,” “Hill Street Blues”) is 78. Actor-singer John Davidson is 67. Singer Ted Nugent is 60. Actress Kathy Garver (“Family Affair”) is 63. Guitarist Ron Getman of The Tractors is 60. Country singer-guitarist Randy Owen of Alabama is 59. Actress Wendie Malick (“Just Shoot Me”) is 58. Country singer John Anderson is 54. Singer Morris Day of The Time is 52. Actor Steve Buscemi is 51. Actor Johnny Whitaker (“Family Affair”) is 49. Actor-comedian Jamie Foxx is 41. Singer-guitarist Tom Delonge of Angels and Airwaves (and Blink-182) is 33. Actor James Kyson Lee (“Heroes”) is 33. Actress Chelsea Hertford (“Major Dad”) is 27. Singer Amy Lee of Evanescence is 27. Country singer Taylor Swift is 19.