Murder, Mystery & Makeup - Bettie Page a killer?? The Case Of The Vanishing Pinup

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

Hi Friends! Hope you are having a wonderful day today and I am happy to see you. Today I wanted to talk about Bettie Page because, it’s been heavy on my noggin. Love you so much and please be safe out there! Hope to be seeing you very soon x o Bailey Sarian Watch the original video here and don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube @BaileySarian! Tik Tok : https://bit.ly/3e3jL9v Instagram : http://bit.ly/2nbO4PR Facebook : http://bit.ly/2mdZtK6 Twitter : http://bit.ly/2yT4BLV Pinterest : http://bit.ly/2mVpXnY Youtube : http://bit.ly/1HGw3Og Snapchat : https://bit.ly/3cC0V9d Discord: https://discord.gg/BaileySarian

Hi guys, how are you today? My name is Bailey Sarian and today is Monday, which means it's murder, mystery, and makeup Monday. If you are new here, hi, how are you? Every Monday I sit down and I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my noggin and I get ready for my day, do my makeup at the same time. If you're interested in true crime and you like makeup,

I would highly suggest you subscribe because I'm here for you every Monday. So today's story has been heavy on my noggin for quite some time. And it's to the point where I feel like I might be making it up. So everything I'm going to be saying, well, I feel like all of my videos,

I need to be saying allegedly more, just because you gotta be careful out here. And I will explain at the end what I'm talking about. But Betty Page, I feel like she's, I mean, she's iconic. I feel like everybody knows who Betty Page is. And if you don't, I'll be explaining. Now, when Betty was in high school, she attended it in Nashville

and she was known to be like a really good student. She was ambitious. She had drive, she was competitive, and She was ambitious. She had drive. She was competitive. And she was also just a nice person. This is what I gathered, of course. We don't really know. We weren't there. She was nominated and won Homecoming Queen.

And she was a mascot of the ROTC company. Betty would go on to graduate high school in 1941. And like many others, especially in a small town, she was just starstruck and in awe of Hollywood. And she knew that's where she had to be. So she packed her bags and she headed out to Southern California, to Los Angeles, to become a big star.

So Betty was able to get out here to Los Angeles. And while she was out here, she was going on a bunch of auditions and she just wasn't having much luck like getting any work in the movies. But the biggest problem that was preventing her from getting jobs was that she had like a really thick country accent.

So when she went on jobs, she's supposed to play, I don't know, You just never hear like super thick country accents in movies unless you just really don't, huh? Unless it's like, nevermind Bailey. But you know what I'm saying? She had a thick accent. It was preventing her from getting jobs. Okay. So then she was like, I'm going to take some acting classes and some speech classes so I can get rid of this accent. But it was like a solid year and she still just could not kick the accent. So in later years, Betty would go on to complain

that the one screen test she had, it failed to get her a job because she had refused to entertain the producers after hours. Betty ended up for a brief moment, marrying a man who was a sailor, but that didn't last too long. I don't even think it lasted a year. And then once that marriage was over,

she ended up moving to New York City in 1948, hoping that the stage would do what Hollywood wouldn't do, which was take her as a serious actress. So one summer when Betty is out there in New York, it's 1949 now, she's at a beach called Jones Beach. While Betty's out there, she attracts the attention from a police sergeant, but he's also a part-time photographer and his name was Jerry Tibbs.

This man spots Betty and he's like, she's got something special, She's got something unique. I would love to take photos of her, which if anybody in this day and age, if somebody does that, like just run. This man named Jerry Tibbs and his friend Cass Carr, they ran a photography club that held photography classes at the YMCA.

So they were always looking for new models to come in. That way they could practice shooting. This guy is like, goes up to Betty, introduces himself. It's like, hey, this is what I do. This is my work. I would love for you to come and be a model. And so Betty went down there to the YMCA and she just started like modeling for them.

And it wasn't anything like nude or anything like that. It was just pinup style stuff. And she had never modeled before, but she was good at it. Betty ended up becoming like a model for all different types of photographers while she was there. Anywhere from amateur all the way up to like professional photographers.

And while she was doing these test shoots, she ended up making her way into magazines. Like there was one called Wink and Flirt. And then from there, she ended up getting the centerfold in an early Playboy Christmas magazine. Now this was big. I mean, centerfold? She's killing it.

Now, when she was in the Playboy centerfold, this is when she caught the eye of a man named Irving Klaw. And Irving Klaw was like the pinup king. How about that? Mr. Klaw, wasn't that the guy's name on Inspector Gadget? Mr. Klaw, the Klaw, something like that. The Klaw, okay, anyways. But this guy was a big deal, okay?

So Mr. Klaw had found his market niche by catering to customers who wanted pictures of bound women wearing high heels, stockings, and like other, you know, sexy lingerie. It was a lot of bondage, okay? So this was the 1950s. Now there was like no such thing as being sexual or sexual acts being photographed in bondage, underwear, positions.

Oh my lord. It was very taboo what Mr. Claw was doing. Slash makeup. Now by today's standards, Mr. Claw, I'm just gonna keep calling him Mr. Claw, his photos seem pretty tame and like innocent. In photo sets and film loops with titles like "'Teaser Girl in High Heels' or, "'Betty Gets Bound and Kidnapped'." like innocent in photo sets and film loops with titles like teaser girl in high heels

or Betty gets bound and kidnapped. Betty would like act out short scenarios in which she and other woman took turns modeling fetish gear getting wound up in ropes and leather and occasionally spanking would be involved. And I guess I should mention really quick, by no means am I saying that bondage and all that is taboo and weird and stuff,

or that bondage is what leads to set events down the line. We'll go into it. Just that disclaimer right there. I am no way associating the two together, okay? Capisce? Because I know someone's gonna try it. So at this time they had paid Betty $10 an hour for taking the photos.

And typically they would last about five hours. Then Betty would get like a $50 tip on top of that, which was pretty cool. It was a lot of money. Her photo sessions were scheduled every Saturday. So she would make her way down to the studio. And every Saturday she would just take these photos. So Betty was doing pretty good.

I mean, she was making good money at that time. I mean, secretaries were getting like a dollar, $2 an hour and Betty was making $50 in five hours. She's killing it. It was just a good time, but you know, good times don't last forever. So spring of 1955, mind you, a lot of like other little stuff happened

like in between this timeline I'm giving you, but I kind of just broke it down to where it was a simpler timeline. Anyways, spring of 1955, the presidential election. It was coming up when the elections are coming up. I mean, you see it right now, everybody's making their rounds and doing the most. There's this guy running.

He was a Senator and his name was Senator Kefauver. Kefa, you know what? I listened to so many little clips trying to figure out how to pronounce this guy's name, Kefauver. Anyways, the Senator guy, he was from Betty's home state and he had entered the race. So he's doing his little, his rounds, not little. I mean, it was pretty major.

Now he was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and he announced that he would be leading an investigation on kids in jail and how the media, movies, television, comic books, and especially pornography are very impressionable on young minds. So they were trying to, well, this guy, the Senator guy, was trying to do a study proving that movies, television, comic books, and pornography all played a big role

in why they were in jail, the kids. You know, they're still trying to push this agenda to this day. It's debatable, of course, but whatever, they were heavy on this, okay? And he wanted to make pornography illegal. He mainly just wanted to prove that these things are what's causing kids to be bad.

So this guy was saying that he thought it was a bad influence and degrading to even grownups, let alone young people, pornography. Especially this freaky bondage stuff we found. I don't know how I found it, but I did. This situation had happened where a young kid had died and it's unclear exactly like what he was doing, but it seems like he was either one,

trying to commit suicide or two, he was exploring his sexuality and people were confused. People didn't know what it was. I'm not laughing, I'm laughing, oh fuck. Okay, so this kid, he was under 18, he had died and there was like a court trial going on about his death and pretty much they were trying to, again, push to get rid of pornography

because this young boy, so they're using this young boy's case to really push their agenda. Because this boy, he was found hanging by his knees with ropes from like a tree outside. Ropes tied around his ankles and then the same ropes reaching around from his ankles to his arms and looped around his neck

so that his body is pulled back in a very grotesque looking position. They use the word grotesque to describe how he was found, this boy, don't shoot the messenger. Now in court, this is when Betty gets pulled into it. So in court, they pull a picture of Betty Page in one of her bondage photos. And she was in the same exact position

as the young man was who had died. They had found this picture of Betty and they brought it into the courtroom and they were like, see, he was trying to recreate this picture, their fault that he's dead. They had a pretty strong case. I mean, it was a very similar position and it was pretty hard to convince anybody

that he wasn't trying to recreate that picture. So in court, they were trying to prove what Betty Page was doing and the photographer, and the photographers should be illegal because it kills people, obviously. I don't know much about the bondage world. This is a side note, I'm sorry. Do they add disclaimers like, hey, don't try this at home?

I guess I should Google it, huh? So all of this hot mess in court and whatnot was pretty much the beginning of the end for Mr. Claw. It was pretty much the end of what he was doing in his photographs. Congress amended the postal code to prohibit the mailing of non-sexual bondage materials. Mr. Claw was charged in 1963 for violating that statue.

And then for Betty, she was pretty much just, the whole experience just knocked her down. She was a target for this anti-bondage push, but Betty did the sensible thing, putting as much space between herself and Irving Klaw as possible. It just left Betty feeling beaten down. And I mean, could you imagine being the face

of something like that? So as time went on, Betty just kind of quietly like disappeared from the New York scene. And then on New Year's Eve, 1958, during one of her like regular visits to Key West, Florida, she attended a church service at what we now know as the Key West Temple Baptist Church. Like they're just pretty extreme.

Now, mind you, before I move forward, cause now I'm gonna get more into like the mess. This isn't, I'm not like doing a Betty Page biography. So there is a lot I'm leaving out. So just a little FYI, she accomplished a lot in this like modeling career. And she was a pretty big name. She was iconic. She was everything, she accomplished a lot in this modeling career and she was a pretty big name. She was iconic.

She was everything. She was everywhere. So I'm not trying to ignore all of that at all. When she was down there in Florida, that's when she married a man named Armand, Armand Wolterson, and this was like 1958. And it didn't last long. They divorced in 1963.

And then after her divorce, she attempted to become a Christian missionary in Africa, but she was rejected because she already had two divorces, and that's not accepted. Interesting now how we can laugh about these things, like that's so dumb, she got a divorce, big whoop. But at that time it was like so serious. Could you imagine? Ugh.

So she was pretty bummed out about that, you know, boo. In 1963 or 1964, Betty ended up remarrying her first husband. It only lasted a couple of months. So in 1972, Betty is still in Florida. Police got an alert of an incident at Bible Town, which was like a ministry retreat. And someone had called the cops because Betty was running around through a motel complex.

She was waving a 22 caliber pistol and she was yelling over and over again about the retribution of God. They don't like arrest her or anything. They just end up letting her go because she was at that time staying with one of her ex-husbands. Her ex-husband picks her up

and then takes her back to the home. And that's where she stays for a couple of months. Makeup. To today's story. Now, about a month after this first incident, Betty is having dinner with her ex-husband and her ex-husband's two kids. They're not her kids, they're her ex-husbands, okay?

So they're all sitting down around the dinner table. What could go wrong at dinner? Well, Betty's ex-husband called the cops because Betty was at the dinner table, right? And she was holding a knife up and she forced her ex-husband and the kids to pray before a portrait of Jesus. And she yelled at them,

"'If you take your eyes off this picture, "'I'll cut your guts out.'" End quote, that was a quote. So Betty's ex-husband calls the police like, yeah, she's got us like praying to this Jesus portrait. So then police come out and she was charged with breach of the peace and confined in a state hospital for four months.

At that time, it was noted by police that they thought she had something mentally going on, but it was like undiagnosed, but they made a note of it in the police report. Betty was staying at this state hospital and she was there for about four months. And when the four months was over, her ex-husband again, the one that she threatened with the Jesus portrait,

he picks her up and they go back to his house. I would say bad judgment call, but who am I to judge? So while Betty was staying at this state hospital, it was at this time that it was noted, or she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. And I'm not sure if like Betty knew this already, like beforehand, and I don't really think it's any of our business, but it was mentioned, okay, like this is the point

where she's officially been diagnosed and like it's in her file, I guess. Betty goes back with her ex-husband, they go stay at his house, no big deal, right? Everything's great, she's doing good. And then not even long after she got back to the home, in October of 1972, police were called again to the home and the cops were called

because Betty was just losing her shit. When police arrive, they see that Betty is just making a mess, she's making a mess. They see that Betty's just destroying the home. She was ripping pictures off the wall. She was knocking things onto the floor. She was breaking plates, just tr destroying the home. She was ripping pictures off the wall. She was knocking things onto the floor. She was breaking plates, just trashing the house. And she was just seeing red.

She would not calm down. So when all this is happening, police, obviously they have to arrest Betty because she's trashing the damn place. They end up putting her in the back of like a cop car. They shut the door. They go over and they start questioning her ex-husband and just trying to get his side of the whole story,

you know, as police do. The police officer is like, okay, great. I'm gonna go back to the car. That way I can question Betty now and figure out what the heck's going on with her. So when police go back to the cop car, open up the back door and they see she pulled her dress up and she pulled her underwear off and she pulled her underwear off

and she was just masturbating with a coat hanger that the officer had somehow missed. Betty was arrested and she was gonna be charged with like assault and battery and disorderly conduct. But luckily for Betty, I guess, assault and battery and disorderly conduct charges, they were completely dropped after she recommitted herself back to the state hospital.

So she ended up staying at the state hospital again for about six months this time. And she was under constant suicide watch, sadly. And after six months she was deemed fine and they let her go. And at this point, Betty realizes that she wants to go back to Los Angeles. April of 1979, Betty once again moves back to Los Angeles.

She didn't really have any place to stay, but she ended up finding a trailer to rent. So this trailer was owned by her neighbors who were in their seventies, and they rented it out to her. Sadly though, for Betty, it really didn't last long because she ended up attacking the 77 year old husband that she was renting the trailer from and he said it was completely unprovoked. She just came out of nowhere with a knife. She started making threats towards him.

He said it was like a lot of just religious stuff. He wasn't even sure what she was upset about but she was upset and she had a weapon so this guy kept telling Betty like put the knife down put the knife down drop the knife and she wouldn't do it so when when Betty was like turned around or not looking this um guy who she was attacking had a wrench so he ended up just whacking her in the head with the wrench and knocked her out completely so Betty ended up being charged with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon. Betty was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Following year, she was sentenced to five years confinement at another state hospital. But of course, she got just off the hook a lot, you know? Anyhow, but seven months later on her doctor's recommendation, she was released from the state hospital. Now it's June of 1982 and Betty's still living in Los Angeles and she's really struggling

to keep like a place to live. It was reported, allegedly, she kept getting kicked out of places because she would get into like really lame arguments with like other renters. At one place she was renting, she assaulted an elderly woman twice. No idea what the fight was about. I don't think it really matters, but yeah,

it just seems like she's getting more and more aggressive. So then she finds a place to rent in Santa Monica and it's in Los Angeles. And it said just randomly one night she entered the bedroom of her sleeping landlord. It was like two in the morning. She creeps into her room okay. She gets on her landlord's bed. She straddles her landlord who's an older woman. She straddles her and then she shakes her awake. Now, when the landlady wakes up, she sees that Betty's holding a foot long bread knife.

And the landlady said that Betty whispered to her saying, quote, God has inspired me to kill you, end quote. And that's the last thing the landlady remembers her saying before Betty proceeded to try and kill her, okay? So Betty, allegedly, Betty sliced her from corner of her mouth to corner of her ear, so she gave her like a joker smile almost, like super gross.

Betty stabbed her landlady four times in the chest. She barely missed her heart. She stabbed the hand eight times. I'm assuming that was the landlady was trying to protect herself, defense wound. And then she also cut off like one of her fingers. When brought to court, Betty pleaded not guilty, but changed her plea to not guilty by reason of insanity

after two California Department of Medical Health doctors testified that she was insane and had confessed to the attack. No word on what happened to the landlady. I actually think she might have lived, which is great, which is great, don't get me wrong. But I also read somewhere that she died. I don't know who to believe, hold on.

So Betty was sentenced to eight and a half years in state prison. I'm sorry, not state prison, the state hospital again. So she was there for eight and a half years and she stayed there until 1992. And then she was released. How many chances does one person get in their lifetime, huh? Now Betty was released in 1992. And at that point she was still famous. I think she was even more famous. Actually, she was even more famous actually. She was having a moment again. She was famous. She was like, what?

I'm famous again? At that time, there was a series of books that were released called Private Peaks. And it had like a, I think it was just all Betty, Betty Page's images and photos and photo shoots she had done. And it just started this whole new craze, brought in a bunch of new fans

and a bunch of people rediscovered her. Hugh Hefner remained a fan throughout the years and she was eventually interviewed sympathetically by Playboy and allowed herself to be photographed again by or for the magazine's 50th anniversary in 2003. Anyway, so I mean, movies came out about her and to this day, she's still pretty popular. I feel like I always see something,

either a documentary or something. I always see her around. And then in late 2008, Betty Page was hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia before she suffered a heart attack. She was transferred to another hospital and that's where she sadly passed away at the age of 85. Wait, sadly.

This is where I am so torn and I am the biggest hypocrite ever. Because not just because she's a woman, because she's Betty Page. So naturally I wanna be like, well, there's probably reasons why she, she was mentally ill. That's why she attacked those people. Come on.

But it's like a lot of the killers we've talked about, you know, are mentally ill and yeah. So I'm calling myself out. I'm being, I'm a hypocrite because I want to sit here and be like, well, there's reasons why she probably did it for certain reasons. But at the end of the day, well, there's reasons why. She probably did it for certain reasons. But at the end of the day, she did some fucked up shit, you know?

So I mentioned this on my live stream on Instagram on Wednesday, that I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this story or not for a couple of reasons. Because, well, mainly because I don't even know if this is true. Hear me out, hear me out. I know she got arrested and stuff, but when you research like Betty Page,

very lightly they talk about her attacking people, like getting arrested, and they never really explained like what was that about. Man, when I was looking up Betty Page, I was just like, how come nobody's mentioning it anywhere? It was really difficult to find, and I could only find like two articles that actually went into greater detail about what she did.

And I remember watching an interview years and years ago. I mean, I think when, I don't even know how long ago, it was a long ass time ago. I watched an interview and that's where I learned that this happened because I loved Betty Page. I still have like some of her artwork around. She's on my arm.

She was a look, so this is a zombie, but it's technically Betty Page. I'm a fucking hypocrite. You know when I'm yelling, get better idols, Bailey, Bailey. Talking to you, you shit head. I remember watching a thing with Betty Page. It was like, she was being interviewed years and years ago. And she talks about like the situation.

And I swear, I swear she mentioned that she killed the lady, the landlady. It, that always stuck with me. Went on with my life, kept living. Now last Saturday, I uploaded a video where I did a cheap wig haul and one of the wigs that I was really looking forward to get was the Betty Page wig. I loved I loved her hair. It was iconic. So I bought this wig that was Betty Page inspired right. I was

talking about it and I was thinking about it afterwards. I was like I should do a Monday video on her because she killed a person. Me remembering that old interview I saw. So I'm doing the research and I kid you not, you can't find anything about it. Everybody like just skips that part of her life. And I think because the good outweighs the bad and it's to the point when I was researching,

I was like, like I started to feel a little crazy. I was like, I might be making this whole thing up. Maybe I'm confused. And then I came across a couple of articles where it did mention that she attacked a couple of people. One died. And then there was another article saying that she attacked a couple people. And the landlady at the end, she didn't die. So I could only find two.

And we know she was arrested and stuff because there were reports on that. Anywho, so I hope you like this story about Betty Page. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. I hope you found this interesting. I hope you have a wonderful day today. Don't forget you have a happy and safe week. Make good choices. Please be safe out there and I'll be seeing you guys later. Bye!