On this day in 1923, Bettie Mae Page was born in in Nashville, Tennessee. The second of six children, Paige was frequently placed in an orphanage with her sisters while her single mother worked to save money. A hard-working student, Paige graduated at the top of her high school class and graduated from Peabody College. She married Billy Neal in 1943, and the couple moved to San Francisco, where Paige launched her modeling career.After divorcing Billy in 1947 and moving to New York, Paige worked with a photographer to produce the first of many pinup calendars. Within months, she was posing for national magazines, including the centerfold of January 1955’s Playboy. With her deep blue eyes and raven black hair with signature short bangs, Paige soon became more than a model, she was a living legend. She dabbled in acting, but her success was primarily in modeling. She moved to Florida to work with several influential photographers and married her second husband, Armond Walterson, in 1958. A third marriage to Harry Lear would also end in divorce.In the 1960s, Page mysteriously disappeared from the limelight and was said to have suffered from severe mental problems. Two films have been created about her life, 2004’s Bettie Page: Dark Angel starring Paige Richards and 2005’s The Notorious Bettie Page with Gretchen Mol. Page died on December 11, 2008.