Fifties pin-up and S&M model Bettie Page dies aged 85

Bettie Page, the 1950s pin-up model who was immortalised by the actress Gretchen Mol in the 2005 biopic The Notorious Bettie Page, died on Thursday aged 85. Page (pictured in her heyday), a harbinger of the tabloid Page 3 girl, began her modelling career in 1950 when she was spotted by an amateur photographer who was struck by her curves and asked her to pose for some impromptu snaps.

Shortly afterwards Page, then 27, fell under the influence of a photographer and his sister who specialised in S&M. They cut her hair and dressed her in spiked heels and photographed her with a whip in her hand - in one session she was spread-eagled between two trees, her feet dangling. Of that experience, she said: "I thought my arms and legs would come out of their sockets."

During the 1960s she turned her back on modelling to become a Christian missionary in Africa but was rejected for having had a divorce.

Hugh Hefner, who made her one of his early centrefolds in the fledgling Playboy, said of Page: "I think that she was a remarkable lady, an iconic figure in pop culture who influenced sexuality and taste in fashion."

Nudity didn't bother her, she once said, explaining: "God approves of nudity. Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they were naked as jaybirds."