| The FABlife

Playboy Turns 55!

From the first issue with Marilyn Monroe on the cover, Playboy magazine has featured the world’s most beautiful ladies for 55 years. This January, Playboy releases its 55th anniversary issue, celebrating over half a decade of nudity. From Brigitte Bardot to Carmen Electra to Bettie Page to the Girls Next Door, hundreds of gorgeous ladies have ripped their clothes off and flung themselves in front of the camera for Hugh Hefner. Check out our gallery of some of Scandalist’s favorites! [Photo: Playboy]

R.I.P. Bettie Page

Pin-up queen Bettie Page has passed away at 85. Page’s fame exploded in the 1940′s and 50′s, thanks to the small black and white photographs that circulated of the brunette posing naked, as well as in lingerie and bondage. The racy images solidified Page’s sex symbol status, and she remained relevant for decades as a cult figure. Her image covers everything from magnets to shot glasses, and her hair style has inspired hipsters from Brooklyn to Portland to cut their bangs (see Janeane Garofalo in Reality Bites for reference).

Page fell into modeling after leaving an abusive husband, and at the height of her career appeared in the pages of Playboy. She ditched it all at 35 and became a born-again Christian. After spending 10 years in a mental institution for attackin her landlord with a knife, she retired to California.

“I have no idea why I’m the only model who has had so much fame so long after quitting work,” she said in 2006. At the same interview, she requested that her face not be photographed. “I want to be remembered,” she said, “as I was when I was young and in my golden times. . . . I want to be remembered as the woman who changed people’s perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form.”