T   H   E

C   O   M   P   A   N   I   O   N



PART FOUR

 

By Brendan Hancock
Edited by Matthew J Schelle

 

Originally Written for The Australian Rock & Roll Appreciation Society in 2005

  

 

PART FOUR of EIGHT

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Bettie escaped the bad press and negative environment that surrounded Irving Klaw and New York and found refuge in the sun and beaches of Florida. Perhaps using the new surroundings as a purifying agent to re-energise herself, Bettie initially tried to keep to herself and tried to keep a low profile even to the extent of spending Christmas 1957 alone in her small Fort Lauderdale cottage.


Yet Bettie’s aim to keep a low profile would be soon dismissed when, two weeks after moving in, she decided to spend some time on the beach. It didn’t take long for word to spread that Bettie Page was in town.

 

It just happened that at the same time Bettie decided to grace the sand that lifeguard Ellsworth Boyd was on duty. Like many others, Boyd had heard the rumours that Bettie page was not only in town, but on his beach. Although a Lifeguard at the time, Boyd was studying to become a school teacher and also just happened to have a keen interest in photography. Realising he had nothing to lose, Boyd decided he would go over to talk to her.

 

“Fortunately it was late in the day, because the captain of the lifeguards would drive up and down the beach because we weren’t supposed to get down from the stand and talk to people. We could get down and stretch our legs, but I was taking a big chance getting down from the stand and walking down to the water’s edge to talk to Bettie”.

 

It didn’t take long for Boyd to take the chance and strike up a conversation with Bettie,


“She was quiet well known… I struck up a conversation with her and was impressed by how nice she was. She was very cordial for someone with such a big name, very down-to-earth, and very easy to talk to, the girl next door type, very pretty”.

 

Boyd soon let it be known that one of his hobbies was skin diving and snorkelling in which he and his partner Jim Kelly also taught. Bettie’s adventurous spirit got the better of her and soon she was invited to join both Boyd and Kelly on one of their expeditions the following day.

 

Boyd and Kelly took Bettie out to a nearby coral reef the next day. Both took turns teaching Bettie the fine art of skin diving for around four hours. The entire party had an enjoyable day and to commemorate such a great time, Boyd brought out his camera and asked Bettie if he could take some photos of her to which she politely replied, “Oh, sure”.


Seizing the moment, Boyd captured images of Bettie dressed in her home made bikini and Scuba attire, holding a spear, and most of all, enjoying herself. Unfortunately the impromptu photo shoot was short lived when only after half a dozen shots, Boyd ran out of film.

 

Perhaps it was the enticement of working again, but surely Florida’s beautiful landscape and it’s people were a definite change from the troubles Irving Klaw’s bondage photos and everything that went with it had caused her.

The sad thing was, unbeknownst to both Bettie or Boyd, these happy snaps would represent Bettie’s last modelling job and the last of the pin-up images of Bettie Page.

 

It didn’t take long for Bettie to realise she needed to move again and in December 1957 she left Fort Lauderdale behind and said hello to Key West. The reason for the sudden departure was not only due to the fact that she was running out of money, but a young man (he was only 21) by the name of Armond Carlyle Walterson who Bettie befriended and had a fling with nearly three years before, invited her to live with him.

 

As soon as Bettie got off the bus, Armond was waiting and they instantly fell in love with each other all over again.

 

While Armond did a number of odd jobs during the day, Bettie tried her luck at looking for work also. At night, the happy couple would hit the town, make love or catch a drive-in movie. Bettie soon built up a strong relationship with Armond’s extended family of eleven brothers and sisters, perhaps trying to fill the void that was missing from the absence of her own family back in Nashville.

 

However, her happiness was about to be tested when in February of 1958, whilst playing volleyball with Arnold and friends, Bettie leaped for the ball awkwardly and severely sprained her sacrum (the bottom most vertebra in the back). This accident left her wheelchair bound for over four months, in which time money became tight because of the lack of extra income. Savings were quickly being depleted, rent, groceries and other necessaries weren’t able to be paid and tension between the once loving couple of Arnold and Bettie was rising.

 

To make matters worse, being out of action and with no work, Bettie was unable to pay the rent on her storage shed that was located back in New Jersey and the owners evicted her and in doing so sold everything inside it via auction. Everything she owned was auctioned off to the best bidder to cover their costs. Family photo albums and mementos, her entire modelling portfolios, basically her life had been sold while she was at her most vulnerable. Bettie didn’t know about this and wasn’t given a chance to bid or make arrangements.


There was some force trying to not only push for her life as a pinup model, but here was the evidence she needed that something was telling her perhaps she should really move onto something else.

 

While re-cooperating and knowing that she needed to think of something fast to get some money in, Bettie decided she would take up teaching again.

 

 

On the 4th June 1958, she filled out her application with the Monroe County Public School system to teach elementary school in Key West. Stating that both “secretarial and theatrical” jobs made up her past work experience, Bettie was soon accepted and was given a teaching job teaching fifth grade students at Harris Elementary School on August 15th. Unfortunately she quit just three months later.

 

“I lasted just one term, I had a very rowdy bunch of students in my class and I could not control them…I was very disappointed in my teaching experience and didn’t care to pursue it any further”


Needing a complete change of professional scenery, Bettie got some training and for nine months worked as a secretary at the Naval base at Key West. The extra money coming in made way for happier times between Bettie and Arnold and on the 26th November they married. Bettie walked down the aisle in a wedding gown she made herself.


Although they were happy together most of the time, Bettie and Arnold where known for their stormy relationship which is said to have been caused by a mix of Bettie’s mood swings and her frustration over Arnold’s lack of Ambition. Although financially better off and very happy with his well paying job as a shipping manager, Arnold was content with how his life was going. He didn’t share Bettie’s passion for travel or her passion for bigger and better things. Although hamburgers and drive in movies were fun for a while, in the long term, Bettie missed the fine dining and free spirited travelling that she was once uncustomed to, something she thought her young beau would be also yearning. Instead she saw her younger, less experienced husband as a small man.

 

Perhaps seen as a last ditch effort for compromise, the newlyweds worked hard and started to save some money. When they finally came up with around $2,000 they decided to invest in a twenty-six foot fishing boat, which they decided could be used to catch seafood to sell to local restaurant businesses.

 

Unfortunately for the enterprising couple, what money was left over went into making lobster traps that somehow always turned up empty from constant raiding by local kids.

 

Realising their mistake and putting their pride aside, the couple sold off the boat at a loss. Depression mixed with arguments worsened and on the night of New Years Eve 1958, the marriage was officially ended.

 

Storming out of her house after another abusive argument, Bettie was in tears. As she walked down White Street, not far from where she first met Armond only years before, something happened that would change her forever...

 

“I was walking alone down White Street at twenty minutes to midnight on New Years Eve with my head hanging low. I was very lonely and blue and intended to go down to the beach and look up at the stars. All of a sudden I felt a hand in mine, leading me across the street to a small church with a bright white neon cross on top. The door was wide open and a New Years service was in progress”.

 

Bettie walked into the church and watched congregation unfold from the back. It was a special night service to celebrate the New Year, and it didn’t take long for Bettie to be re-energised by the positive energy that was being felt throughout the hall. 

 

“I walked in and stood at the back of the room and cried as the preacher delivered his sermon.”

 

Bettie couldn’t help but feel that the minister’s cries of salvation were in a way directed towards her. All Bettie’s demons, troubles, all the negativity that had plague her up and until that point came to the surface and spiritually leap-frogged out of her body. She had found her purpose: Bettie Page had found Salvation…. Hallelujah.

 

 

 

PART FOUR of EIGHT

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