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The Kefauver Committee

Bettie Page Interview

Estes Kefauver

This is a copy of the Kefauver Committee's report on Bettie Page. It was created during the Kefauver Committee's witch hunt on pornography during the mid 1950s. The person who wrote the report on Bettie was a highly biased individual as seen in the snippet below.

"Subject also worked for Irving Klaw, 212 East 14th St., New York City. Klaw calls himself the pin-up king. He specializes in lingerie shots, high-heel fetish shots, bondage shots, wrestling poses and leather-fetish shots. Klaw told her that he does a lot of special-order shots, i.e., he caters to perverts who give him orders to make certain types of shots peculiar to their perversion."

It is amazing how biased the individual who wrote it actually was. Read on!

Bettie Page

Miss Bettie Mae Page, aged 32, 65 West 46th Street, New York City, Telephone: circle 6-9827, was interviewed by me on May 23, 1955. The interview commenced at 10:30 A. M. and was concluded at 1 P. M. Subject is a white, female, and is in apparent good health. She has never used narcotics, does not drink or smoke. Subject is a free-lance photographer's model. She attended high school in Nashville, Tennessee, and was graduated from the George Peabody College for teachers, Nashville Tenn., with a Bachelor of Arts degree in June 1944.

Her mother, Miss Edna Darby, still resides in Nashville, Tenn. Her mother was twice-married and twice-divorced. Subject has three brothers and two sisters. In February 1943, she marries William Neal in Gallatin, Tennessee. They were divorced in November 1947 in Nashville with the subject receiving divorce for "physical cruelty".

Throughout the interview, subject was sullen, and sometimes sharp-tongued. Her answers tended to be evasive and she alternated her sullenness with periods wherein she became quite voluble. During... Members.