Pinup icon makes long journey from Page to screen

LOS ANGELES - Although pinup icon Bettie Page became an overnight sensation for her naughty girl poses in the 1950s, her recent journey to the big screen has been anything but facile.

Her story is chronicled in the sexy indie "The Notorious Bettie Page," which indie distributor Picturehouse will give a limited release in the US next month.

But writer-director Mary Harron first became intrigued by the story behind the raven-haired beauty with her signature bangs way back in 1993. While working on the short-lived Fox newsmagazine show "Front Page," Harron met a young researcher named Sam Green (who later went on to co-direct the Oscar-nominated documentary "The Weather Underground"). Green suggested doing a segment on the cheesecake model who inspired a generation of men as well as US Senate hearings investigating the role of pornography in juvenile delinquency.

Harron, an on-the-rise journalist, started working on a screenplay for a Page short with scribe-actress Guinevere Turner ("Go Fish").

"At first we thought there wasn't enough material to make a feature film," Harron recalls.

But then Green unearthed a trove of transcripts from the Senate hearings, which gave the story a compelling new dimension.

"We decided the world itself was so interesting," Harron says of that era poised on the brink of change.

"So it became not only a story about a pinup model, but it became about sex in the 1950s and those attitudes. And that became a much more interesting and dynamic story."

The Page project, though, took a back seat to Harron's suddenly hot helming career, which included the critically acclaimed indies "I Shot Andy Warhol" and "American Psycho."

Even though Harron was at first fired from "Psycho" in favor of Oliver Stone and later rehired, that big-screen adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' best-selling novel "came together very quickly" compared to "Bettie Page," she says.

The Oxford-educated Canadian native also became a mother of two with husband and fellow director John Walsh ("Pipe Dream").

Meanwhile, Martin Scorsese began developing a competing Page biopic with Liv Tyler attached to star - a project that later unraveled.

Nevertheless, Harron couldn't shake her desire to make a film about America's first bondage goddess.

"I heard a lot growing up about what it was like to be a beauty queen or a starlet in the '50s," says Harron, whose stepmother, model-actress Virginia Leith, was plucked from obscurity by Stanley Kubrick.

Leith, who was married to Harron's father ("Hee Haw" star Don Harron) for seven years during Mary Harron's formative adolescence, was under contract at 20th Century Fox and also played Joanne Woodward's sister in "A Kiss Before Dying."

Driven by the desire to explore the motif of objectified beauty, Harron turned her attention back to "Bettie Page" and hooked up with New York indie powerhouse Killer Films. Although Harron lauded Killer founders Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler for their uncompromising support, sources close to the production say the company's tightfisted approach left Harron and Turner earning a mere $30,000 each for the screenplay, with no chance for residuals. The director, however, would not confirm terms of her contract.

Still, Harron insists Killer protected her artistic vision -- which was ultimately her No. 1 priority.

"I wanted to make a film in black and white, with a certain kind of narrative, casting Gretchen (Mol)," Harron says.

"They supported me absolutely in the kind of film I wanted to do."

- REUTERS/Hollywood Reporter