Yeager, a model-turned-photographer who contributed to Bettie Page's popularity, passed away in a North Miami hospice.
- May 26, 2014
AceShowbiz - Pinup photographer Bunny Yeager, who helped the start of Bettie Page's career, has passed away. Her agent Ed Christin told The Associated Press that the model-turned-photographer passed away at a North Miami hospice on Sunday, May 25 from congestive heart failure, a week after she was taken to the hospice. She was 85.
Born on March 13, 1929 in Wilkinsburg, Pa., Linnea Eleanor Yeager was interested in modeling before working behind the camera. She is known for her works whose theme centers around nudity. "Anyone in Miami in the 1950s who wanted a bikini would come to her, and she'd make one," the agent said.
She started taking photos of Page in 1954. One of her popular photos is of the then-unknown Bettie Page posing in a leopard-print swimsuit with a real cheetah. "It was like us doing a dance together. I would snap my fingers and she would do exactly what I told her to do: 'Stand on your toes. Kick your leg in the air. Jump in the air,' " she told Florida newspaper the Sun Sentinel of working with Page last year.
Yeager is survived by two daughters and four grandchildren. Her first husband Arthur Irwin passed away in the 1970s, while her second husband Harry Schaefer died in 2000.
