Did Betty White pose nude?

[Mosquito_Bait]

Rest in peace, Betty White. May your memory be eternal.

The following is one of several images that can be found on the Internet that are claimed to be of Betty White. If it is her, she had nothing to be ashamed of. She was beautiful.

[nudeyooper]

And ther is something to be said for the beauty she maintained for the rest of her life. We too often only consider the young and smooth to be beautiful, but there are many who show their age and wrinkles who have a beauty that is approriate for the age. Betty was one of those. It also helps to have a sharp wit and wonderful sense of humor.

[EltonJ]

I think it's not Betty White's problem that she posed nude. It's certainly not our problem, but the problem is most of our culture has grown up to be ashamed of their naked bodies. If the outside world would accept us, and find us that we aren't being rude with our bodies, America would be in a better place. However, pornography is a problem. Is it the intent of the pornographer to create pornography? (I watched a pbs show investigating pornography, and there was the intent there) or is it the reaction we have when viewing a picture that makes it pornography? For Porn to be created, there must be an intent with the pornographer and the shame of the viewer.

Soft pornography requires shame to exist. Without that shame, pornography can't really exist. When I got my wife to enjoy nudity at home and at a social setting, it was like we both won. She didn't have to be ashamed of her body anymore, and she found that nudity in a social setting wasn't hurting her. In fact, it was better for us and our relationship. I don't know Betty White, but seeing her nude in her younger days reminds me more of how my wife and I took our relationship from a clothed setting to a nude setting. We weren't ashamed of our bodies, and we wanted to be around people who weren't ashamed of theirs.

Betty White posing nude isn't pornography for us. Infact it's the opposite.

[NudonyII]

Before nudism, my wife would have never consented to having nude pictures taken of her. But as she grew comfortable with social nudism, she also became more comfortable posing nude (at a nudist venue where photography is allowed).

The pictures are natural and quite innocent; not unlike Betty Page's. Yet we are not comfortable posting these pics anywhere, in part because other people may not necessarily view them as such.

So-called "soft porn" or "erotica" are in the eye of the beholder. Even if they are a celebration of body-acceptance and freedom (like my wife's), there will be people who will assign a different meaning for them.

[Mosquito_Bait]

There is no shame in such photos these days.

A popular publicity strategy for young female pop culture figures is to publicize nude photos of themselves. I see clickbait for this just about every day. Of course, they have to edit the photos in order to meet the standards that will allow the photos to be posted on the popular social media platforms. The following is a photo recently posted by Britney Spears.



Circa 2000 before social media was so popular, the target media were gossip magazines. There was a brief fad during which young female popular culture figures would allow themselves to be photographed getting out of cars while wearing short skirts with no panties. Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Britney Spears all had similar photos taken at about the same time. Below is one of the tamer ones from Britney.

[Mosquito_Bait]

Marylin Monroe might be credited as being the first major movie star to be unapologetic about being photographed nude. She was the centerfold in the first issue of Playboy. Of course, she did not know at the time that the photos were taken that they would appear in a magazine that was so widely distributed.


Marylin Monroe knew she looked good, and she didn't have any phobias about being seen nude. She filmed a nude pool scene for the movie Something's Gotta Give. She was given a flesh colored swimsuit, but she took it off in the water. For the actual movie scene that the audience was intended to see, most of her body was not visible. After the scene was completed, she evidently did not have a problem with getting out of the pool nude. She was fired from the movie, and it was never completed, which is too bad. It would have been a milestone.

[Mosquito_Bait]

An interesting aside is that Elizabeth Taylor was photographed nude when she was 24. The photographer was her friend and fellow actor Roddy McDowall. The photo was a present for her husband Mike Todd. This was circa 1956. The photo was not intended for public release and was not seen by the public until recently.



Think about this. She knew she had a great body, and she wasn't afraid to be photographed nude, but she was afraid to let the photos become public due to the effect it might have on her career. Today, a young movie star in her position would post the photos on Instagram.

[Mosquito_Bait]

Among male actors, on-screen male nudity is relatively rare. It seems much more likely to trigger the dreaded X rating than female nudity.

That being said, Charlton Heston may get credit for the first scene with frontal male nudity, which occurred in the waterfall scene in Planet of the Apes in 1968. The glimpse of him from the front is in the distance and fleeting. He did appear nude from the back in many other scenes in that movie.






I can't claim to have researched this, but the first male frontal nude scene that I can remember that was unambiguous was Jan Michael Vincent in Buster and Billie in 1974.



Frontal male nudity has not become a major trend. George Clooney filmed a frontal nude scene for the movie Solaris, but the scene was recut to eliminate frontal nudity based on audience reaction during test screenings. Some members of the test screening audience giggled, which producers felt broke the mood of the scene. Audiences did see George Clooney nude from the rear in the final version of the film.



That being said, Ewan McGregor had frontal nude scenes in a string of movies including Trainspotting. He may have been Hollywood's go-to actor for such scenes.

[NudonyII]

Let's not forget the late great Diane Webber, who to my knowledge was the first to popularize "nudist-style" nudity. Not only was posing completely nude not really "done" at that time (outside of Girlie magazines); but she also did it to promote nudism and freedom.

[Mosquito_Bait]

Diane Webber is an interesting case.

She was Playboy's centerfold twice in the mid-1950s, but she used the alias Marguerite Empey.

She had a successful career in Hollywood playing any part that required a mermaid or belly dancer. She no doubt used the alias to avoid complications with her Hollywood career.

In the late 1960s, she used her real name for pictorials of her and her family for nudist publications.

[EltonJ]

What about Brad Pitt?

[NudonyII]

Diane Webber is an interesting case.

She was Playboy's centerfold twice in the mid-1950s, but she used the alias Marguerite Empey.

Her maiden name is Marguerite Diane Empey. When she married Joe Webber, she started going by Diane Webber.

The "story" goes that it was her husband Joe that introduced her to nudism. She originally saw it as an opportunity to maintain a full-body tan for her nude modeling work; but then she got hooked on social nudism and started advocating for it. She met Ed Lange; and since she already had experience posing nude, she was the "perfect candidate" to model for his nudist publications. Hence the transition from nude model to nudist model.

[Mosquito_Bait]

Her maiden name is Marguerite Diane Empey. When she married Joe Webber, she started going by Diane Webber.

...

Thanks for the explanation.

I suspected that marriage was the reason for the switch from Empey to Webber, but I hadn't understood the switch from Marguerite to Diane. I didn't know that Diane was her middle name.

[Mosquito_Bait]

What about Brad Pitt?

I had to do a web search. Audiences saw Brad Pitt's butt in Thelma & Louise and Troy. Other than paparazzi photos of him on a beach with Gwyneth Paltrow, he hasn't appeared frontally nude.

[nudeM]

In the mini-series Spartacus, there is almost, non-stop full-frontal nudity, both male and female. It was shown on a cable channel (can't remember), but the story line was great. I enjoyed it and likened it to a male soap opera. With so much nudity, I doubt it will ever be shown on main stream TV.