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Bettie Page rocked her signature black tresses and bangs long before the girl in your art history class.

By Sarah Feldberg

Thursday, April 2, 2009 | midnight

Decades before The Commodores sang about perfect measurements in “Brick House,” before the South Beach diet, elliptical trainers and a national obsession with edamame and soy milk, Bettie Page had a figure and a face that would make her a legend. Page was the girl next door who wasn’t—a Nashville native and pinup model who graced the pages of Playboy, inspired countless women to dye their hair black and cut a thick row of bangs and became immortalized on countless posters and T-shirts.

Now, four months after her December death at age 85, Las Vegas pays tribute to the “notorious” Bettie Page with an evening of music, pinups and Page reminiscences at Bugsy’s Night Club. Local throwback band The Convincers will play, and aspiring models will compete in a pinup contest. Vegas burlesque legend Tempest Storm will also be on hand to talk about the Bettie Page she befriended when they worked together on the 1955 film Teaserama, as Page’s career was just taking off. “I told her at the time, ‘You’re going to be a famous pinup model someday,’” Storm recalls. “Of course, she didn’t believe me. But I told her that.”