The 85-year-old suffered a heart attack nine days ago and never recovered consciousness.
"With deep personal sadness I must announce that my dear friend and client Bettie Page passed away in a Los Angeles hospital," her agent Mark Roesler said.
She captured the imagination of a generation of men and women with her free spirit and unabashed sensuality.
She worked as a secretary as she made a bid for Hollywood stardom that was never to materialise.
A screen test at 20th Century Fox went badly, with a producer offering her a break in return for sexual favours - she refused.
She turned to modelling and posed for her first pin-up photos in 1947 - soon provocative pictures of her in bikinis or sexy lingerie were wildly popular, tacked up on the walls of locker rooms, student halls, offices and military barracks.
However, the pictures of her were not universally popular and some led to an inquiry into pornography with Ms Page being subpoenaed at one point to appear before a senate committee.
In the end, she did not have to testify.
According to her fans, the model's appeal was her naughty-but-nice image that combined sweetness with sexuality for a series of now-legendary posters and photographs.
Among her fans was filmmaker and aviator Howard Hughes who doggedly pursued the pin up - she turned him down as well.
I guess people will say I made a mistake. But sex is part of love, and you shouldn't go around doing it unless you are in love. I certainly didn't.
In 1958, at the peak of her fame, Ms Page vanished from public view and her modelling days ended. She became a born-again Christian while struggling with marriage problems and depression.
But she became famous all over again to a new audience in the 1990s after her image was used for a lucrative licensing deal.
In her old age, she refused to be photographed, preferring to preserve her mystic.
She said: "I want to be remembered, as I was when I was young and in my golden times...
"I want to be remembered as the woman who changed people's perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form."
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