Start Here. About paigeyoung1968.com Updated 4/7/2024.

It’s been 50 years since the woman known as a “Playboy Playmate,” Paige Young committed suicide on April 7, 1974.

(On http://paigeyoung1968.com Click on a chapter title you want to read and scroll way down.)

There is a lot more information I learned about the real life of a human being, long forgotten and little known, than you saw in “Secrets of Playboy,” an A&E channel series first shown in January and February of 2022.

I was interviewed about Paige Young for the segment about the ending of her life, because I have been researching her entire life since 2015.

My research started a few months after I read an article about Paige Young published in the Dailymail.com, December 2014.

The “exclusive,” was published in the wake of the public learning that legendary comedian and “America’s Dad,” Bill Cosby, had been a serial rapist beginning about 1965.

In this website, I write much more about what I found out, and what I guess happened to Paige with a little bit about the person.

Because most readers are interested in Paige Young’s suicide, her connection to celebrities, and any connection celebrities may have played in her suicide:

All of that information can be found about halfway down on the Home Page, there is a list of chapters. paigeyoung1968.com

This is partly a story about fame.

And infamy.

And what some in the media called a “Playmate Curse.”

I’ll go over a few of these women now and add in the upcoming months. Many of the Playmates did have a tragic end, and most are not recognized.

Certainly one of the women is a very famous beyond Playboy is Jayne Mansfield.

She was convincing at what she played, the dumb and/or “sexy Blonde,” just like Anna Nicole Smith in more recent times.

Playmate in 1955

One year before she was a Broadway star and Cover Girl for Life magazine, Jayne appeared in as a Playmate of the Month.

Jayne’s Playboy appearance was a natural fit for her blonde bombshell exhibitionist image.

Jayne Mansfield’s Playmate feature in February of **1955.** Plays up her role in the hit Broadway show:
*Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter*?
Jayne appeared in several movies including the movie version of Rock Hunter.

Later on, Jayne become famous for staging events to promote herself, including an infamous association with Satanist Anton LaVey in the 1960s. Who himself was purely about promoting himself.
Jayne had several children. Most famously **Mariska Hargitay .** Her kids were sometimes part of her publicity stunts. (See below)

Infamous for her death in a horrible car wreck in 1967, Jayne lived a life with marriages and children that the tabloids and regular newspapers were drawn to, much like Anna Nicole Smith would a few decades later.

**Bob Thomas** in the Public Opinion,Pennsylvania

Playmate of the Year 1970.

Claudia Jennings

Lesser known than Jayne Mansfield and Anna Nicole Smith was Claudia Jennings, now known as one of Hollywood’s “Queen of the Bs” for 1970s “exploitation” and “sexploitation” films. The kinds of movies Quentin Tarantino would like.

Mimi Cherston originally, Claudia was an aspiring actress since her days growing up in Illinois. Her proximity to Playboy Headquarters in Chicago led Mimi to a job there after high school as a receptionist and tour guide. Some one noticed (a photographer?) her potential for the magazine and after her Playmate appearance she won Playmate of the Year for 1970.

**Nov. 1972 Sacramento Bee**. The cult classic Unholy Rollers.

Claudia appears on the Tonight Show couch in 1970, the year she was awarded Playmate of the Year.

Playmates of the Year were often invited on the Carson show due to the prestige of the title. Claudia was on her way to becoming an actress and had several films to promote on Johnny’s show.

**San Francisco Examiner** **Mar. 29, 1970**

Sadly Claudia died in a car accident on the Pacific Coast Highway near Topanga Canyon Rd. October of 1979 at 29 years old.

A notoriously deadly stretch of the PCH.

Most Playmates went on to live normal, middle-class lives with careers and children.

But Unfortunately, there are more than a few Playmates who have died tragic and young deaths, like Jayne Mansfield and Claudia Jennings, which gets mentioned in the media from time to time.

Victoria Vetri, Angela Dorian in Playboy, and a Playmate of the year, was for a while in the 1960s, a popular “B movie” actress. She appears in cult classic When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth which is a favorite among many men, “Boomers and Gen X” that is.

Victoria shot her 4th husband but he survived so Victoria ended up with only a few years in jail.

Her story was told in an episode of the Playboy Murders (ID Network). It focused on her tangential yet significant encounters with Charles Manson.

Vetri has a small role in A-list Rosemary’s Baby directed by friend of Hef Roman Polanski. legend has it he told her to drop her stage name stick with her birth name of Victoria Vetri.

From the headlines below, one can see there was a boost of interest in this topic of a “Playmate curse” when 1993 Playmate of the Year Anna Nicole Smith, died of a drug overdose in 2007.

This article by AP writer Jessica Gresko was seen across the USA.

Ventura County Star Feb. 19, 2007 Photo of Anna in high school.

Since that time, we think of Anna Nicole Smith and Dorothy Stratten as emblematic of and superb examples of the: “Playmate Curse.”

Notice that in each article is a list of Playmates who died tragically and relatively young, like my my subject Paige Young.

As we all know, Anna Nicole Smith is a Playmate who became a piece of pop culture beyond her titles at Playboy: famous for her tall, curvy body and resemblance to Marilyn Monroe, Guess Jeans ad, Trim Spa spokeswoman, appearances all over the media both tabloid and and mainstream, her prototype “Reality Series.”

Like fellow Playmate Jayne Mansfield, Anna Nicole’s personal life became a tabloid staple. They both lived larger than life, both abused alcohol and other substances. Both women had family matters with spouse and children appear in the media as seen in the articles above.

In Anna’s case, her marriage to very old, uber wealthy, Texas oilman J. Howard Marshall in 1994 provided much tabloid fodder.

She met him through her job as a stripper in Texas before Playboy happened. They were married in 1994 after Anna Nicole’s blast to fame in 1993.

There has been a recent cultural re-evaluation of Anna Nicole Smith. This People issue and a Netflix documentary entitled You Don’t Know Me.

People magazine May 29, 2023.

After Marshall’s death Anna Nicole was involved in a complicated legal battle; she was not in her husband’s will nor was one of his sons.

**The State , Columbia, SC 2/19/2007 Notice the mention of Paige Young. She did not die of a “drug overdose” as is often published.**

Tabloids and mainstream media had covered her court appearances over the will, but Anna’s death by overdose after years of drug and alcohol abuse, on February 7, 2007, eclipsed all other news for a several days.

Newspapers, magazines and cable TV, covered her death as it would a major political event.

There was even media coverage about the about the 24/7 media coverage of Anna Nicole’s death as shown in You Don’t Know Me, the Netflix documentary.

END.

There are many sources online for more details so this will only a brief refresher for context.

In October of 2014, beloved comedian and entertainment icon Bill Cosby had his long history of drugging and raping women made public and it actually “caught on.”

After the video of comic Hannibal Buress making video went viral in October of 2014, it was quickly followed by a Twitter backlash after Cosby asked the audience to produce memes about him.

Dozens of the former victims of Bill Cosby were coming forward in the media over a several month period 2014-2015. One of them is named Barbara Bowman. She wrote an influential article published in the Washington Post, Nov. 11, 2014 titled: “Bill Cosby raped me. Why did it take 30 years for people to believe my story?“

Apparently many in Hollywood the Industry knew about Cosby’s history, but the general public did not.

In the midst of all of this, in early Dec. of 2014, the Daily Mail online published a long and “exclusive” piece of reportage about the long forgotten 1968 Playmate Paige Young; the day of her suicide in 1974, her association with Bill Cosby and other Hollywood elite including Hugh Hefner and director John Huston.

The reporter of the piece is Ryan Parry.

Included in the article is an account from Tamara Green; it’s about an encounter she experienced with Paige and Bill in El Paso 1970.

Green had already publicly claimed since 2005 that Bill Cosby drugged and assaulted her in the early 1970s. She discussed it in a now infamous interview conducted by Matt Lauer of the Today show which I viewed on youtube. This is because he turned out to be an abuser of power himself. Nothing like the level It seems to have since been taken down.

(See chapter on Tamara Green/El Paso)

The Daily Mail article quotes Tamara saying she knew Paige Young from modeling auditions in LA.

If it were not for Paige Young’s connection to celebrity Paige may have remained relegated to these articles of Playboy Playmates who committed suicide or died in other tragic ways, made even more tragic by their young ages: murders, car wrecks, cancer and accidental drug overdoses.I already mentioned a few.

**Cosby was in El Paso when Tamara Green says he**r **encounter with him and Paige happened.**

It’s my opinion that Ryan Parry thought he may have a lead on a direct link between Cosby and the suicide of Paige Young.

And this is the reason he pursued Paige’s backstory.

Parry follows this lead and interviews a few people who knew Paige Young in the 1960s and early 1970s.

One of them was Richard Sample whom I interviewed in May of 2021.

Parry’s reporting does not establish a direct link between Cosby and Young’s suicide in 1974, which I am shown saying in Episode 8 of the Secrets of Playboy series.

However, Parry’s reporting does uncover several previously unknown things, like the fact that Paige died by a gunshot to the head and not a drug overdose.

Another was that she was a girlfriend of Cosby’s.

And, as was dramatized in the Secrets of Playboy episode about Paige Young, a witness spoke who saw a “mural” Paige had constructed in her apartment–consisting of photographic images and articles about Hugh Hefner upon which was written things like “Hugh Hefner is the Devil” and “I hate Hugh Hefner.”

What I learned in 2021 was that Bill Cosby actually did drug and rape Paige Young and “paid her off,” which was the same tactic he used on several women for decades.

I learned this by a telephone conversation with an old friend of Paige’s. He told me the story that Paige had told him about the rape. See chapter on Henry/Malibu.

Drug overdose…..

as the reason for Paige’s death has been published in the “Playmate Book” for decades. It is probably the source of the original “death lists” made on the internet.

The Playmate Book is a compendium of all the women who were named “Playmates” from the year Playboy Magazine was introduced in 1953, up to the date of publication. The entries include a brief life update on each woman.

AP story by Jessica Gresko about Anna Nicole Smith, shortly after her death in Feb. of 2007.

Gretchen Edgren has been the editor of the Playmate Book for a long time. I don’t know how long. She has since died.

Parry’s 2014 article about Paige Young was completely ignored by every media outlet.

This surprised me but I quickly realized that the Daily Mail has a taint of “tabloid” attached to it, and was in legal hot water some years back for harassing celebrities and recording them illegally.

Many media outlets, including other tabloids, may be wary of quoting the Daily Mail.

Still, I did find it a bit odd that no independent journalist was interested enough to look into Paige’s story any further, given the major celebrities named in the story. And pop culture interest in 1960s/70s Hollywood and LA.

Only one named Mark Ebner has ever mentioned Paige Young, that I have seen or read.

The Daily Mail story has caught on primarily with the “conspiracy crowd.” Like MK Ultra.

I’m not here to entertain that idea.

Where did Playboy get the information that it was a drug overdose that killed Paige?

Certainly not from Melanie Myers who saw Paige both alive and dead the day she committed suicide, according to her accounts in the Daily Mail, Secrets of Playboy and me personally.

As did the police who were called to the scene which is recorded on Paige Young’s death certificate and police report.

There are several chapters I have written on this topic.

Claim: “Paige [Young] told me that a person that was a member of this Playboy Mansion entourage, or whatever it was, had filmed her having sex. Paige was so over-the-top upset about that tape. This was the end of the world for her. She didn’t seem that shy, you know, about sex, and it made me wonder, What was on that tape? What I actually keep thinking is there’s more on that than just sex. … When I knew her, Paige was into clean living. I think more likely is that Bill [Cosby] drugged her.”
Who Said It: Melanie Myers, celebrity astrologer and neighbor of November 1968 Playmate of the Month, who found the 30-year-old dead under a collage of photos and news clippings which featured the words “HUGH HEFNER IS THE DEVIL” From People magazine website. April 4, 2022.

As a Playboy Playmate, Paige Young experienced a minor type of celebrity status for a brief portion of her short life.

And she was an actual human with a life besides her association with Playboy.

At times, Paige associated with people who were much more famous than she. Some are well known to the mass public, including Hugh Hefner, John Huston, Andy Warhol, Bill Cosby; men who lived with massive fame which outlives them.

Bill Cosby is still alive, very old and seems to be in failing health.

Others were and are famous to a smaller audience.

These will be introduced to you on this website.

Paige Young and her family’s journey encompass both the industry and town of Hollywood, WW2 Los Angeles and post-war Los Angeles, growing up in the San Fernando Valley in the 1950s where you lived in the same neighborhoods and went to school with your peers like 1950s icons Annette Funicello and Tony Dow and the singing King family 2nd generation.

It’s the old story of time and place and people.

Research Methods

My (ongoing) research consisted of obtaining various LA County public records like birth and death certificates, viewing City of LA building permit documents, (online), perusing telephone directories in the DTLA public library, voting records, marriage, divorce, and military records on ancestry.com.

I have spoken with a few first hand sources, there were several who refuse to speak with me, or I couldn’t locate. At this point, many are dead. And the living people who know, aren’t talking, with the exception of the few I have written about on this blog.