1960-1964. A New Decade. Paige Young Is “Miss Panorama City.” Robinson’s of the Valley. Stepfather Birth of Half-Brother Holroyd. Childhood Home Razed. Updated & Longer:10/20/2023

1960-1961 Where was Diana/Paige living, and what she was doing these years? She would have been 16, 17 years old.

13204 Riverside Drive, a 6-plex at the time, on the corner with Atoll Ave.   Diana could have lived here with her grandmother. Especially since she was still high school age.

Josephine Young Harker, Virginia’s sister and Diana’s great aunt, is also listed with the Riverside Dr. address in a 1960 LA phone directory. (Josephine was also listed at least once living at the 3834 Evans St. house in the 1940s.)

Riverside Drive is also the address on Ned LaRocca’s death cert. 1959. Unknown if he ever lived there or was at the sanitarium for two years.

That means the family had to leave the duplex on Moorpark and Ethel Ave., at some point.

Donna was married in 1958, likely the couple moved to their own place.

Sister Constance was already married by then and Diana only would have been in the age range of 15, 16, 17.

There was upheaval and dramatic change in her life these years. Grandfather’s death in 1959 and her mother’s remarriage in 1958, move out of a single family dwelling/duplex with family to multiplex living.

UPDATE 7/25/2022: I had a phone conversation with a close relative of the family named Chris. He informed me of the existence of Donna and Jack Holroyd’s son Wesley.

Donna and Jack Holroyd, are listed at 12835 1/2 Oxford Ave., very near Grant High School in 1960, 61 and 62.

He also confirmed visiting Diana, Connie and his grandfather’s sister/ Diana’s Grandmother Virginia, at the Riverside Drive home in Sherman Oaks.

Donna and Jack Holroyd were married in Las Vegas in 1958, their son Wesley Scott Holroyd is born on August 20, 1960. This date is almost 9 months to the day since Ned LaRocca died.

If Diana and or Virginia lived here, They would have run out of space and privacy pretty quickly. Especially with an infant.

Virginia LaRocca is listed here at least once or twice in directories and voter registrations in the early 1960s.

Move to Panorama City

What looks here like a Panorama City Chamber of Commerce ritual, takes place at the popular venue Sportsmen’s Lodge, only .6 miles from Diana Cotterell’s childhood home on Moorpark St. in Studio City.

To liven up this dull looking affair there was a special appearance at the Lodge….

A General Motors plant completed in 1947 was situated one quarter mile south of Roscoe Boulevard, the southern boundary of Panorama City. A Schlitz Brewery sat immediately to the east, and Lockheed and Vega Aircraft, and Precision Tool, were all within seven miles of the Kaiser development.

With 3,000 homes built between 1947 and 1952, Panorama City was the first large postwar community in the San Fernando Valley. In making up the blueprint for the community, Kaiser engineers also designated space for a Kaiser Permanente clinic and hospital, which was completed in 1962.

Kaiser Permanente website.

This was Robinson’s first store in the SFV opening June 27, 1961. Other Major department stores expanded into Panorama City: The Broadway, Orbach’ s, Montgomery Ward. The department stores in Los Angeles continued the tradition of hiring the best architects in this era of department store prominence in American culture.

This is the earliest date I have found of Paige’s usage of the name Paige Young: Feb. 1962 when she was 18 and could be the first time she she was public documented with Paige Young. with this name.

I’ve seen dozens of newspaper photos accompanied with brief write-ups of models, starlets, beauty pageant winners, Venice and “Muscle” Beach beauty contest entrants and winners from the 50s and 60s. Almost always it includes where the young women attended high school and frequently, they were still in high school. Note that in this write-up of Paige, no high school is mentioned. She has a “background in modelling and drama.”

It is probably the only article about Paige I’ve read that doesn’t mention her devotion to oil painting.

The latest date I have seen Paige associated with her birth name, Diana Cotterell, is her 9th grade photo listing in the Van Nuys Jr. High yearbook, 1957, age 15 or 16.

1963 and 1964 Both Virginia LaRocca and Jack Holroyd are in the phone directory with an address of 8533 Ventura Canyon, Van Nuys.  This address is also listed as Panorama City.

Donna Holroyd is not listed these years, only her husband.

She may have started her studies at UCLA around this time, majoring in Early Childhood Education.

Paige’s cousin told me he remembers visiting Donna and Jack Holroyd with their baby Wesley in the early 1960s, in an apartment building. He couldn’t remember the address but he did remember an unheated pool and that it certainly could have been one near Grant High School or Panorama City. He didn’t see Paige during those visits.

In 1969 interviews, Paige told reporters she graduated from Van Nuys High School. I have found no school photos of Paige at VNHS. (see 1969: Most Public Year)

I’m thinking that Paige dropped out of high school after the 9th or 10th grade.

Paige would be married in Las Vegas 1 1/2 years (Oct. 1, 1963) after this article appeared. The marriage lasted for 11 months (Aug 27, 1964).

In 1964, Paige filled out a divorce questionnaire ( below) stating that she had moved out of the marital home and was “living with family”.

Family would have been living at 8533 Ventura Canyon Ave. according to phone listings. Her answer to employment record says clerical-secretary.

See chapter on Marriage and Divorce to Mark F. Segal 1963-1964.

Paige says clerical-secretary here–Was this at Robinson’s in the Valley or was she a salesgirl there? Unclear.

Some of Paige’s quotes from Playboy are about disliking and avoiding the “9-5 doldrums” and”working for impersonal corporations.”

By 1963, Diana’s childhood home on Moorpark had been razed.  Records show a city permit (below) requesting a 6-unit apartment to be built. Notice it says NONE (highlighted) for “existing buildings on lot.” I’m not sure when the house was actually torn down.

Did a developer make the LaRoccas an offer for the Moorpark house back in the late 50s when Ned was sick with lung cancer? Many older houses were now being razed for multi-unit housing to meet demand for higher density populations. If you can call a 6-plex multi-housing. I’ve been by this complex and it was added onto over the years.

Nearby Ventura Blvd. continued to thrive with many businesses of all kinds.

 SFV continued to experience massive population growth and housing development throughout the 1960s.