Paige Young in Los Angeles1960-1964. A New Decade. Paige Young Is “Miss Panorama City.” Robinson’s In the Valley. Stepfather. Birth of Half-Brother. Childhood Home Razed. Updated & Longer: 11/01/2025
Posted on March 2, 2021
1960-1961 Where was Diana/Paige living, and what was she was doing these years? She would have been 16 and 17 years old.
Her grandmother Virginia LaRocca was a recent widow. Virginia has voter’s registrations listed at 13204 Riverside Drive. It was a 4 or 6-plex at the time, on the corner with Atoll Ave. Diana could have lived here with her grandmother as 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 LaRocca family home at 3834 Evans St. in the 1940s.
13204 Riverside Drive is also the address on Ned LaRocca’s death cert. 1959. It is unknown if he ever lived there. He might have been at the sanitarium for the last year or so of his eventually fatal lung cancer. (see related chapter)
This all means the family had to leave the duplex on Moorpark and Ethel Ave., at some point.
Donna LaRocca Cotterell married Jack Holroyd in 1958. The couple moved to their own place on Oxford Ave. and/or Ventura Canyon Blvd in Panorama City. Did Diana live with them even temporarily?
Sister Constance (Connie) was already married by 1960 when she was 18 years old.
There were profound changes in Diana’s life circumstances these years.
Her de facto father,grandfather Ned LaRocca, died in 1959.
Her mother Donna remarried in 1958.
A 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.
Chris informed me that Donna and Jack Holroyd had a son Wesley, born in 1960.
Add this to the list of major life changes for Diana who again, was only 16 in 1960.
Chris/Christain Young also confirmed visiting Diana and Virginia, at the Riverside Drive unit in Sherman Oaks.
Donna and Jack Holroyd, are listed at 12835 1/2 Oxford Ave., a few blocks from Grant High School in 1960, 61 and 62, voter’s registrations.
Donna and Jack Holroyd were married in Las Vegas in 1958, their son Wesley Scott Holroyd was born on August 20, 1960.
That date is almost 9 months to the day after Ned LaRocca died.
If Diana and/ or Virginia both lived here on Oxford, they would have run out of space and privacy pretty quickly. Especially with an infant.
Virginia LaRocca is listed here on Oxford at least once or twice in directories and voter registrations in the early 1960s.
Move to another SFV city: Panorama City
1962 What looks here like a Panorama City Chamber of Commerce ritual, takes place at the popular venue Sportsmen’s Lodge, only 0.6 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….
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.
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.
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 Panorama City continued the tradition of hiring the best architects for department stores. Beautiful Department stores thrived in the consumerist post-war years of the 1950s and 60s.
Broadway of the Valley opened a stone’s throw from Robinson’s in the Valley. Photo by famous LA architecture photographer Julius Schulman. Still trying to get a great photo of Robinson’s!
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 publicly documented with the name Paige Young .
The latest date I have seen Paige associated with her birth name, Diana Cotterell: her 9th grade photo listing in the Van Nuys Jr. High yearbook, 1957, age 15 or 16.
Note that in this write-up of Paige, no high school is mentioned. This is out of the ordinary.
I’ve seen and read dozens of newspaper photos with brief write-ups of models, starlets, beauty pageant winners, even “Muscle Beach” beauty contest entrants and winners and runners-up from the 1950s and 1960s.
The article nearly 100% of the time includes where the young woman attended high school and frequently, they were still in high school.
It is probably the only article of several I’ve read interviewing Paige that doesn’t mention her devotion to oil painting.
“Space made for ample parking.”
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)
My opinion is Paige dropped out of high school after the 9th or 10th grade. And changed her name between ages 16–18.
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. Paige was married in 1963 and 64, living with her husband”south of the Boulevard” in Sherman Oaks on a steep winding Road known as Crisp Canyon.
Donna Holroyd is not listed in the phone book these years, only her husband Jack Holroyd.
She may have started her studies at UCLA around this time, majoring in Early Childhood Education.
Paige’s cousin Chris told me he remembers visiting Donna and Jack Holroyd and their baby Wesley in the early 1960s, in an apartment building. He couldn’t remember the address. He did remember an unheated pool. Chris said the apartment certainly could have been one near Grant High School or Panorama City. He didn’t see Paige during those particular visits.
Chris said he did see Paige at the Riverside Dr. location.
Paige would be married in Las Vegas 1 1/2 years (Oct. 1, 1963) after this “Miss Panorama City” 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.
-is this at Robinson’s of the Valley as a clerk-secretary in their business offices, or was she a salesgirl in the department store. Unclear.
See chapter on Marriage and Divorce to Mark F. Segal 1963-1964.
Some of Paige’s quotes from Playboy magazine are about disliking and avoiding the “9-5 doldrums” and “working for impersonal corporations.” Ironically enough.
By 1963, Diana’s childhood home on Moorpark near the Sportsman Lodge 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 flooding into the San Fernando Valley.( If you can call a 6–plex multi-housing.)
I’ve been by this complex and it is obvious that more buildings were added 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 and beyond.
The famous Sportsmen’s Lodge has been demolished as of 2024.
I do not know if any of the structure was saved. I had read that was a possibility.
What happened to Paige’s family, ex Husband, Desmond Guinness, Marvin M. Mitchelson. Updated 1/28/2025
Posted on August 26, 2020
Paige’s grandmother Virginia Young LaRocca died in August of 1976 in the Studio City Convalescent Hospital located at 11429 Ventura Blvd. Location is close to the 1950s family home at 13055 Moorpark St.
Cause of Death: Stroke per a relative on a Mormon family website. A family audio recording to a relative on a Mormon MIssion somewhere in the world. Everyone said at least a few words into the tape recorder, except for Virginia, whom they referred to as “Doing really good Today.” Virginia may have had the debilitating stroke in the early 1970s and been unaware of of her GRANDDAUGHTER Paige’s suicide in 1974.
This address is the Chase Knolls Apts in Sherman Oaks. Ironically named Huston St., not a common name.
Virginia was cremated and her ashes scattered in the ocean near the Santa Monica shoreline, just like granddaughter Paige’s ashes two years previous.
Virginia died of a stroke after one year of onset, according to her death certificate. It may have been more than a year.
Josephine’s daughter, former Warner Brothers starlet Mary Jane Harker Lanier died in 1988 in Jacksonville, Florida. Her husband Samuel Lefkovitz Lanier remarried and lived with his second wife for over 10 years until his death in 2007 at age 88, also in Florida.
The oldest child of Jane and Samuel Lanier, Samuel Harker Lanier, passed away in 2018; he was only in his 60s. A Florida lawyer, he had been disbarred due to a cocaine arrest only a few years previous.
Virginia’s sister and former Vaudeville performing and travelling partner, Josephine Young Harker, Paige Young’s great aunt, died in June of 1979 in the Jacksonville, Florida area. Public record.
.
Donna Virginia LaRocca Holroyd had moved sometime in the late 60s, with mother Virginia? (had she had her stroke?) and husband Jack, to Simi Valley. Were they divorced already? Possibly as it is looking like Jack Holroyd married and divorced twice after Donna. Still need to confirm.
By 1970, Donna was the head supervisor for the Ocean View Children’s Center (5201 Squires Dr.) in Port Hueneme “for low income and welfare families…. so that the mothers (of the Valley Village neighborhood) could work or go to school.” Oxford News 1970.
Article below mentions that Donna received a degree from UCLA in Early Childhood Education.
Oxford Press Courier March 21, 1971. Her daughter Paige was probably living in Westwood or Trancas Beach by this time.
By the time of her daughter Paige’s suicide in April of 1974, Donna and Jack Holroyd were divorced. Donna was living with her mother Virginia back in Sherman Oaks. They stayed at the lovely and historic Chase Knolls Apartment Community on Huston St.
Donna’s Chase Knolls address is on Paige’s death certificate as her next of kin.
This Huston address is also on Virginia LaRocca‘s death cert. in 1976. Donna is listed as her mother’s next of kin. (See Above)
In 1980 this address appears on Donna’s own death certificate.
Donna dies of a “hypertensive arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease,” in her Chase Knolls apartment at age 59 years. Her and Jack’s son Wesley would have been about 20 years.
Donna outlives her mother by 4 years, and her daughter by 6.
Oldest daughter and Paige’s sister Constance Smashey is listed on Donna Holroyd’s death certificate as next of kin with a Simi Valley address.
Constance and Steve Smashey divorced and Connie would move to the Palm Desert area in the 1980s. She now lives in Banning, California.
She turned down my request to ask her a few questions about her sister Paige and their family.
Wesley Scott Holroyd died of alcoholism in 2014 at age 53. He was living in the San Fernando Valley where he spent most of his life.
Paige’s father Robert Morgan Cotterell and his wife Pat, moved to Oregon in the 1970s after he retired from Douglas Air. They lived there until their deaths around 2010.
Bob Cotterell’s obituary is no longer online. When it was, there was no mention of his daughters by Donna LaRocca: Diana/Paige and Constance.
It appears that Connie has reunited with her half siblings.
Richard Sample told me that Paige drove him to meet her sister one time only. He said he “didn’t get any impression” they were close.
Paige did not disclose her personal history or childhood, to anyone I’ve talked with who knew her.
Paige’s ex-husband Mark Frederick Segal married a woman named Denise in 1974. A few years later they had a son: Ivan Mark Segal.
1985/86 Mark F. Segal stayed in the car business:
Segal sold his home on Crisp Canyon Ave. to Rex Ramsey and later bought it back from him. He sold it again and moved to Portland in the late 80s? He died there on October 16, 2012.
4133 Crisp Canyon Ave. was razed and replaced with a really horrible McMansion.
His son Ivan Segal lives in Portland and Scottsdale.
Desmond Guinness married Penelope Cuthbertson in 1984.
She is his cousin according to “International Set” gossip writer Suzy Knickerbocker back in 1973. They were not couple at that time.
Desmond continued fundraising for his Irish Georgian Society well into old age. He died on August 20, 2020. I have read Desmond had some degree of dementia.
Ex-wife Mariga and co-founder of the IGS died decades earlier.
There are numerous obituaries online for Hon. Desmond Guinness.
Desmond’s niece is fashion icon and socialite Daphne Guinness. His granddaughter is popular fashion model Jasmine Guinness.
How and where Desmond became acquainted with Paige Young is a mystery. Possibly was through John and CiCi Huston in Ireland.
Desmond on his own was well connected in Los Angeles and Southern California. He had a receptive audience in the area.
In the late 1970s……..
Paige’s divorce lawyer Marvin Mitchelson gained a reputation beyond Beverly Hills and LA. He became internationally famous when he represented Michelle Triola Marvin in her lawsuit against her live-in lover of 6 years, actor Lee Marvin.
Beverly Hills Lawyer Marvin M. Mitchelson
Mitchelson introduced the term and concept of “palimony” into the courts.
Commonly known as Marvin vs. Marvin, the case received major publicity in the mass-media of the time. It’s something I personally remember as a young teenager. I call it “People magazine” famous.
I didn’t learn the back story in detail until I researched this project. I am condensing the details for this website.
Michelle Triola Marvin was a singer in Hollywood. She felt she was owed part of Lee Marvin’s $3.2 million fortune, as she had given up her own career, per his demand, to become his live-in lover, helpmate, career advisor, and even helped to raise his 4 children from first wife Betty.
Triola said Lee Marvin had promised her life-long financial support. Triola-Marvin was abruptly dumped when Lee Marvin suddenly married his high school sweetheart Pamela Feeney in 1970. Marvin kicked Triola-Marvin out of their Malibu home and cut her off financially.
Because Michelle Triola Marvin was not legally married to Lee Marvin, she had no legal standing to demand any financial compensation.
Mitchelson saw an opportunity in California’s newly enacted “no-fault” divorce laws.
Mitchelson filed a breach-of-contract suit against Lee Marvin in February of 1972 asking for 50% of his estate.
After being rejected by two lower courts, Mitchelson pushed the case to the California Supreme Court, where he won.
The Marvin vs. Marvin case finally reached trial in January of 1979 and it quickly became a mass-media event.
The judge in the case, Judge Marshall, awarded about $100,000 to Triola-Marvin, for the salary she potentially lost giving up her career as a singer.
Lee Marvin’s attorneys appealed, and the decision was reversed, leaving Triola with nothing and Mitchelson with nothing.
Mitchelson didn’t care though, because the fame the case brought him was worth millions of dollars in representing “wronged spouses,” mainly women.
The fact that in the end, Triola got nothing was not well publicized in the many media reports. It happened after the initial hoopala had died down and was never emphasized in the reporting.
Over the years, some of the women Marvin represented were celebrities like Bianca Jagger, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Joan Collins ( a reverse of his norm as Collins was the one being sued by estranged husband Peter Holm.)
Mostly though, Mitchelson took cases of non-celebrity live-in girlfriends or mistresses of rich celebrities: Sara Dylan (Bob), Anna Kashfi (Marlon Brando) Nancy Lee Andrews (Ringo Starr), Veronica Buss and Puppi Buss (girlfriends of Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss) Soraya Khashoggi, Kayatana Harrison (Flip Wilson.)
Marvin represented a few men: Mark Christian, ex-lover of Rock Hudson, in his widely publicized case against Hudson’s estate for failing to disclose his AIDS status to Christian.
Mel Torme, Carl Sagan and Sonny Bono were other clients.
Mitchelson was disbarred in 1988 for grossly overcharging clients and went to prison in 1993 for tax evasion.
Marvin Mitchelson was released from prison in 1998 and died in 2004.
Lee Marvin died in 1987 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Michelle Triola went on to have a long live-in relationship with actor- comedian Dick Van Dyke. She died of lung cancer in 2009.
Information from: Ladies’ Man: The Life & Trials of Marvin Mitchelson, by John A. Jenkins. The only published biography of Marvin Mitchelson. It’ a fascinating look at an LA character of his time, nearly forgotten today.
“Miss November 1968” 1969: Most Public Year, Playboy Tour. Queen of the Fleet. Marina del Rey. Playmate LIsa Baker. Jonathan Winters Show. High School Info. Many Images, May take a while to appear Updated 9/2/25 LONG!
Posted on July 12, 2020
1968 November
Paige Young appears as Playboy Magazine’s Playmate of the Month.
This year, the media was focused on the increasingly unpopular Vietnam war. Unpopular, especially among college and university students who demonstrated against the war both in the streets and on campus. It was a nation-wide phenomenon reported on the nightly news and read in daily newspapers.
Issues of Playboy magazine were donated to the troops in Vietnam, including the November 1968 issue featuring Paige Young.
2 history altering assassinations occurred earlier in 1968.
April 4th
Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, at the Lorraine Motel.
This atrocious act was followed by days of racial rioting resulting in at least 40 deaths nationwide.
I remember when it happened. I was in 1st grade and living in El Paso, Texas.
I recall the American flag at my elementary school lowered to half-mast.
When I asked why, someone said “Martin Luther King was killed.”
Image from National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, showing the wreath placed in front of the room where Dr. King was staying at the Lorraine Motel.
King was assassinated by James Earl Ray while on the balcony outside this room.
Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis on April 4, 1968, to support striking African-American sanitation workers who were protesting low pay, poor working conditions, and lack of recognition. From google AI.
June 6
Presumptive Democratic Nominee for President, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles at the world famous Ambassador Hotel. Specifically, the Embassy Room after a campaign speech.
The assassin was Sirhan Sirhan from nearby Pasadena.
I remember watching the TV coverage of the RFK funeral and seeing my mother cry over the young ages of the pall bearers.
Recently I found out 14-year old RFK Jr. was the youngest pall bearer for his father.
When the globally famous Cocoanut Grove Nightclub on the grounds, the hotel was connected with Hollywood glamour.
It’s where the stars dined, danced, drank and often performed.
All the major singing legends have performed there.: Garland, Streisand, Crosby, Darin, Sinatra, Sammy, Liza.
“where stars of the motion picture world mingle with Southern California’s smart set nightly.”
This is another in my post card collection.
It looks like a high school prom couple
1955 hollywoodhistoricphotos.com
1968-69 continued
This title of Playmate will be Paige Young’s primary “claim to fame” in mass media popular culture.
1964/65 was the time Paige moved to Malibu beach at age 20-21. She met Sample around this time.
See Chapters on Richard Sample.
The description in the November 1968 issue of Playboy magazine, says Paige Young is a full-time painter. Paige admits to the financial difficulty of this effort but she loves the fact that “my time is my own.”
Paige lives in Malibu, enjoys scuba diving, gourmet cooking and loves to host beach cookouts for friends. She can often be seen running on the beach with her Weimaraner named Joshua.
Paige hates the “9-5 doldrums,” and “working for an impersonal corporation.” (As Playboy turned out to be.)
Promo published in newspapers November 1968.
Peter and Alice Gowland were the photographers behind Paige’s Playmate photographs. The married couple with two daughters lived in Santa Monica. They were responsible for several Playmate features for Playboy in the 1950s and 1960s.
The Gowlands also contributed to many of the Playboy copycat “Bachelor” magazines of the 1950s and early 1960s. (See my chapter on The Gowlands and pinups of the 1950s.)
Image taken on Peter Gowland’s property, a rural looking setting with a home studio built by Peter, where he photographed 100s of models over at least 4 decades.
Santa Monica near Rustic Canyon and Will Rogers State Park.
The Gowlands photographic “product” was young, pretty, shapely and mostly white women.
They did use several Black models beginning in the late 1960s.
These images were sold to various magazines, calendar companies, and photo agencies.
Also sold to publishing houses for book covers, record albums, and mainstream ads.
“Pinup” images published in print media along with beauty contests, became a trope or an archetype in mass media culture during WW 2. “Pinup” became mainstream in media publishing during and after the war.
Peter and Alice Gowland were part of a group of mostly male photographers based in the Los Angeles area.
The published images, mainly of the Southern California beach girl, often an aspiring starlet, were exported to the world. The Gowlands helped set a prototype for this archetype.
Solana-Napa News Chronicle.
Maybe you already know that Paige Young’s other claim to fame is appearing on internet lists. These lists feature articles about Playboy Playmates who tragically died before their time. (See “About” page.)
1969
is clearly Paige’s most documented year.
I read many newspaper articles from the US, Canada and Japan.
I couldn’t include them all.
From the articles I learned that Paige traveled widely this year working as a paid-per-appearance ambassador for Playboy Magazine.
These nation wide tours presented an opportunity for the Playmates to get paid for traveling, representing and promoting Playboy the Brand as well as their own centerfold issue.
Paige appeared at TV stations carrying “Playboy After Dark,” a Hugh Hefner hosted TV show that ran from 1968 – 1970.
She signed autographs at music festivals, car and snowmobile shows..
What follows are several articles I found from 1968 and 1969 on a newspaper archive website.
Take the time to read the articles, if you want a little insight into the person self-named Paige Young.
At least read the first 4 paragraphs to give you a general idea.
I apologize for the quality of some, it’s hit or miss with these newsprint archives.
It’s a fascinating time capsule when newspapers were a major source of News. Some papers published a morning and an evening edition.
And a time when a recently published Playboy Playmate appearing at an event in the US was newsworthy enough to be covered by local media.
As you will see.
Paige gives a few contradictory answers to journalists on the topic of weight gain/loss for centerfold approval.
But most answers I’ve confirmed as truthful and correct.
A trip to the Boston Auto Show was likely the first stop of the tour: Oct. 26-Nov. 2, 1968.
Paige was the Playmate of the current issue of Playboy during this event.
There were many visits of Playmates over the decades to this Auto show in Boston which apparently started in 1903!
One man contacted me to share this memory of visiting the Boston Auto Show.
“I vividly remember Paige. She was beautiful and intelligent.”
” I was 14 years old. My friend had dared me to ask her to sign the centerfold, but she politely demurred and signed the first page of her pictorial which was a headshot. She also gave me an autographed photo. Unfortunately, my grandmother was horrified and it was all confiscated and thrown away.I told her that I admired her portrait of Truman Capote and she immediately brightened. She said art was what she “really wanted to do.”
I would love to find paintings by her to buy. But I imagine that not many survived.
“I met Paige when I was 14. She was signing autographs at the Boston car show in late 1968. We talked about art. She was intelligent, beautiful, and kind. I’m looking to find original art by her as I think she was a great artist who was hobbled by her beauty. “
Feedback left by a reader Daniel
Daniel- Thank you for sharing your memory of the Boston Auto Show with Paige, it’s very much appreciated!
1969
On the personal front
Paige continued to battle ex-husband Mark F. Segal.
He had yet to pay for 5 of the 6 months of alimony he owed her. He also owed lawyers fees to Marvin M. Mitchelson. Segal had made one payment to each in 1964 and that was it. (See related chapters.)
By now Paige’s law firm was Silverton, Ruderman and Graf of Studio City, not Marvin M. Mitchelson as when she filed for divorce.
Paige visits NYC in June of 1969
On the Vintage Los Angeles Instagram page I asked and was answered, “the Joe Franklin TV shows from 1969 were not saved.” So there is no record of the interview.
Also, there is another reference to weight compatibility and photos for Playboy. Here, she says it took 2 1/2 years for the Playmate photos, because of weight gain. Paige talks about how easily she gains weight and has been “dieting for weeks.” In another interview she said she was glad of the weight gain because she needed a “bigger bosom” and that is where she “gains weight first.” She said, “I really needed it for those pictures.”
Queen of the Fleet is mentioned. More on that coming up.
Bob Sanders states Paige had not appeared on the Playboy After Dark TV show after “having been asked and politely turning it down.”
Several newspaper articles in 1969 state Paige was an extra on Jonathan Winters Show. She may also have had a small part on Playboy After Dark as decoration. I’ve yet to see an episode of Playboy After Dark that shows Paige Young. I’ve never found any TV or movie credit for Paige Young. She is not in any imdb listings.
Minneapolis cont.
Lake Havasu City, Arizona
1969 continued
March and April primarily, images of Paige Young wearing a polka dot bikini appeared in dozens of USA newspapers.
Paige was named “Queen of the Fleet” for the first annual Desert Sailboat Regatta. The event was to take place in the fairly new city of Lake Havasu City, Arizona. (LHC)
Some context is important, so briefly...
“Lake Havasu City is in western Arizona. It’s known as a base for trails in the nearby desert and water sports on Lake Havasu. London Bridge, relocated from England, links the mainland to marinas and a looped path in an area known as the Island.”
wikipedia definition
Lake Havasu City, Arizona was established in 1963 after businessman Robert McCulloch purchased the land in 1958.
McCulloch bought a London Bridge in 1968 when the City of London placed it for auction. He had an idea that it might be a successful lure for tourists and potential home buyers including retirees.
McCulloch bought 100s of ads in different newspapers across the US. From LA to Davenport, he promoted a vacation to Lake Havasu City.
He also advertised it as a land investment.
Just two examples below.
LHC placed the London Bridge about 1 year after Paige appeared as “Queen of the Fleet.” McCulloch was advertising it way before.
Queen Paige Young and the Regatta Sailing event were designed by McColloch to advertise the marvelous boating and water recreation activities available in LHC.
And hopefully you will enjoy yourself so much you will want to live in there year round!
Media Blitz!
Santa Ana Register Mar. 27, 1969
As you can see, this particular photograph of Paige as “Queen of the Fleet” was a popular one.
Paige acted as a promotional ambassador for the event and the town and the marvelous boating experiences on the lake.
This next article (April 16, 1969) is one of the few to mention Robert McCulloch as regatta chairman. It details information about the boats entered.
With the exception of the last, this next set of Regatta Queen promotion clippings refer to Paige as “graduating from Van Nuys High School.“
I have researched classmates.com for many hours, in the years she would have attended and/or graduated: 1959-1962.
I have been unable to find any Paige Young or Diana Cotterell in the VNHS yearbook. I cannot find her class photo in yearbooks of Grant High School, North Hollywood High School, or Birmingham High School. These are all high schools near VNHS.
Diana/Paige had a friend and fellow horse lover at Van Nuys Junior High.
Her name is Joan Edwards and she attended and graduated from Van Nuys High School in 1962. I was able to speak with her one time.
This should have been Diana/Paige’s graduation year also. Joan told me that she doesn’t remember seeing or talking to Diana after the end of their VNJH years and she only remembers her with the name Diana Cotterell.
I think Paige dropped out of high school after the 9th grade, 1959. Her grandfather, Ned LaRocca, died in November of that same year. She would have been only 15 or 16 years old. Many of the interviews from 1969 state she began painting professionally at age 16.
Could it be related? I don’t know. But possibly. Her mother remarried in 1958 and had a child with her 2nd husband in 1960 when Paige was 16.
If Paige did attend or graduate from a high school, it definitely wasn’t Van Nuys High School.
This is one of the few “lies” about Paige that were told for the publicity tour.
The wire service photos you have been looking at never mention Paige’s title of Playboy Playmate, but the local Lake Havasu City paper does.
Rare image, not publicly available.
The individual at the record department of LHC learned about the connection of Paige to Bill Cosby. After that, he ceased communication with me.
I’m relieved he sent the images first.
Note: the information of Paige’s appearance on the Jonathan Winters Show in the Lake Havasu article.
Jonathan Winters
The terms Playmate and Bunny became interchangeable in the media very quickly. Here is another example; ad from a Fresno mall appearance with Paige and Lisa Baker.
Playmate of the Year 1967, Lisa Baker, was also (I have read) on the Winters show according to some of her press.
Jonathan Winters Show connection
I’ve been unable to find any credits for Paige or Lisa on the Jonathan Winters Show 1967-1969. The show was filmed at CBS Television City on Fairfax, as was Playboy After Dark. PAD ran from 68-70.
Paige and Lisa’s roles may have been as extras or “background décor.” I viewed several episodes of the show at the Paley Center for Media (now closed) in Los Angeles and I could not spot Paige Young.
I haven’t yet been able to find Paige as an extra on Playboy After Dark; I have not viewed every episode though.
(I did find images of a dancer on the Winters show that looked strikingly like Paige. It was eerie. The choreographer of the show was Robert Banas.)
Please see chapter Richard Sample interview for more on Jonathan Winters and a possible connection to Paige Young.
1969 travels continued…
Marina Del Rey
In the summer of 69, Paige is interviewed for an article in “West,” an LAT magazine. It tell us about a few young people who live in the “geographically desirable” community of Marina Del Rey.
Article tells about hip Marina Del Rey, considered “G.D.” which stands for “geographically desirable.”
As opposed to the SFV or Pasadena?
Paige lives on a houseboat in Marina Del Rey.
Wait, doesn’t she live in Malibu!?
This is the only reference to Paige living in Marina Del Rey that I found, so far.
Update: May 19, 2021: Paige’s friend Richard Sample told me that this is when he last saw Paige.
She was living in her houseboat on the Marina. 69 or 70. He was there to ask her for rent she had not paid on the Venice Beach art studio.
Akron, Ohio
Dick Shippy was a long-time columnist. He has a conversation with the chaperone and Playboy PR man accompanying Paige Young. We know it is Bob Sanders. Shippy derisively refers to Sanders as a “flack.” Not to his face I presume.
Last sentence of article reads: “safe to assume she knew she was on a fools errand. One might also assume that puts her one up on the man from Playboy.”
Article says Paige met Hefner only once briefly at a stop at the Chicago mansion.
(By the end of her life Paige knew Hefner better in her own hometown of Los Angeles. Hefner bought a second mansion residence there in 1971.)
During their conversation Shippey notices Paige “sitting there looking lovely and trying not to fall asleep. ” The attention goes back to Paige.
She says she is a self taught artist turned actress. She has an art studio in Venice Beach. She also took drama lessons with Jeff Corey. So far though, she has only had a non-speaking role on the Jonathan Winters show, and as an audience member on the set of PAD. (perhaps Paige is way in the background of both shows.)
Atlanta
August of 1969.
This photo below appeared one week after the infamous and tragic Tate-LaBianca murders happened.
Sharon Tate and the others were murdered overnight on the 8th, the newspapers published the first stories the 9th.
Paige visited the Playboy Club in Atlanta as she did in NYC and New Orleans. Playboy Club Atlanta threw a party in honor of this new TV station Channel 36 which carried Playboy After Dark.
Infamously committed by the Manson “family,” in Paige’s hometown of Los Angeles.
Romemary and Leno LaBianca were then murdered overnight on the 10th in their home in Los Feliz.
This murder was headlines the next day on the 11th.
Paige may have been on the road when it happened August 9-11, 1969. There is no press on those dates, that I’ve seen.
It was truly a shocking news item to read and hear on the evening news shows.
Much has been written about the impact the murders had on Hollywood celebrities and the wealthy of Los Angeles. The palpable fear that ensued. Sales of guns, watchdogs and alarm systems soared.
Coincidentally, when Paige was a toddler in the mid–1940s, she lived with her family in a house very close to the LaBianca home on Waverly. (See chapter on Family History in Los Feliz).
September 1969: Japan
“Hunting season may not have opened Friday, but our photographer still jumped at the chance to ‘shoot’ Playboy Bunny Paige Young as she sat on a bridge in a Japanese Garden…..”
Stars and Stripes. Japan tour.
In late September, several local newspaper ads announce the first annual “Winter Fun and Snowmobile” show in Edmonton.
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As you will see by the next news articles, the scheduled appearance by November 1968 Playmate Paige Young was heavily publicized.
“From Malibou” The reporter was thinking Caribou? Richard Sample mentioned Eros Gallery to me and so does this article! So does Playboy Magazine.
But when it gets to the big day……
Devin Sheedy, women’s snowmobile speed record holder, steps in for an ailing Paige Young.
*For more information a possible reason for Paige’s illness in Edmonton, see the chapter on Nick Lees”*
1969 continued
The articles show us that most of Paige’s year is taken up with Playboy promotional traveling and appearances. She autographs Playboy headshots at car shows and Battle of the Bands contests. She visits Playboy Clubs, TV stations, and newspaper, radio and TV interviews.
The Edmonton Winter Sports show in late September of 69 is the latest date I’ve have found for her promotional appearances. (So far.)
Boston Auto Show: late Oct. 1968 to the Edmonton show: late Sept. 1969, is just under one full year. Perhaps Paige completed the contracted one-year to Playboy? There was an option for 2 years.
Seems like she had really “had it” by the end.
Or was it just a ruse to run off with Nick Lees?
.
I don’t know how many people know that Sirhan-Sirhan’s hometown was Pasadena.
RFK, of cou
Latest articles to come up on the archive:
(New articles found after 9/2/25 will be placed at the end of this chapter below.)
P
Cleveland Press 4/3/69 More talk about weight and the centerfold. Excuses eating that “Mr Hefner doesn’t want us thin. Which turned out to be false.” Talk of long relationship with the Gowlands. Contradictory answers again on Paige’s weight for the Playmate feature. Fabulous information.
1966: July Paige Transfers From Marvin M. Mitchelson To New Law Firm. Donna and Virginia New SFV Location.
Posted on July 6, 2020
July 1966
Paige gets transferred from the Marvin Mitchelson law firm of Beverly Hills, to the law firm of Silverton, Ruderman and Graf of Studio City. Her new law firm is located at 12345 Ventura Blvd.; a 5 minute drive from her childhood home at 13055 Moorpark St.
Marvin Michelson was busy climbing the ladder of success in 1966.
He continued to represent Hollywood and Beverly Hills “soon-to-be-divorced-wives.”
(66 also brought Marvin international work in London from a rock band.)
Aldo Ray spoke bitterly about his ex-wives. I have several more articles about him not included here.
Marvin Michelson probably grew tired of Paige’s non-payment divorce case by 1966. Her “interlocutory” divorced ex-husband Mark F. Segal, had not paid more than the one initial payment in 1964.
Mitchelson gave it his all in 1965. He filed in court for contempt against Mark Segal for non-payment, every single month of this year. It was all to no avail.
Any publicity for “attention getting headlines” (see chapter on Segal-Young Divorce Makes Headlines) had long since ceased to be of any benefit to M.M.M.
In the divorce documents, (I own copies) dated all the way into 1969 showing Paige and her lawyers, Silverton, Ruderman & Graff, still trying to collect the unpaid, court ordered alimony and lawyer’s fees.
1966 Paige’s Mother, Donna Holroyd, and her grandmother, Virginia Young LaRocca, are listed in the phone directory at 5760 Hazeltine. It’s an apartment building on the corner of Hazeltine and Hatteras in Van Nuys. Jack Holroyd is not listed at this location. They may have been separated or even divorced, at this time. Jack Holroyd went on to divorce two more women before he passed away in the early 2000s.
From the Marvin Mitchelson biography Ladies Man by John A. Jenkins.
1963 Marriage & 1964 Divorce to Mark F. Segal. Meet Marvin M. Mitchelson, Beverly Hills Lawyer. Pamela & James Mason. Post Divorce Move To Beach. Updated 12/19/24
Posted on May 26, 2020
1963 October 1st Paige Young marries Mark Frederick Segal in Las Vegas, per impossible to read ledger records easily found on ancestry.com.
The record shows only the date and names.
It was likely an elopement in one of those 24-hour Las Vegas wedding chapels.
Paige’s mother Donna eloped for a Vegas wedding to marry her 2nd husband, Jack Holroyd, in 1958.
An old friend of Paige’s named Joan Edwards told me driving from LA to Las Vegas, getting married at one of several legal wedding chapels, “was a popular thing to do back then.”
Paige’s new husband was born in 1942, the son of WW2 veteran Harold Segal and his wife. Mark was a marine private who took combat training in 1961 at Camp Pendleton.
Mark F. Segal was also a car dealer at “Sea-Gull Motors,” a business started by his father, according to newspaper ads in the late 1950s, and Segal family friend Rex Ramsey.
Sea-Gull Motors either had several locations or moved locations several times in the Sherman Oaks/Van Nuys area in the 1950s and 1960s: 7211 Balboa Avenue, 4425 Van Nuys Blvd. and 6738 Sepulveda Blvd.
This is the only photo I’ve found of Mark F. Segal, Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet Aug. 17, 1961.
Rex Ramsey, a friend of Mark Segal’s, was a semi-successful race car designer and a Hollywood stunt driver in Herbie the Car.
He told me during our phone conversation that Mark’s father, Harold Segal, also owned the business Fox Auto Service, which “was like Triple A in the San Fernando Valley. Rex added that the Segal family had several brothers in addition to Mark and the family was “pretty well-off.”
1963-1964
Paige and Mark live together as husband and wife at 4133 Crisp Canyon Road in Sherman Oaks, “south of the boulevard.” Ramsey said that that the home was a cabin type, the kind that Hollywood stars would rent on the weekend “to get away from it all.”
This Crisp Canyon house was very close to the neighborhood where Diana Cotterell, as Paige was known back then, lived and attended elementary school: Dixie Canyon, and junior high school, Van Nuys Junior High.
From a notice in the Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet, Jun. 19, 1962.
After she married, Paige continues to board her horse Hamish at nearby Sepulveda Stables.
I corresponded with a woman who told me that when she was 12 years old, she met Paige at Sepulveda Stables where they both boarded a horse; Paige was about 19/20 years old and Paige drove her to the house on Crisp Canyon Rd., to hang out and drink lemonade, around 1962 and 1963. She is the one who tipped me off about the Paige living there.
August 28, 11 months after her Las Vegas marriage, Paige and her attorney file for divorce from Mark F. Segal.
Paige is represented by rising Beverly Hills attorney Marvin M. Mitchelson.
Below are just a few of the dozens of divorce documents I obtained from a records department located in Downtown LA. I picked out some key pages to post.
The filing states that Mark threatened Paige and her animals with bodily harm “on numerous occasions,” and on August 17, 1964, “brandished a knife in her presence,” and “Plaintiff’s profession is that of an artist and painter and on or about June 15, 1964, defendant maliciously and with intent to destroy plaintiff’s artwork drove nails through plaintiff’s prized paintings and further did mischievous damage by driving nails through plaintiff’s personal belongings including an expensive fur stole.”
Paige requests and is granted a temporary restraining order from the court.
Mark quickly countersues and denies all of Paige’s claims of abuse. He claims that she is the one who caused him mental anguish and suffering.
I do not find in the documents further explaining what Mark meant by that, no further details on what Paige did to him. With the exception of one complaint “She paid more attention to her animals than to me.”
Marvin Mitchelson, on behalf of client Paige, asks for alimony, lawyer’s fees and court costs: “Plaintiff is not employed and presently embarking on a career as a painter, therefore needs the money from Defendant who is able bodied and employed.”
Marks balks at this request and states he can’t afford it.
Paige sues Mark Segal for divorce after less than one year of marriage. She is represented by rising celebrity attorney Marvin M. Mitchelson.
The divorce filing was picked up by the wire service UPI and appeared in several newspapers across the country.
These headlines might be called “clickbait” today.
There is a high probability that Marvin M. Mitchelson was behind the above stories.
I found evidence for this in Mitchelson’s only biography which I will quote from extensively.
“Ladies Man, The Life and Trials of Marvin Mitchelson” by John A. Jenkins.
“Beginning early in his career, Marvin had a belief in the power of publicity and looked for ways to garner some for his cases.
No matter how trivial the cause of action, if he (M.M.M.) found an angle, he could turn it into a story. And in the early days when his client list was still thin, he could gin up publicity by filing an oddball lawsuit himself.”
…”But Mitchelson knew that Man Bites Dog was what sold papers…this was 1964 and he had to work with the material fate sent him.”
Patti Corman recalled that for her in 1976 divorce, Mitchelson “called AP, UPI and every other P there is!”
This is likely the reason Mitchelson took Paige’s case despite her lack of ability to pay him any upfront fees. Her case was unusual or “oddball” enough for it to be of use to him.
I would really like to know how Paige and Mitchelson may have met or who introduced them.
Hollywood History with Celebrity Connections
Only a few days after the articles about the Paige Young/Mark Segal divorce is published in several newspapers, more news breaks that Beverly Hills society matron and LA talk show host, Pamela Mason, has won an unprecedented amount of money in a divorce settlement from husband of 20 years: suave British-Hollywood actor, James Mason.
Mrs. Mason’s lawyer is Marvin M. Mitchelson.
Sept.1, 1964 Pasadena Independent, Pasadena, California. 1.5 millions stated here.
Author Jenkins discusses the 1 million plus dollar settlement Mason case:
“Afterward in the courthouse corridor, “James (Mason) called the settlement ‘a flea bite.’ After all, he was getting off the hook without giving her any alimony at all. But Pamela was ecstatic. Her settlement was one of the first to break the magic million-dollar mark, and Mitchelson had gotten her, and himself, a ton of publicity about it.”
“The Mason case set the tone for the Hollywood divorces to come. Pamela was so grateful she did everything she could to make Marvin Mitchelson a household name. Pamela introduced Mitchelson to her divorcing friends…she became his entrée to those rarefied upper brackets of Beverly Hills and Hollywood. Pamela hired him eight months later for a 138, 500 breach-of-contract suit against actress Loretta Young on behalf of Pamela’s sixteen-year-old daughter Portland.”
“Pamela Mason introduced Mitchelson to her divorcing friends, all of whom were wildly delighted with the results, she later said.”
END
The Mason case was a first as far as Hollywood divorces go, and a major breakthrough for Mitchelson’s career.
He seemed to be on a roll in 1964.
Michelson represented legendary lyricist Alan Lerner’s estranged wife, Micheline, in the couples’ contentious custody fight.
Roy Cohn was Micheline’s divorce attorney in NYC. Yes, that Roy Cohn, who had a great admirer in Mitchelson. And later Donald Trump, who ditched him when he lay dying of AIDS.
Mark F. Segal came from a fairly well off Sherman Oaks family according to Mark’s friend and stunt car driver Rex Ramsey, quoted above.
Still Mark Segal wasn’t anywhere near the league of My Fair Lady and Gigi composer Alan Lerner.
However, both men did have some things in common that most divorcing men that year did not, and that was estranged wives represented by rising lawyer Marvin M. Michelson.
The other is being found in contempt of court by failing to pay alimony to the estranged wives.
Mark’s attorney is Bernard Echt from Sherman Oaks. Echt, a few years down the road, would represent the milkman who was being sued by Vincent Bugliosi for suspected impregnation of his wife. Strange yet true.
An initial agreement is reached quickly: Sept. 18, 1964. Mark is required to pay Paige alimony, but only for six months.
This would be about $1000 in 2017, so the equivalent of $6000 in 2017.
1964 November 24: Paige and her grandmother Virginia LaRocca are sworn-in for testimony in a Los Angeles courthouse, probably 111 Hill Street, for the divorce trial; Mark is a no-show.
Virginia LaRocca testifies for the plaintiff, her granddaughter Paige. An interlocutory decree of divorce is granted to Paige on grounds of extreme cruelty. But it was never finalized according to the clerk who helped me in DTLA, in a building across the street from Hill St, in a basement where they keep old hard copy records.
Paige waives her right to any further alimony payments beyond the six months. Mark is also ordered to pay Marvin Mitchelson $300 (about $2072 in 2017 dollars) and $15.00 in court costs around $100 today.
Paige is awarded a 1953 MG Roadster; Mark is ordered to sign the title over to her. Paige gets to keep certain antiques and wedding gifts. Mark gets to keep his home at 4133 Crisp Canyon Rd. in Sherman Oaks.
Both parties are ordered to not annoy, molest or harass the other.
1965
This year shows Mark has not been making his required alimony and lawyer’s fees since 1964.
Marvin M. Michelson puts the hammer down on Mark Segal this year. For every month Mark fails to make his monthly alimony payment to Paige and the lawyer’s fees, Michelson goes to court files a suit for contempt.
It turned out to be all 12 months.
Paige’s cousin Chris told me about the last time he saw Paige.
She had a brand new yellow Mustang outside her apartment in Sherman Oaks. I told Chris about the 1953 MG that Paige had won in the divorce. Chris thinks she sold the MG to buy the yellow Mustang.
Paige moves to Malibu in late 1964/early 1965.
Months before this conversation with Chris Young, Richard Sample told me he remembers Paige owning a yellow Mustang.
When she was living in her “chicken coop” house near the beach from 1964/5 to about 1968.
Richard and Chris Young never met.
By default Paige would have owned a 1964 or 1965 Ford Mustang in yellow. There were 2 yellows if it was 1964.
“Since 1964 the Ford Mustang has utilized a multitude of shades of yellow to adorn their famous pony car. Below is a year-to-year breakdown of the yellow shades (with paint code in parentheses, if available) we all have come to love so much.
1964: Ford unveils a couple different shades for the inaugural release of the Mustang, a pale hue called Phoenician Yellow (7) and a brighter hue of Sunlight Yellow (V).
1965: Phoenician Yellow (7) is kept while the Sunlight Yellow (V) is replaced with a lighter hue called Springtime Yellow (8, only available in the Spring of 1965.”) From the website Yellow Mustang Registry.
A 1964 Ford Mustang in Sunlight Yellow. yellowmustangregistry
Approx. 1968 is when Paige moved to a cabin-studio in Topanga Canyon, with financial help from Bill Cosby. According to Paige’s friend Veronika from Malibu beach and Topanga. On the topic of cars Veronika said Paige did not own one, she hitchhiked or asked friends for rides.
I will be publishing a chapter on this soon. Published and appears at the bottom of the main menu.
Paige Young in Los Angeles 