“Samson”

For a long time I had no clue as to “who (the hell) is Samson?”

In the spring of 2024

I interviewed Mrs. Darlene Valentine.

She lives in my state about one hour north of me.

Darlene Valentine was an artist and worked art-related jobs in Hollywood, for many years. Set design and wardrobe.

She was acquainted with Paige Young.

Darlene’s ex-husband DeWain Valentine was a prominent Venice Beach based artist. He dated Paige Young in the late 60s-early 70s.

I don’t know for how long.

Darlene and DeWain divorced around 1968.

They shared 3 young sons and a mutual social circle in the LA Art world.

Link to chapter on Pasadena Art Museum/Venice Beach art world:

1970/1 Paige At Pasadena Art Museum With Warhol Wearing A Rudi Gernreich Dress. Meet Paige’s Date Bill Gardner & Artist DeWain Valentine. Venice Beach Studio. Art Scene LA.(Long) *Updated* 6/12/24

Darlene Valentine was on friendly terms with Paige. She said ex-husband DeWain usually brought his girlfriends over to her house to meet them.

Darlene saw or interacted with Paige on a handful of different social occasions from about 1970-1974.

One incident she recalls, took place at the the deli Zucky’s, approx, 1970–72:

“Many of us went to Zucky’s because it was one of the only places open all night.”

Darlene was there with a friend and they sitting with her ex-husband DeWain and his date, Paige Young.

Darlene remembers that at one point that evening, Paige “cried out like she was in pain.”

The cry was in response to DeWain grabbing Paige’s thigh or knee and squeezing really hard. His action looked like it was in response to Paige “saying something he did not want her say,” said Darlene.

The gesture was meant for Paige to “shut up.”

Darlene said her ex-husband “was not shy about saying things considered outrageous or shocking.” So she remembers being surprised at his strong reaction to whatever it was that Paige said.

The main (for me, only) appeal of Zucky’s when I used to go there was that it was open 24 hours so it was a great location to take your date for ice cream or a snack after you took her to one of the movie theaters out on Third Street. It was also “the” place for breakfast and sometimes lunch for folks who worked in Santa Monica. It struck me as a restaurant that wasn’t very good but it drew a crowd for lack of alternatives. When better places to eat opened in the neighborhood, Zucky’s floundered.

Quote from oldlarestaurants.com:

Paige mentioned DeWain in her suicide note/will, according to Darlene. She left him a statue of a horse. (Please see related chapters.)

Zucky’s closed in 1993.

Another of these social occasions Darlene remembers, was a “daytime, all-female tea party, at Paige’s place in Westwood.”

Darlene remembers seeing Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas at the tea party.

She also recognized “Samson De Brier, the only man there.”

Darlene saw Samson at Art related events, openings and parties, during the time she lived in LA.

Later in the chapter I discuss more of what Darlene told me during our interview.

So who the hell was Samson De Brier?

If you don’t know, I hope you get a good idea by the end of this chapter. Samson, along with several of his colleagues mentioned here, are worthy of their own dedicated biography.

late summer of 2024:

I visited the Samson De Brier archives located at ONE Archives USC Libraries.

I spent about 3 hours looking through the 2 large containers, the size of a large size liquor box. Together, they make up the archive.

Ultimately, I did not find Paige Young’s name in any of the files.

I checked the many pieces of paper and envelopes with names, phone numbers, lists or notations, written on the back.

I looked through a big file of Christmas cards sent to Samson over the years.

The archives include a file with xeroxed press articles about Samson.

The salon De Brier hosted from the 1950s through the1970s, took place at his home close the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Samson rented out the rooms in his Georgian house, visible on Barton Way.

His residence/salon was in a smaller house behind the Georgian and not visible to the street.

Renting the rooms in his house provided De Brier with an income for several decades. It was enough for him to get by without working the grind of a “real job.” (Interesting as Paige Young was quoted in Playboy as averse to “the 9-5 doldrums.”)

This did cause De Brier to live more sparsely than some of his friends and Salon guests. Legend has it that the Salon host served only water.

Samson DeBrier co-starred alongside occultist/artist Marjorie Cameron, writer Anais Nin, and painter Renate Druks in what became a classic of Avant-garde/ experimental film: Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, 1954. Samson’s friend Kenneth Anger directed the film.

Samson’s home was the perfect filming location for Pleasure Dome, filled with his collection of antique objects, mirrors, exotic rugs, statues, tapestries.

Anger authored a book, Hollywood Babylon, about early film industry scandals and tragedies. It’s legendary to a certain audience.

Kenneth Anger and his influential book Hollywood Babylon are worth exploring in greater detail. As well as the book itself, I highly recommend a BBC documentary of the same name. Directed by Nigel Finch and first aired in 1991. Last time I checked, it was available on youtube.

I’ve heard conflicting stories about the truthfulness of the stories Anger wrote in Hollywood Babylon; his stories on the deaths of Lupe Velez and Jayne Mansfield have been debunked.

I recently read that DeBrier helped research the material for Hollywood Babylon.

END

Darlene told me about her time spent at Paige Young’s house. The occasion was an “all-female tea party.”

As I said earlier, she remembers Michelle Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas attending the party.

“The only male at Paige’s tea party was Samson De Brier.”

Darlene said Samson acted openly gay at a time when very few did so. “He was kind-of flamboyant.”

And “He called himself a warlock.”

The next several images are from a magazine interview found in the De Brier ONE archives.

De Brier died in 1995.

In one box I found two legal size envelopes stuffed with around 200 scraps of paper and torn envelopes.

The paper scraps had names, numbers and personal notes recorded on them. They often included descriptions of people as if intended to help Samson remember them at a future date.

I wrote down the names or took photos.

Throughout this chapter, I will review some of the names and what I learned about them through research.

Gingere Blakely

partner to Joan Corbin-I can’t find any more about Blakely other than that fact.

Corbin has her own archive at ONE on the USC campus.

Joan Corbin was born on May 25, 1921, in Armada, Michigan. She grew up in Richmand, Michigan, and moved to Los Angeles, California, in January 1946. She soon moved in with Irma “Corky” Wolf, pseudonym Ann Carll Reid, and both joined ONE Incorporated as founding board members in 1953. Using the pseudonym Eve Elloree, Joan Corbin planned, designed, and illustrated ONE Magazine as an editorial staff member, 1953-1954, and art director, 1954-1963. Joan Corbin continued to draw and write poetry when in August 2000 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She died in 2004.

Biography from ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives, USC Libraries.

Betty Berzon 8560 Hollywood Blvd.

Another unknown pioneer of LGBTQ history

Nicky Blair

An actor who made a career of bit parts and small roles in famous movies and TV shows with legendary actors from 1949 to 1998.

A fraction of his diverse appearances:

Voiced the character Hammerhead in 4 episodes of a mid-1990s version of Spider-man.

Appeared in Truck Stop Women, starring tragic Playmate of the Year 1970, Claudia Jennings.

(Read about Jennings in the Start Here chapter.)

Shaft, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, A Bronx Tale, Beaches.

In 1977: Old Wino in Record City with Rick Dees of Disco Duck fame, to a Cab Driver in Scorsese’s New York, New York with DeNiro and Minnelli;

His TV work consisted of classic and cult mid-century shows: Combat!, The Felony Squad, McHale’s Navy, The Munsters, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Batman, Mannix, Gomer Pyle, Wild, Wild West, Medical Center, Magnum P.I., Hardcastle and McCormick.

Beverly Hills 90210 in 1998, the same year he died. His first credit was a “boy” in a 1949 juvenile delinquent themed movie City Across the River.

He became locally famous as a successful restaurateur on the Strip from 1986 to 1993. Blair’s first restaurant opened in 1971 in LA, but burned down in 1976 according to SFGate.

Born Nicholas Macario in Brooklyn, the bit-part actor played Shorty Farnsworth, Elvis Presley’s sidekick in the 1964 “Viva Las Vegas,” and was an usher with one line in Frank Sinatra’s “Ocean’s Eleven.” Blair’s Las Vegas restaurant had several autographed photos on the walls, including one from Sinatra signed, “To the star from his favorite bit player.”

Among Blair’s other film credits over 40 years were “Rogue Attack,” “Operation Petticoat,” “Hell to Eternity,” “The Manchurian Candidate” and “Diamonds Are Forever.” He began playing parts close to home–maitre d’s and casino hosts–in later years including in “Beaches” and “The Godfather, Part III.” He also played a fight promoter in “Rocky V.

LAT Nicky Blair obituary Nov. 24, 1998.

I purchased 2 Playboy interviews, 1972 and 2003, with star Jack Nicholson. Cost is about $2 on Amazon.

The next quotes are from the 1972 issue. Not from the archives.

Jack Nicholson:…actually Dennis (Hopper) and I originally became actors because we like parties and people and girls and art and acceptance and all the things that are really very momentary and immediate.

Playboy: Can you recall any particular festivities that the two of you attended together?

Jack Nicholson: We used to go to a lot of the salons held by Samson DeVreer (sic) a male witch. He’s one of the great L.A. puries, no question about that.

Playboy: Puries?

Jack Nicholson:By puries, I mean people who are very expressive of LA culture–the overstuffed California hamburger, the 48, 000 ice-cream flavors, the Hollywood electric whiz-bang kids.

Anway, DeVreer had a running house for crazos over there, all the local eccentrics like Vampira and occasionally James Dean. People would be reading tarot cards at those gatherings –long before it was fashionable. Just big walking around parties. Every once in a while, Samson would turn of the lights and read from his memoirs. I didn’t know many people who had been Andre Gide’s lover, so it was very exotic to me.

END

Playboy interviewer heard Nicholson saying “DeVreer.” He is not the only journalist to hear Samson’s last name that way.

Too bad Playboy didn’t ask more about the De Brier salons and the hip and obscure characters who attended.

Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper and Michelle Phillips at an Oscar after-party about 1970. Dennis and Michelle famously had an 8-day marriage before before getting it annulled.

Was Paige Young acquainted with Dennis and Jack? I think so.

We know Paige was acquainted with Michelle Phillips.

How well Paige knew these 3 major Hollywood players is not known.

I don’t recall hearing or reading the name Marin Scott Milam– But I certainly remember media reports, sightings at newsstands and convenience stores, of the notorious magazine she launched: Playgirl

Innovative LA artist Wallace Berman made these thick cardboard Christmas “postcards.” He sent them out every year to friends/ fellow artists. This is one for Samson.

These Christmas postcards are now seen in museum collections like the Getty, LACMA and my Art History book collection.

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About the Artist

Wallace Berman was an American artist – a self-taught modernist, hipster, and poet-mystic, who worked at a time of extraordinary socio-political and cultural change. Born shortly before the Great Depression, he came of age in the aftermath of World War II, when the horrors of global warfare, the Holocaust, and atomic bombings lingered vividly in people’s hearts and minds. Far from the traditional centers of art and culture, Berman matured as an artist in Los Angeles, on the creative frontier of the American West. His was a reality bifurcated by the clash of an old world and a new, in which lifestyles born of war and deprivation coexisted with unparalleled prosperity, economic growth, and technological innovation. In the 1950s and ’60s, Berman witnessed the rise of the enthusiastic consumerism and militarized bureaucracies of Cold War America, soon to be challenged by the countercultural revolutions of the civil rights, antiwar, and women’s rights movements. He died before the global information age had fully formed, his prolific career cut short by a drunk driveron the eve of his fiftieth birthday in 1976. In the half-century of his all too-short life, America – and, indeed, the world – transformed dramatically, rushing to the brink of a new technological era that few could have envisioned or anticipated.

Michael Kohn Gallery website

Wallace or “Wally” Berman postcard sent to photographer friend Edmund Teske in 1967

From Made in California” Art, Image and Identity, 1900-2000. Exhibit at LACMA.

“Psychic-met at Robertas.” This would be Samson’s friend, actress Roberta Haynes.

If you’ve seen Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, (available on youtube) Mathison is the blonde, white, menacing looking Pan. Really memorable. 2nd only to the presence of Cameron with her flaming red hair, blood red lips and 1 inch long eyelashes and fingernails.

Another list written on the back of a torn envelope. >>>>

It looks like it is a party going to happen.

Vicki Dougan is one name seen lower down the list .

Please read Samson PART 2.