Paige Young in Los Angeles“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.
.
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.
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.
1950s #2 Diana Cotterell (Paige Young) in the SFV. Grade School. Sepulveda Stables. Van Nuys Junior High. Donna V. Remarries. Grandfather Ned Dies. Updated 3/15/25
Posted on May 15, 2020
SFV= San Fernando Valley
According to her birthdate, Diana should have started first grade in 1950.
It appears she lived in Gardena in 1950 according to the1950 census.
It’s unknown where or if she started grade school in that community. (See chapter 1950s #1.)
Seen Below:
Grandmother Virginia LaRocca is listed in an onlineGardena 1951 phone directory as a Christian Science Practitioner. Husband Joseph Ned is not listed.
This is unusual as I have seen documents with the couple’s names linked over decades.
Had Ned already moved up to the SFV? Did the girls and Donna move with him or stay with Virginia another year in Gardena?
My best guess is the family moved to 13055 Moorpark St in Studio City approx. 1952-1954. Please see related chapters.
In Sherman Oaks
Diana and Connie could have gone to Riverside Drive Elementary. It is located at 13061 Riverside Drive. This is very close to the Moorpark house address.
If the Cotterell girls walked to school from their house on Moorpark, all they had to do was turn north on Ethel Ave., and it was a straight walk to the school.
It would have taken only a few minutes.
There would have been no Ventura Freeway to walk under along the way. I think that came in 1959.
UPDATE 5-20-20 I found this article.
We see that Diana was definitely at Dixie Canyon Avenue School for the 6th grade. Notice she is named “Diane.”
Both Dixie Canyon and Riverside Drive elementary schools are the same distance of .6 miles to the Moorpark/Ethel house where Diana lived with her mother, sister and grandparents through much of the 1950s..
The photo below is one of the first articles I found when I started this research.
It showed me that Diana Cotterell and Paige Young were the same person.
It can be confirmed that she attended Van Nuys Junior High for the 7th and 9th grades.
1959 yearbook photo Van Nuys Junior High yearbook. Diana Cotterell was in the 9th grade. Her grandfather Joseph Ned LaRocca would die in November of that year. This would have been taken before his death.
I found the photo in the VNJH school library with the librarian standing over me as lunch was about to start.
There were several yearbooks, more like paper notebooks, in a jumble. This was the only photo I could find of Diana on that day. I haven’t found a photo of her 8th grade year.
I have reason to believe that Diana Cotterell dropped out of school after the 9th grade. You could drop out with parental permission at age 16. I am unsure if Paige went to the 10th grade until she turned 16. I’ve not found her photo in an online high school yearbook
Here is the photo in a larger context. Candy Conklin was a member of the Singing King family and would perform with them in a few years time.
Many SFV schools had graduation ceremonies in mid June1959. This includes Van Nuys Junior High shown in the 3rd column. Diana Lee Cotterell would have been among the graduates that day.
1953-1959 Like many kids living in 1950s San Fernando Valley, Diana Lee Cotterell is obsessed with horses according to her friend from junior high, Joan Edwards.
Diana and Joan ride and board their horses at Sepulveda Stables, located at 5763 Sepulveda Blvd, on the corner of Hatteras.
Equestrian shows were held almost every weekend in the Los Angeles area in the 1950s.
There were commercial horse stables and riding trails all over the SFV in the 50s and 60s. In fact the whole area was known as a rural in the post-war era, even as the population exploded and the rural land was paved over.
Many westerns in movies and on TV were filmed in the SFV. Obviously horses were a big part of this!
In the 1950s of suburban/ruralSFV, horse husbandry was considered a wholesome activity for youth and thought to produce responsible American citizens.
And probably most importantly, it would keep kids and teens busy and separated from the bad influences of “juvenile delinquency,” a growing social concern of the 1950s, all over America.
source: Making the San Fernando Valley: Rural Landscapes, Urban Development and White Privilege by Laura R. Barraclough
Diana owned a horse named Hamish in junior high, 1957-1959. She owned him until at least 1964 when she was married to Mark Segal and living at his house at 4133 Crisp Canyon Rd. .
Sepulvedastables.net is where I got much of this information and the website seems to have now vanished.
I spoke with the owner of the website a few years earlier who remembered Paige. This woman was 12 or 13 when Paige was probably 19 or 20. She was living with Mark Segal on Crisp Canyon Rd. which was located “south of the (Ventura) Blvd.” Paige was known by that name by 1962. She invited this young girl up for lemonade to the address on Crisp Canyon Rd. (See chapters on Marriage and Divorce. 1963)
Donna Virginia LaRocca Cotterell married John “Jack” Holroyd in Las Vegas on October 3, 1958. This information is sourced from online Vegas wedding records, which are very difficult to decipher. Found on ancestry.com.
Patriarch Joseph Ned LaRocca dies of lung cancer towards the end of 1959.
LAT November 18, 1959.
Ned LaRocca’s grave is in Glen Haven Memorial Park in Sylmar.
Below are closeups of Ned LaRocca’s death certificate.
It looks like he spent about a year in a sanitarium located on Foothill Blvd. in the Tujunga/Sunland area. It was called “Lakeview Terrace Sanitarium” and the building was originally the home of silent film star Francis X. Bushman.
I have been unable to learn if this was specifically a Christian Science sanitarium due to his wife Virginia being a CSP.
I have learned that the Tujunga area was considered to have “much cleaner air” than other parts of the San Fernando Valley.
Note the name of last employer: Leith Stevens.
There was an obituary placed in Ned’s hometown of Peoria, Illinois upon his death. Recently posted to find-a-grave, I will transcribe below.
Joe N. (Ned) LaRocca, a native Peorian like his brother Roxy LaRocca and a former Vaudeville star, died Sunday night at his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He had been in failing health a number of years and had suffered several strokes.
He was a music contractor for Columbia Broadcasting Co. in Hollywood for many years.
Mr. LaRocca, a harpist, appeared in vaudeville with the Young Sisters, Virginia and Josephine, and later married Virginia. They continued with their act until the birth of a child when Mr. LaRocca joined a brother, Paul LaRocca, now operator of a local barber shop, in a new stage act.
Later, he became associated with his brother Roxy in New York theatre appearances. After Roxy left on a European tour, Mr. LaRocca became associated with CBS Radio, an association that he continued until last summer when he retired due to bad health.
Born in July, 1894, in the house at 1411 Martin St., presently occupied by his brother Roxy, he was a son of Salvatore and Roseanne LaRocca. He and his wife have been married for 42 years. She survives, with a daughter Donna V., and two grandchildren, all of Sherman Oaks: his two brothers, Roxy and Paul: and a sister, Kathryn Marinello, of North Hollywood, Calif. Two other brothers, Nick and Frank, are deceased.
Funeral services and burial will be today in Sherman Oaks.
Peoria Illinois Star November 18, 1959
There are obvious discrepancies between the death cert. and the obit. “Died at home” in obituary, instead of Lakeview Terrace Sanitarium, death certificate.
“Cancer of the lung” in death certificate vs. a “series of strokes,” as we see in the obituary.
Mention of CBS network and no mention of Leith Stevens.
Joseph and Virginia Married in 1915 and after this became a vaudeville act with her sister Josephine. Not the order as described in the obit, which was likely written by Virginia or Donna V. Or relayed over a long distance phone call
Ned Argo shown in the Edmonton Journal June 1919.
Ned’s granddaughter Paige would memorably visit Edmonton 50 years later on behalf of Playboy. See chapter 1969: Most Popular Year.
Family History #2. 1930s & 1940s. The Great Depression. Peoria. Move To LA. Frank & Rose. Marinellos. Radio City. Sunset and Vine. KNX. CBS. Architecture. Tom Breneman. Jane Harker #2 Warner Brothers. Samuel Lanier. Updated 10/20/2025
Posted on May 6, 2020
Frank LaRocca, brother of Diana Cotterell’s grandfather and defacto father Ned, was a violinist.
He worked as a music director in Decatur, Illinois during the 1920s.
Frank’s wife was named Rose. The rest of the LaRocca family still lived in nearby Peoria, Ill., where the LaRocca children of Sal and Anna had grown up.
Decatur Herald Aug. 23, 1925
Mildred Marinell”o”
was a first cousin of Donna LaRocca, Diana/Paige’s mother. She was introduced in Family History #1.
Mildred and Donna lived next door to each other in Peoria, Ill., in the 1920s and 1930s, (see below) and later in Sherman Oaks, CA. in the 1950s. Mildred appears as a witness at the Hollywood wedding of Donna to Robert M. Cotterell in 1940. (See other 1940s chapter.)
Below
shows the 1930 census of Ned, “Jeanette” and Donna LaRocca listed as “Lodgers.” Lena Buckley listed as the “Head of House.”
That’s strange as the LaRocca Home on Martin St. has census records going back to the 19–teens when Salvatore LaRocca bought the home. Or maybe they rented?
Look right above the LaRoccas green and yellow highlighted. We see that Donna’s cousin Mildred lives next door with her parents Anthony and Kathryn LaRocca Marinello. There is no Roxy, Paul or Frank LaRocca listed as they were previously.
Mildred dropped the O or I from her last name. She was a singer in the 1930s.
Frank and Rose may have departed for the West Coast by this time.
Paul and Roxy remained in their hometown of Peoria until their deaths. One son named Nikolas died as a young man of about 20 years.
1931 and 1932 Los Angeles phone directories list Frank LaRocca and wife Rose in Los Angeles. The couple are listed at 2303 Gatewood.
Ned, his wife Virginia LaRocca and 9-year-old Donna, join Frank and Rose in Los Angeles by 1934.
The family moved into a house located at 2234 Shoredale Ave. It’s located about 2 blocks away from Frank and Rose on Gatewood.
The Shoredale and Gatewood houses were in a neighborhood very close to Elysian Park. This location is near the LA River and Riverside Drive.
This was well before “the 5” freeway was built.
Brothers Frank and Ned LaRocca are listed as “music teachers” in the LA phone directory in the mid–1930s.
Ned and “Gin” on Shoredale and Frank and Rose not even 3 streets away on Gatewood.
Ned and Virginia LaRocca performed in Vaudeville tour acts in Los Angeles during the teens, 1920s, and 1930s. The green line is the LA River, grey with white stripe is the 5 Freeway, and light grey is the aptly named Riverside Dr. From what I observe on google maps, the buildings they lived in are still standing.
Not only were the LaRoccas familiar with LA due to their performances, both the area and both Ned and Virginia had sibling already settled in Los Angeles.
As we have seen, Frank LaRocca and his wife Rose.
And, Virginia’s sister and sometimes partner in Vaudeville, Josephine Young Harker and her husband George Truman Harker. Harker was a businessman from San Francisco by way of South Dakota. They were living in South Pasadena with their
Ned, Virginia and Donna wintered in Santa Monica one year during the Great Depression, according to a Mormon family history website. The story went that Ned LaRocca was supporting a houseful of women on a meager salary during the Depression.
Perhaps Ned played in a dance band on the famous Santa Monica Pier. Some write ups say he was a “Jazz Harpist.“
1937 January
According to his death certificate, Frank LaRocca is admitted to Methodist Hospital with peritonitis/perforated duodena. After one week in the hospital, Frank dies, having contracted pneumonia two days earlier.
LAT obit. January 1937 Frank and Rose did not have children.
From find-a-grave. Frank’s tombstone in Peoria, Illinois.
His find-a-grave page includes an obituary from the Peoria newspaper, stating that Frank’s brother: Ned LaRocca lives in LA, is a harpist in a “Hollywood radio orchestra.“
Ned played at the famous Hollywood Hotel in the 1930s.
Late 1930s LA residence directory.
Ned and “Gin” are at 3834 Evans St. a single family dwelling. This new home is located a stone’s throw from well known Marshall High School.
Joseph’s sister-in-law Rose is now a widow to Frank. She is listed as a factory worker this year.
Rose LaRocca was also an Illinois native.
She returned to Los Angeles after her husband’s burial in the family plot in Peoria.
In other directories in the years directly after Frank’s death, I saw Rose listed as a cook. In another year, she was a seamstress.
I don’t think imagine this was an easy road.
Biagio LaRocca may be a family member. He was also listed in the Oakland directories in the late 1920s, when Ned and Virginia spent two years.
In the late 1930s, A “Radio Row,” was forming along the section of Vine Street between Hollywood Blvd. and Sunset Blvd. The anchors were NBC, CBS, ABC.
Moving pictures and radio replaced Vaudeville as the entertainment offering to the masses in the 192os and 1930s.
Technology created and distributed the new medium.
Music was needed for Radio dramas, comedies, advertisements and news shows.
A Streamline Moderne building was the new west coast headquarters of NBC radio. on Sunset & Vine in Los Angeles, opening in 1938.
*Below, I’m attributing radiocityhollywood.com below for several historic descriptions and explanations.
The National Broadcasting Company originally used the phrase Radio City to describe their studios at Rockefeller Center in New York City. When NBC opened their new Hollywood studios at Sunset and Vine in 1938, they placed the words Radio City prominently on the front of their new building. However, the area between Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard on Vine Street became known as Radio City for tourists and locals alike who visited the many radio studios and radio themed cocktail lounges and businesses in the area.
radiocityhollywood.com
CBS radio aka “Columbia Square” opened just down the street from NBC, and also in 1938, either months or weeks before NBC.
Architect is Swiss-born William Lescase. CBS Columbia Square is the official moniker. The legendary Brittingham’s Restaurant existed in Columbia Square. This building and NBC were major tourist attractions in 1938 throughout the 1940s in Los Angeles.
Veteran performing artist Ned LaRocca found employment for his harp skills at both these NBC and CBS buildings
This building is the new home to KNX Radio, where Ned LaRocca found work in the late 1930s and 1940s.
Radio Row in LA must have been a scene overflowing with human activity. Many people needed wanted or both, to be in the area.
The buildings contained employees of the many different businesses, their friends and families, audience ticket holders, tourists from near and far, “Big wigs” in the Industry, interns, janitorial staff, waiters, waitresses, hosts, cooks, caterers, and owners were present on the scene.
Los Angeles Evening News, April 29, 1938
Ad for famous Knickerbocker Hotel.
<<<<<<<Sunset & Vine, Radio City and CBS.
Professional radio performers like Tom Breneman and musicians like harpist Ned LaRocca also had a job in Radio City.
More on Jane Harker coming up below. In the 1940 census, Ned is listed as a Harpist on the radio.
The Hollywood Palladium opened two years later between NBC and CBS, with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, featuring band singer Frank Sinatra. Across Vine Street, on the northwest corner of Sunset and Vine, sat Music City and Capitol Records, operated by bothers Glenn and Clyde Wallich.
A block away, the Columbia Broadcasting System opened its new modern studios at Columbia Square. Across the street, on December 26, Earl Carroll opened his premier nightclub and restaurant, with the glamorous neon sign proclaiming, “Through these portals pass the most beautiful girls in the world.”
The National Broadcasting Company, after moving from New York to San Francisco, opened its’ new Moderne studios at the intersection of Sunset and Vine in Hollywood, California.
radiocityhollywood.com
Film-Noirish image at Sunset & Vine, found on the internet. Looking at NBC from Vine St.
NBC on the right. 1940s. Capitol Records on the left, before the iconic new location, the “Stack of Records” building, was built at nearby 1750 Vine St. by Welton Becket and Assoc. (Opened in 1956)
The radio industry in Los Angeles was at its’ zenith in the 1930s through the 1940s.
There was a radio industry presence before the iconic NBC and CBS buildings in 1938. And I wonder in Ned found work there upon his relocation to Los Angeles.
Roughly the 1930s and 1940s was the Golden Age of Radio.
Television would soon replace radio as the mass entertainment medium of choice during the 1950s.
More from Radio City Hollywood:
The American Broadcasting Corporation set up shop a few doors north on Vine Street. Up the street was the Radio Room, Club Morocco, Mike Lyman’s and the famous Tom Breneman’s Breakfast in Hollywood restaurant. Even further up Vine, just before Hollywood Boulevard, Clara Bow operated her restaurant, the It Cafe. Across the street, south of the Boulevard, was the world famous Vine Street Brown Derby, more restaurants and bars, and at Selma Avenue, the RCA building. Further south, at the end of the block, at the intersection of Vine Street and Sunset Boulevard stood the radio flagship studio, NBC Radio City.
It was a glorious year, 1938, for Hollywood and for radio. And, while NBC called their new studios Radio City, the entire area became famous across America and around the world.
Radio City Hollywood website.
Tom Breneman broadcast his mega popular show “Breakfast In Hollywood” from his restaurant on Vine off Sunset Blvd.
I have listened to a few of his radio broadcasts on YouTube. Breneman often asked audience members, “Where are you from?” The answers come from a combination of tourists and locals, from my observation.
Mr. Breneman was known as the Mayor of Encino. Here we see Tom’s family in the 1940s. Breneman made the commute from the Encino in the SanFernando Valley to Hollywood for his show.
Ned LaRocca made the same trek in the 1950s from Studio City.
Tragically, Breneman died of a heart attack in 1948.
Ned LaRocca continued to work at NBC and CBS throughout the 1940s. He made an important contact with Leith Stevens, a conductor and composer who worked in Radio for years in NYC.
More on Stevens in the 1950s chapter.
1938, 1939 & 1941 LA phone directory, Joseph LaRocca is listed as a musician and living at 3834 Evans.
Rose’s home state was Illinois.
Late 1930s Los Angeles directory. Joseph’s sister-in-law Rose, widow to his brother Frank, is a factory worker this year. One year she was listed as a cook and another year, a seamstress.
Biagio LaRocca may be a family member. He was also listed in the Oakland directories in the late 1920s, along with Ned LaRocca.
Besides Mildred Marinell, Donna LaRocca had another female cousin named Mary Jane Harker, born two years after Donna, in San Francisco.
Jane had a very short lived Hollywood career, from 1945-1947, contracted to Warner Brothers studio.
Please see new chapter on Jane Harker.
Jane Harker was the daughter of Josephine Young, Virginia Young LaRocca’s sister. Her father was named George Truman Harker. There is much more information about this couple in Family History Part #1.
She was out of Hollywood, both the industry and LA, by 1947, after marrying war hero, Navy pilot Samuel L. Lanier.
Military life moved the couple and their 4 children around a lot, Hawaii and San Diego, but eventually they settled in Jacksonville, Florida.
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Salt Lake City Tribune July 19, 1945. Paige Young’s 2nd cousin. “Mary” would soon be dropped.
The information about Jane Harker that you see on websites imdb and Warner Brothers wiki, is incorrect.
I hope to establish the correct biographical information on this forgotten Warner Brothers contract player.
The Morning Call Allentown, Pa. Dec. 15, 1946 The Unfaithful and Humoresque, from 1946, are movies now most known to audiences of Turner Classic Movies and shows like Noir Alley.
Article announces a hometown war hero’s engagement to a beautiful Hollywood starlet and native Californian: Jane Harker.
A little about Samuel Lefkovits Lanier:
Lefkovits was the family name. Sometimes it is spelled with a z, like this article. Samuel Lefkovits was known as “Sammy” and hadn’t yet changed his surname to Lanier but he would in within the next 16 months. Looks like Sammy was just beginning his training as a pilot, 13 months before Pearl Harbor. Alabama Daily Decatur Nov. 1, 1940
Birmingham News Apr. 19, 1942 Pearl harbor was just 4 months earlier, when this article and photo of Samuel L. Lanier was published.
His parents were Norman and Ida Lefkovits, active members of a thriving Jewish community in Bessemer. (And Birmingham)
Why Grow Old? was a long running beauty and health column written by Josephine Lowman. Jane Harker was the model for the column for several years in the 1940s. I’ll include a few more (of dozens I saved) sometime in the future.
Birmingham Post Feb. 12, 1946. The Lowman Why Grow Old? column, makes use of Bessemer’s connection to glamorous Hollywood.
There were dozens of short articles in newspapers across the US even been hundreds, that appeared when Jane Harker left a burgeoning film career in LA.
The reason was to marry and relocate with her military husband Lt. Samuel L. Lanier.
Below is a small sampling of these announcements.
I will be adding more in the future along with Jane Harker’s many fashion photographs published. “High fashion” as opposed to studio publicity pin-up shots.
Martinez News Gazette Apr. 15, 1947
From Harrison Carroll,a Hollywood gossip columnist. Bradford Era (PA.) Nov. 23, 1945.
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Family History #1: 19-Teens, 1920s, Vaudeville. Joseph And Roxy LaRocca. Peoria. Virginia & Josephine Young. SLC. The Great Depression. Oakland. Meet Jane Harker #1. Warner Bros.
Posted on May 2, 2020
Family Background In Vaudeville:
Census records, military records and local directories show that Joseph Ned LaRocca, Diana Cotterell’s grandfather, was born in 1894 in Peoria, Illinois and grew up there.
Known as “Ned,” Joseph Ned LaRocca was a harpist in a family of several musician brothers, and one sister named Kathryn.
His father was Salvatore LaRocca. “Sal” a harpist from Italy who settled in Chicago. He raised a family in Peoria with Rose Ann, born Dunufrio.
According to Find a Grave website, the couple moved to Peoria when Salvatore was offered the leadership of a local Italian band: Marino’s:
Emigrated in 1872. Married Anna Rosalia Denufrio in 21 Dec 1879 in Cook Co, IL. In 1900, this family lived in Peoria. The children included: Roxie (1886), Katie (1890), Frank (1893), Joseph (1895), Nickolas (1897), and Paul (1899). Listed in Peoria City Directory by 1892. He was a musician, specifically, a harpist in Marino’s Italian Orchestra. It’s hard to read the marker, but Anna is listed as his widow in the 1907 Peoria City Directory. Anna and most of his children are buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery in West Peoria. Find a Grave.
Salvatore LaRocca, died at age 52 in 1906, according to records from Peoria listed on ancestry.com.
I have found a few articles about the band Marino’s Italian Band. UPDATE SOON. Salvatore.
As of 2025, the traditional department store is on it’s way out. Mostly, anyway.
High School commencement ceremonies at an opera house in Mackinaw, Illinois. Marino’s Italian Orchestra from Peoria provides music.
The Weekly Pantagraph, Bloomington Illinois. May 21, 1897
According to the 1910 census
Ned and his brothers were living in Chicago with their widowed mother Anna, at 1245 Ohio St.
Ned LaRocca’s profession is listed as musician and age is 16 yrs.
His older brothers were also listed as musicians and the one sister Kathryn, a telephone operator.
The family returned to Peoria at some point.
Roxy LaRocca, the oldest La Rocca brother, was the family’s most commercially successful brother.
December 20, 1915 Bangor, Maine. Vaudeville was still a popular entertainment form this year.
Roxy was a famous-at-the-time Vaudeville harpist, known affectionately as the Wizard of the Harp.
He had several other monikers during his long career on stage. Roxy’s name made it across the nation when he broke a record for longest harp playing.
May 25, 1923. Middlebury, Vermont Register.
The LaRocca brothers were all musicians. Roxy and younger brother Ned were harpists.
Roxy and Ned both toured with major vaudeville circuits like Orpheum and Pantages in the 19-teens and 1920s.
Yet, none of the LaRocca brothers became quite as well known as Roxy.
Ned La Rocca
is Diana Cotterell/Paige Young’s grandfather and younger brother of Roxy.
Ned’s instrument is the harp, just like brother Roxy and father, Salvatore, Ned often used the professional name Ned Argo or just plain Argo.
Vaudeville was beginning to slide as a popular mass-media entertainment form. “Moving pictures” and Radio continued to chip away at the popularity of Vaudeville.
Ned was to have a future in performing with his harp for radio broadcasts in Los Angeles. More on this later.
RCA Corp. did a study in 1925 and found that 19% of homes had a radio. In 1930, it was 40%.
Part of the Salt Lake City drama and music community, Virginia and her sister Josephine were touring Vaudeville performers while still teenagers. (Not uncommon at the time.)
The sisters’ mother was named Josephine Young.
She died when her daughters Virginia and Josephine were in their early teens.
Virginia and Josephine’s grandfather was Brigham Young, head of the Mormon church aka LDS.
The girls’ grandmother was one of his many wives: Emily Partridge Young.
If you google Emily Partridge Young, you will see that she and her sister Eliza hold a significant place in LDS history.
The sisters were among the first “plural wives” of founder Joseph Smith.
These are the youngest two daughters of Josephine and Albert Carrington Young: Josephine and Virginia. They were the 2 youngest of 4 older siblings in the family.
Who survived to adulthood that is.
(From a Mormon genealogy website.)
Virginia and Joseph Ned LaRocca marry.
The musical play The Wrong Bird was written by Margaret Whitney, part of the theater and music circles in SLC. Whitney was noted as a successful “girl composer,” by several news articles at the time. The homestate Utah newspapers offered generous coverage to Whitney’s career and The Wrong Bird. Pantages picked up the musical play and the SLC based troupe toured on the circuit of Pantages owned theatres
Virginia Young and Ned Argo are both on this Pantages bill. His harp act toured with The Wrong Bird. Local Pantages Playhouse in Salt Lake City.
Salt Lake Herald Apr. 1, 1915
<<<<<<<Virginia Young listed as a player. Josephine is Joe here.
<<<<< Argo the harpist on the bill.
The married couple form a vaudeville act. They tour the US in the late 19–teens. They perform through most, if not all, of the 1920s. Ned continues to use the name Ned Argo or Argo. Virginia uses several different names. Jean Virginia is one. Verjenia is another.
Article about Wrong Bird star, Josephine Young. S
Joseph N and Virginia LaRocca are listed in the 1917 and 1918 and 1923 Peoria, Ill. directory.
1917 Peoria directory lists under LaRocca: Annie, Frank and Rose, Joe and Virginia, Nick, Paul, Roxy and Emma, all at 205 Martin St. ancestry.com
1922 Peoria directory lists Anna, widow, Paul, Roxie (no Emma) Ned and Virginia, Frank and Rose. ancestry.com
Sometimes Virginia’s sister and fellow vaudeville player Josephine, is part of the act. The girls went by the name “The Virginia Sisters.” This is seen in the ad below from the Salt Lake City Tribune. It is from Oct. 1, 1919.
June 30, 1917 Goodwin’s Weekly SLC.
Virginia was married by now and singing in a vaudeville act with her husband Ned, not named here.
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Saskatoon Daily Star June 6, 1916
Below we see Ned Argo and the Virgina Sisters play the Pantages in LA.
D.W. Griffith will be introducing his film Broken Blossoms and you will need a ticket!
Look at the few lines at the very end of the ad. 1919. ^^^^^^^^^^^^”dainty dancing and musical numbers.”
1920 approx. Josephine Young quit touring with her sister and brother-in-law and moved to San Francisco with her husband George Truman Harker.
They started a family there: Jack Truman Harker born in 1921, and a daughter, Mary Jane, in 1923 .
In the 1920 Federal Census, Virginia is listed as living in Peoria, Illinois with her husband and his family. Her occupation is listed as “Actress on stage.”
Virginia would gave birth to Donna Virginia LaRocca, 1921 in Peoria, Ill.
The whole LaRocca family including in-law Virginia, living together in 1923 in Peoria, Illinois, home base for the LaRoccas.
Her sister Josephine Young Harker is across the country in San Francisco. She gave birth this year to Mary Jane Harker. She had given birth to son Jack Truman Harker in 1921. I’m not sure where right now.
Frank & Rose, another in-law, would soon move to nearby Decatur for Frank’s employment at the Avon Theatre.
<<<<<<from a directory found on ancestry.com
Anna, the matriarch, is listed as a “widow of Salvatore.” J
Ned and Virginia continued to tour Vaudeville throughout the 1920s.
As you have seen.
I don’t know if they brought their young daughter, Donna, along on the tour. She might have stayed in Peoria with Grandma Anna LaRocca.
The couple had a stop over in 1926-1928 in Oakland, California as seen by directories on ancestry.com
Charlotte Observer June 27, 1929. With an act called “From Peoria.”
Ned & Virginia are listed in the 1930 census as living in Peoria, Ill. The family was only a few years away from permanently relocating to Los Angeles.
Vaudeville would soon be dead.
Mount Vernon Argus April 20, 1929
Another ad featuring “From Peoria”: An Act with the theme of middle-America i.e. Ned Argo’s hometown.
As we’ve seen, the couple was living in Oakland, California for two years in the late 1920s.
Yet they can lay claim to being from Peoria, Ned’s hometown, and play this up for their latest Vaudeville act.
1930 Census Marinellos and LaRocca, cousins Mildred and Donna V. are listed next door to each other in the family home on Martin in Peoria. Looks like the Marinellos are sharing 208 Martin with another family. Ned, “Jeanette” and Donna Vey are lodgers at the home of a Lena Buckley. Previous census and directories show the LaRoccas only, listed in this address home.
It appears like they were renting their own home in 1930, just months after the 1929 stock market crash that resulted in the Great Depression.
After Vaudeville died out in the early 1930s, the Great Depression was already in full swing.
Roxy LaRocca retired at this time to the LaRocca family hometown of Peoria, Illinois, where he started a magazine stand. He later became involved in local politics.
Frank and Rose, Ned and Virginia, moved to LA during the Depression early/mid 1930s. See much more information about this in the next chapter……..
Her career there lasted for only about 2 years.
Please see my next chapter Family History #2 for an in-depth history. It includes the move to Los Angeles in the 1930s. It also covers Radio City from 1938 through the 1940s.
There is also much more on Jane Harker, model/starlet. She worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars during her brief career at Warner Brothers studio.
Jane appears in an obscure Noir film: The Unfaithful starring Ann Sheridan. Also starring Angels Flight, one of the last remaining relics of Bunker Hill in Los Angeles. This film has been shown on TCM a few times.
Jane is credited on imdb as the “red-headed snob” in Humoresque starring Joan Crawford and John Garfield.
Harker had small parts in movies with stars such as Joan Crawford, Ann Sheridan, John Garfield, Bette Davis, Jack Carson, Errol Flynn, Eleanor Parker and more.
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Paige Young in Los Angeles 