1970/1 Pasadena Art Museum With Warhol Wearing A Rudi Gernreich Dress. Artist DeWain Valentine. Venice Beach Studio. Art Scene LA. Updated 5/11/23

Around May 15, 1970, A Paige Young appearance at the Pasadena Art Museum was recorded by LA gossip columnist Marvene Jones and her photographer.

The occasion was a gala for the new Andy Warhol exhibit.

Warhol himself makes an appearance, obviously a big deal.

From the Los Angeles Evening Citizen 5/16/1970

Column #2 of article. Richard Sample told me Paige was always barefoot. (And frequently topless) Iconic 1960s designer and Venice Beach resident, Rudi Gernreich, was the designer of Paige’s dress.
Paige’s date for the Warhol opening, Bill Gardner, is shown on the set of the Jonathan Winters Show 67-69 CBS, with 2 men he “managed” Mickey Rooney and Winters. Paige Young said in interviews that she was an extra on the Jonathan Winters show and Playboy After Dark. Both shows were filmed at CBS Television City at 7800 Beverly Blvd. on the corner of Fairfax Ave.

More on Paige’s date Bill Gardner.

William Louis Gardner

United States

William Louis Gardner was born in Minnesota and finished school there. He
joined the US Air Force and worked at the Pentagon in the Target Library of the world. Went on to the Pasadena Playhouse to learn television and movie making. He got a job with actress Marion Davies at her home. There He met a movie agent and started a career in Hollywood. William Louis Gardner has worked in Hollywood as the agent, personal secretary, PR advisor and manager for for Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Jill St.John, Bobby Van and director, John Huston. William Gardner is the author of two books, “Confessions of a Hollywood Agent,” and “The Games End.”

From Bill Gardner’s website.

According to the article, Paige Young and Andy Warhol discuss a role for Paige in an upcoming Andy Warhol film.

Marvene Jones also says that Mr. and Mrs. DeWain Valentine made up a foursome that evening with Paige and Bill Gardner. Valentine had an exhibit of his large size cast polyester resin pieces at the Pasadena Art Museum, right along with the Warhol exhibit which focused on Warhol’s use of repetitive images.

DeWain Valentine was a rapidly rising artist in the 1960s Venice art scene.

DeWain Valentine in front of one of his works of art in the Market St. Studio where Paige Young also lived at the time her Playboy issue was released.

Valentine was a major player in the new “Light and Space” art movement, along with artists Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, Helen Pashgian, James Turrell, John McCracken, Fred Eversley, Doug Wheeler and more.

Many of these artists lived in Venice Beach due to the cheap rent.

A brief Background of the Los Angeles Art scene:

Before the Light and Space artists emerged, the Cool School or Ferus Gallery artists, had already established themselves beginning in the early 1950s. Many of them lived in Venice Beach, a dilapidated beach town past its’ former glory, dotted with oil rigs, trash in the once beautiful canals. The rent was dirt cheap. Nobody in “respectable” society would want to live there and it was considered dangerous.

The Ferus Group, includes: Ed Keinholz, Wally Berman, Billy Al Bengston, Ed Ruscha, Robert Irwin, Ed Moses, Craig Kauffman, and the curators and owners of the Ferus Gallery who helped bring them to renown, Walter Hopps and Irving Blum.

These artists loved the freedom to explore and experiment, and “do their own thing,” with art; they lived and worked far away from the competitive New York City art scene and its’ snobbish critics.

Alongside this art scene happening in Venice Beach in the 1950s and early 1960s, the “Beatnik Scene” was flourishing.

LA’s Venice Beach, San Francisco’s North Beach and Greenwich Village in NYC., created a new pop-cultural icon:

The beret wearing, cigarette smoking, coffee drinking, poetry spouting, bongo playing, establishment thwarting: Beatnik.

Beatnik fashion in the 1950s.

The Ferus Gallery gang famously interacted with Andy Warhol during his well documented stay in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. Warhol drove with actor Taylor Mead, assistant Gerard Malanga and painter Wynn Chamberlain from NYC to LA. This was for Warhol’s 2nd showing ever and 1st appearance at Ferus.

In fact, it was Warhol’s first trip to LA.

Picture

The Ferus ‘Studs’ the new generation of artists, young abstract painters, ceramicists and assemblage makers who had been flying under the wire now were the featured artists at the Ferus Gallery.The Gallery was ripe for the adventurous artists who would set the new bar in contemporary styles. The Ferus Gallery had belief in the performance of their work and was one of the first galleries to support it.

Ferusgallery.com

For much more detail on this art movement which established the Los Angeles art scene as one on par with New York City or even Europe, see the documentary “The Cool School,” available on Netflix.

The Light and Space movement emerged from the Cool School in the mid-1960s.

DeWain Valentine, originally from Ft. Collins, Colorado, developed a type of polyester resin material that allowed him to make large scale pieces like the one shown below. Previously the material would crack when making a piece this size: approx: 17 1/4x 17/4 x 7/8.

Richard Sample

told me that after he moved to a studio-home in Venice (late 1960s) he invited Paige to move in with him.

I think it was Richard’s father, artist and western jewelry maker Charlie Sample, who was able to get Richard the studio space in Venice Beach.

I asked Richard the location and he said he could not remember it, but that it was close to the ocean and his artist neighbors and friends were DeWain Valentine and Larry Bell. (See Chapter: Interview with Richard Sample)

Valentine exhibit from newspaper article: What Paige and the viewers would have seen that night at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1970.

Paige refers to her “new Venice art studio” in several interviews with Playboy magazine and US newspapers in 1969 and 1970. (See chapter: Most Public Year 1969)

Richard Sample and Paige Young joined the community of Venice artists, but were “not working with the new materials,” to quote Paige in a 1969 interview. She was referring to her neighbors and friends, Valentine, Bell and Irwin, not named.

I have found the location of this Venice studio: 62-68 Market St.

Research and interviews show that Robert Irwin lived across the street from Valentine. This was not mentioned by Richard Sample. At one point I asked him if he “knew Ed Ruscha or Robert Irwin” and some others. He did not recognize those names, he was definitive about Bell and Valentine.

Richard Sample’s niece Ellen Sample remembers visiting her uncle and grandfather Charles Sample at the art studio/home in Venice. Charles also had a retail storefront in addition to his studio.

Ellen, a child at the time, remembers hearing a lot about the man named “Valentine.”

Richard and Ellen both recalled being able to see the beach from the studio. 62-68 Market St., a block from the ocean, is a large structure and was divided amongst many artists who rented their own studio according to Ellie. This is why the address lists a range of numbers.

Richard Sample is listed with an address of 63 Market St. Venice, in a newspaper marriage announcement, 1968.

Venice Evening Vanguard. Aug. 21 1968

Ellen texted me a story: her Uncle Richard sublet the Venice studio to Paige at one point.

Ellen recalls “tensions” about Paige with Ellen’s aunts. These women were the wives of Charles Sample and his sons.

Ellen said her own mother was not bothered by Paige living at the studio, but that she did “go with her sister-in-laws to see what was going on at the studio. ” Ellen says the most tense time was when Paige’s Playboy issue was current and shortly after.

Richard Sample told me he was forced to ask Paige to leave the Venice studio because she never paid him rent. (See chapter Richard Sample interview)

I asked Ellen if it was possible that Richard felt pressured to ask Paige to leave due to the tension.

Ellen said she thought it was possible.

DeWain Valentine has spoken about this Venice studio in several art magazine interviews; the influence it had on his art and on the art of his many fellow famous artists. This includes Larry Bell and Robert Irwin, particularly the years of the 1960s and early 70s.

Brooklyn Rail 2019

DeWain Valentine lived in and eventually purchased the 62 -65 Market St. building.

Several records with his signature and name can be seen in public building archives from LA County, now available online. Copy of one seen below.

61-65 is the address listed here.

LOS ANGELES, CA – OCTOBER 2: Artist Judy Chicago (L) and De Wain Valentine (R) pose during the Pacific Standard Time: Art in LA 1945-1980 opening event held at the Getty Center on October 2, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Ryan Miller/WireImage)

DeWayne Valentine spent many years living and creating art in Hawaii.

He passed a year ago as I write this, February 2, 2022.

Here is how 62-68 Market St. looked in September of 2022. Sold by Valentine approx. 20 years ago. Bell’s former place is to the right with the red and cream bricks.
The first white building facade you see in this clip, is Valentine’s studio, where Paige and Sample lived and worked for a while in 68/69. The ocean can be seen from this location on Market St., just as Ellen and Richard Sample described it. Larry Bell lived next door and Robert Irwin lived across the street where the arches are on the left.

From the Documentary “The Cool School.” Market St, where Valentine, Bell and Irwin had studios. And Richard Sample and Paige Young lived briefly.

Family History#1: Teens, 1920s, Vaudeville. Joseph And Roxy LaRocca. Peoria. Virginia Young. SLC. The Great Depression. Oakland. Jane Harker #1. Warner Bros.

Roxy LaRocca is Diana/Paige’s great uncle. He had a harp act in the Vaudeville circuit. Roxy used this as his passport photo. Found on e-bay.

Family Background In Vaudeville:

Census records, military records and local directories show that Joseph Ned LaRocca (Diana/Paige’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 brothers and one sister named Kathryn.

His Father was Salvatore LaRocca, a harpist from Italy, settled in Chicago before raising a family in Peoria with Rose Ann, born Dunufrio. The couple moved to Peoria when Salvatore was offered the leadership of a local Italian band: Marino’s, according to Find a Grave.

Salvatore LaRocca, died at age 52 in 1906, according to records from Peoria listed on ancestry.com. I think Ned was out on the vaudeville circuit by his teenage years, as well as the other LaRocca brothers.

The one with the most success fame wise was oldest brother Roxy.

WIZARD OF THE HARP

Roxy was a “famous-at-the-time” vaudeville harpist, known affectionately as the “Wizard of the Harp.”

The LaRocca brothers were all musicians and many of them toured with the major vaudeville circuits like Orpheum and Pantages. None became as well known as Roxy.

Below is a newspaper clipping of Joseph Ned LaRocca 1925. He was to have a future in Los Angeles, playing harp for the radio.

Ned is Diana Cotterell/Paige Young’s grandfather and younger brother of Roxy. Also a harpist like his big brother, he often used the professional name Ned Argo or just plain Argo.

RCA Corp. did a study in 1925 and found that 19% of homes had a radio. In 1930, it was 40%. Vaudeville was beginning to slide as a mass-media entertainment form. “Moving pictures” continued to be a reason for the lessening popularity of vaudeville.

Ned was to have a future in performing for radio broadcasts in Los Angeles.

Ned’s wife, Virginia Young, was born in 1898 in Salt Lake City. Her father was Albert Carrington Young, a doctor. Her mother was named Josephine Young and she died when Virginia and her sister Josephine were still children. Part of the Salt Lake drama and music community, Virginia and Josephine became vaudeville performers. The girls’ grandfather was Brigham Young and grandmother one of his many wives: Emily Partridge Young. If you google Emily Partridge Young, you will see she and her sister Eliza hold an interesting place in Mormon history as two of founder Joseph Smith’s first “plural wives.”

Virginia Young met Ned LaRocca on a Pantages tour where Virginia and sister Josephine were performing in “The Wrong Bird,” a very successful Utah production that toured North America. The musical play was written by Margaret Whitney, part of the theater and music circles in SLC.

Marriage in 1915 Paige Young’s maternal grandparents.

The married couple form a vaudeville act and tour the US in the late teens and most, if not all, of the 1920s. Ned continues to use the name Ned Argo or Argo.

Virginia and Joe Ned LaRocca marry in Utah in 1915.

Joseph N and Virginia LaRocca are listed in the 1917 and 1918 Peoria, Ill. directory.

Screenshot from a Mormon heritage website and below.

June 30, 1917 Goodwin’s Weekly SLC. Virginia was married by now and singing in an vaudeville act with her husband Ned. Not named here.

Sometimes Virginia’s sister and fellow vaudeville player Josephine, is part of the act. The girls went by the name “The Virginia Sisters” as seen in the ad below from Salt Lake City Tribune Oct. 1, 1919.

Saskatoon Daily Star June 6, 1919

Los Angeles Daily Times Sept. 15, 1919 Wedding notice for Josephine and George Harker. Josephine is Diana/Paige’s great aunt. The sister of her Grandmother Virginia, who inspired Paige’s chosen surname of Young.

1920 approx. Josephine 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 .

The whole family together in 1923 in Peoria. Anna, the matriarch, is listed as a “widow of Salvatore”

In the 1920 Federal Census, Virginia is listed as living in Peoria, Illinois with her husband and his family, and her occupation is listed as “Actress.” Mama LaRocca was still living at this point. Virginia would give birth to Donna Virginia in 1921.

Ned and Virginia continued to tour vaudeville throughout the 1920s. The couple had a stop over in 1926-1928 in Oakland, California for about 2 years.

1928 Oakland, California directory. Biogio LaRocca may have been family.
1928 Voter’s registration, Oakland California. Joseph is incorrectly listed where his wife Virginia should be written, he is the one who “declined.” Virginia still identified as a Democrat at this time.

Charlotte Observer June 27, 1929. With an act about “Peoria.” They are listed in the 1930 census as living in Peoria. They were only a few years away from permanently relocating to Los Angeles. Vaudeville would soon be dead.

In the mid 1920s, George Truman and Josephine Harker moved to South Pasadena, an affluent area then as now.

After Vaudeville died out in the early 1930s, the Great Depression was already in full swing.

Roxy LaRocca retired about this time to the LaRocca family hometown of Peoria, Illinois, where he started a magazine stand.

Frank and Rose, Ned and Virginia, moved to LA during the Depression early/mid 1930s. See much more of this in the next chapter………

Jane Harker

MARY JANE HARKER BECOMES JANE HARKER AT WARNER BROS. STUDIO

This is the true background of Jane Harker, short lived Warner Bros. pin-up and starlet. IMDB has incorrect information that other websites have copied. She is the daughter of George Truman Harker and Josephine Young Harker and born in San Francisco and not the midwest. Jane is a first cousin to Diana/Paige’s mother Donna.

Please see my next chapter Family History #2 for an in-depth history: move to Los Angeles in the 1930s, Radio City from 1938 through the 1940s and much more on Jane Harker, model/starlet, who worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars during her approximate 2 years with Warner Brothers studio. She appears in an obscure Noir film: The Unfaithful with 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 plays “red-headed snob in Humoresque starring Crawford and Garfield.

Halloween Cheesecake. The Signal, Santa Clarita, 1946.

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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