Paige Young in Los AngelesMeet Artist & Paige Young Friend Richard Sample. 1964-1969. Malibu. Venice. Celebrity Connections. Cult Characters. PART 1. Under Construction. Long. 2/12/2025
Posted on June 8, 2021
UPDATE: Richard L. Sample passed away on August 10, 2021.
Recently, I interviewed Richard Sample, Paige’s ex-boyfriend, friend, painter, sculptor, collage-maker, furniture-maker.
He now lives in the Coachella Valley area of California.
Richard Sample was still living in Sun Valley, Idaho when he was interviewed by Daily Mail reporter Ryan Parry in 2014. He says he doesn’t know who gave his name to Parry in association with Paige Young.
I am thankful to Richard Sample for inviting me to interview him in person. He took the time and effort to talk about Paige Young. It was not always easy for him (or me).
Thanks also to his niece Ellen (Ellie) Sample who has been insightful and supportive.
At the appointed time, I pulled up in my rental car and parked next to Richard’s house. There was a chainlink fence and gate that had a big padlock on it and the house was about 10 yards beyond it; I called out his name several times and did not get a response.
Luckily, Richard’s niece Ellie pulled up in her car, got out and told me Richard’s neighbor had called and told her that “there is woman in a red car in front of her Uncle Richard’s house.”
Ellie unlocked the gate and as we walked toward the house, she told me that Richard doesn’t hear very well now.
Ellie said that she was aware of the interview, but “didn’t ask him any questions so that he feels he has his own life.” Ellie lives one street over and has been very involved with caring for Richard since he moved to the area.
Richard warmly greeted me with a hug as did his dog Tolly. Ellie left us to the interview.
Richard Sample gave me permission to quote him in my article.
After we sat down to talk, Sample said to me:
“In 2001 I got throat cancer. I got radiation that burned the lining of my throat and my whole body. I also had a surgery and they cut my throat, it left me hard to talk, hard to drink, hard to eat… I am dying.”
Richard Sample is now 84 years old and does not hear too well or speak easily. I strained to hear his whisper of a raspy voice. I tried to understand what he was saying, but I didn’t always understand right away. I got better at understanding him as our conversation got going.
I will say Richard and I didn’t exactly have a normal flowing conversation. It was more of a question and answer session. Mostly the answers Richard gave took him a long time to say. I also got to know him as a person and shared my journey with researching Paige’s story.
This chapter will be a mixture of exact quotes from my tape recorder and hand written notes.
Background of Richard Sample and his connection to Los Angeles.
His father was Charles “Charlie” Sample, well known artist and metal smith, eccentric Los Angeles (and other parts of California) character.
Richard was born in Huntington Beach in 1936, 3 years after his parents married.
“My father (Charlie Sample) was a famous gold and silver smith. He made silver spurs for $8000. He also made belt buckles and horse saddles for Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, John Wayne, Mae West, Tim Holt,” said Richard.
Richard showed me a recent catalog for a company producing artistic, high quality western gear: Bohlin.
It featured Charlie Sample designs by name.
Horse saddles, bridles, spurs, belt buckles, bolo ties, rings, bracelets etc.
Richard’s mother, the former Virginia Smith, was one of about 8 women that modeled for the Columbia Pictures symbol.
His parents divorced when Richard was young and his mother remarried and had more children. Charlie moved on and did not see Richard for a while. Charlie had more marriages and children too.
Richard was upset and angry about his parents’ divorce. He “acted out negatively,” according to a relative I messaged on ancestry.com.
Father metalsmith artist Charlie Sample mentioned. LAT Jan. 18, 1937
News articles indicate that Richard’s
“negative acting out” included being on the wrong side of the law.
. At some point after this Richard was tried and sent to prison at California Medical Facility in Vacaville California.
San Bernardino County Sun Feb. 29, 1960
Richard and Paige got together after the end of his relationship with Sylvia Nicolosi shown above.
Sylvia is the daughter of famed LA based sculptor Joseph Nicolosi. She was one of three sisters.
I found several articles about her, she usually went by the name Maria.
Richard said he was in the military in the 1960s but “never made it to Vietnam, just Ft. Bragg North, Carolina.” He then showed me his military ID.
When our interview began, Richard was excited to tell me about aspects of Paige’s personality and character.
“Paige lived in a converted chicken coop on the edge of Malibu.“
Richard doesn’t remember which edge. (I’m confident it was the Topanga Canyon area or closeby.)
“For a dinner party, Paige had a different chair for each guest to use, not a matching (dining) set.”
“She would only eat salad if it was a day old.”
“I never saw Paige with shoes on.” (see chapter 1970 Warhol, Paige appears with her date at the Pasadena Art Museum Warhol opening and is photographed wearing a ankle length Rudi Gernreich dress barefoot. This is described by the reporter.)
“She is the only person I’ve ever known who ate ice cream with a fork,”
At the end of Richard and Paige’s first date….coming soon.
I asked about Hamish, the horse she had owned since junior high and still had in late 1964 according to her divorce filing. Richard responded she did not keep a horse in Malibu that he knew of. (Malibu is a town with a history of horse and stable owners and dedicated riders)
Paige would often strip down to her underwear and “run around topless or even nude.” Confirmed. Westwood neighbor Melanie told me that Paige often walked around nude in the shared backyard. It got on her nerves. Paige’s nudity was also described to me by Malibu friend Veronica.
When Richard met Paige
Paige was “going with a man named Harry Gesner.“
“He was an architect who designed the Cooper house in Malibu. The house was on the cover of Life magazine. Harry Gesner was a client of my landlord.”
“My landlord was Edward Ravick; he was involved with the Malibu Colony and maybe lived there at times,” said Richard
“Ravick sent Gesner and Paige to my studio in Malibu, to see my art.”
“This is how I met Paige.”
Eleven months ago, the world got a little duller with the passing of Malibu architect Harry Gesner at the age of 97. To say Gesner led a full life would be putting it mildly; the word “epic” might be more apt. Born in Oxnard to an engineer father and an artist mother, he learned to fly a plane at 14, stormed the beach at Normandy aged 19, worked as a waterski instructor in Lake Arrowhead, turned down an invitation from Frank Lloyd Wright to study at Taliesin in favor of being a tomb raider in Ecuador, squired models and actresses, fraternized with Errol Flynn and Marlon Brando, collected fancy sports cars, including a 1957 Mercedes 190SL convertible that he adapted to be all-electric, and surfed every day into his late ’80s
Pauline O’Connor DIRT, a magazine about real estate. June 1, 2023. Dirt is now called The Robb Report.
Paige Young was one of the models Harry squired.
Notice the names above. Edward Ravick being one. Before I saw the above pamphlet on ebay, Richard had told me about the buyers of his art: Vincent Price, Elaine de Kooning, and Harry Gesner, spelled incorrectly here, had purchased his art. Edward Ravick is also listed as a buyer.
This confirms Richard’s comments to me using all these names was the truth.
Elaine De Kooning attended the prison art exhibits that Richard participated in during his prison stint. Documented in newspapers.
I have found two mentions in an online Malibu newspaper on but not “saveable.” There was an Edward Ravick mentioned in a Malibu paper connected to real estate in the 1960s.
Jonathan Winters
I first contacted Richard by old school letter writing as there was no phone number for him that worked.
In that letter, I asked him if he knew of a connection with Paige and comedian-actor legend Jonathan Winters.
Early on in our interview, Richard asked why I wrote him asking about Winters.
I told him about the many newspaper interviews with Paige, I found from 1969 as she was traveling to promote Playboy After Dark.
In a few or the articles, it says Paige “appeared in many skits on The Jonathan Winters Show.”
(See my chapter on Paige’s Most Public Year 1969).
I then asked Richard why he called Jonathan Winters an “asshole” in his letter back to me.
His answer:
“Dennis, (does not remember his last name) was the owner of the Golden O Gallery, in Los Alamos, he told me that Jonathan Winters used to come and sit on the sidewalk at Dennis’ gallery and talk about Paige, and he had nothing good to say, it was always nasty or negative. I never met the man, but Dennis could tell you all about it. Richard added that Dennis never met Paige, but he “did know about her.”
Presumably because of Jonathan Winters.
He said he wasn’t aware of her appearing on the show during its run from 1967-1969.
He said it is a possibility that she did and he didn’t know about it.
Richard said that Paige never said anything about Jonathan Winters when they were together.
Winters was serious about his painting hobby.
He published a book of his paintings, Hangups.
For many years Winters resided at least part time in Montecito, which is quite close to the town of Los Alamos.
Bill Cosby
was a frequent visitor and performer at many Playboy Clubs in the 60s 70s and maybe even beyond. He was a close friend to Hugh Hefner during those years.
Richard said he would occasionally pick up Paige at the Sunset Strip Playboy Club, after her shift. She worked at the club “for about 3 months,” he said.
“Bill Cosby was always trying to put the make on Paige. She didn’t want anything to do with him, she ignored him,” said Richard.
Richard then told me of one time when he was picking Paige up from the club after her shift. He saw Bill Cosby get angry at Paige after she rebuffed another one of his advances.
Richard then asked me if I was, “sure that Paige committed suicide and was not murdered.” I told him that I owned a copy of her death certificate with suicide by gun typed into the cause of death box cert. and I showed it to him.
“I wouldn’t ever think she would do that,” he said shaking his head at the document.
I decided not to tell Richard there is more proof of a suicide besides the death certificate: witnesses like neighbor Melanie, the man D. DeWitt listed as a “2nd witness” on the police report, the police at Paige’s house on that day. (See chapter on LAPD report) And the coroner’s report.
Celeste Huston told me in a Facebook exchange, which I no longer have, that Bill paid for Paige’s art lessons. She mentioned having lunch with Bill and Paige (and her husband John Huston) at the studio where he was filming in the early 70s.
Melanie is the only one of these people to have spoken out publicly about the day of Paige’s suicide.
“She was a good person. I really miss her.” Richard said about Paige a few times that afternoon.
More Background
Richard Sample moved to Venice Beach around 1967. He was motivated by the thriving art scene which was becoming more well-known on a national level. At least for those who paid attention to the Art scene.
His father Charlie Sample was already working and living in a Venice studio.
Darlene Valentine remembers Charlie as a landlord of sorts at the Venice Beach studios rented by DeWain Valentine, Richard Sample and Paige Young.
Richard got a studio for himself through his dad and Paige through her connection to Richard.
“Paige liked my father, he made some jewelry for her.”
Paige joined Richard not too long after he moved to Venice Beach. He said he invited her and was thrilled that she moved in.
Records show that Richard was married in 1968 and not to Paige Young. His niece Ellie says Richard actually “leased” the Venice studio to Paige.
I asked Richard if he encountered any of the many artists who became famous out of the Venice Beach art scene (that started in the 1950s with “The Cool School” and the slightly later “Light and Space” or “Finish Fetish” art movement.)
He said “De Wain Valentine had a studio next door to Paige and me.” (See chapter on Pasadena Art Museum appearance with Warhol 1970)
“Valentine was a friend of mine.”
“Another friend, Larry Bell, lived across the street from us, on Market.”
(Turns out Larry Bell had a building next door to Valentine, it was Robert Irwin who lived across the street. I did ask about Irwin and Ruscha but Richard did not recognize those names.)
“We (Paige and I) all used to hang out a lot, with all these (Venice artists) at Barney’s Beanery.”
After I returned from my trip, I did some research and I found quotes from Bell and Valentine in Art magazines.
There were a lot of actors and writers. We all used to hang out at a place called Barney’s Beanery, which was in West Hollywood. It was a local bar, a funky little place right at the end of La Cienega Boulevard where all the galleries were. So after the Tuesday or Thursday night openings, everyone would go up to Barney’s and hang around—there was The Raincheck Room on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood as well.
Larry Bell in Whitewall: Beyond the Walls, Dec. 2019
See chapter on Pasadena Art Museum for much more on DeWain Valentine.
I spoke with Darlene Valentine, the first Mrs. Valentine. When she, her husband and children moved to Venice, California in 1965, they found the studio on Market St.
She remembers him being and eccentric character and a funny man. “You were not supposed to live in the studio, (only practice your art), but many did anyway.”
Cars
Paige owned a yellow Mustang, and Richard owned a red Corvette.
“A guy named Rex Ramsey stole our cars, but Paige got them back.”
Before the interview, I already knew about Rex Ramsey; he’s connected to Mark F. Segal, through renting Segal’s (where Paige lived as his wife in 1963 and 64) house at 4144 Crisp Canyon in Sherman Oaks. Both men spent a career heavily involved with cars: sales, importing and racing. Ramsey designed a successful race car once. He did some stunt driving in Hollywood and is credited in the 1968 hit Disney hit The Love Bug.
Rex Ramsey told me Mark’s family had a series of car dealerships and a towing service business. “They were quite well off,” Ramsey said. Otherwise he said he did not remember Paige Young but maybe he would later. I haven’t been able to reach him since the second phone call when he was unable to talk with me.
Richard shows me a picture of himself decked out head to toe in animal fur, looking like mountain man Jedidiah Smith.
Richard and his father were both quite handsome.
He says that “unfortunately” he has no photos of Paige or paintings by her; he has lost a lot of his possessions and paintings over the years but he is hoping to retrieve some of Paige’s paintings in Santa Maria.
“I never knew Paige to be involved with drugs, except an occasional use of grass.” Richard said that she did sometimes drink alcohol and occasionally “went to clubs in the Marina.”
Richard Sample
And possibly the Raincheck Room per Larry Bell’s quote. And definitely Barney’s Beanery.
After I asked about something else and not hearing my question, Richard said “Paige was basically a very good person, until she got mixed up with Hefner. She went downhill then.”
Lewis Beach Marvin 3rd
was born into the family, “who owned Green Stamps. He was a friend of Paige’s and mine. He introduced me to Robert Carl Cohen who put a lot of my sculptures in his movie Mondo Hollywood.“
Lewis Beach Marvin and the amazing dwelling he put together in the hills of Malibu, is featured in Mondo Hollywood. The movie is a cult film known as an important document of counterculture LA/1960s history.
I did some research and one story says that Lewis Beach Marvin is the young man who gives Jim Morrison a lamb on stage in Miami on May 1st 1969. This can be seen on a video. It’s the concert that resulted in Morrison’s arrest due to allegedly exposing his penis on stage.
Lewis Beach Marvin was a vegan activist WAY before it was a “thing.”
He does appear in a Miami article with a lamb around the time of the Doors concert.I have also read a local Miami man gave Morrison the lamb.
The Miami arrest hanging over his head is supposedly one reason Jim Morrison left for Paris where he fatally overdosed on heroin. He was already in bad health due to alcohol abuse.
Shortly after I returned from California, I rented Mondo Hollywood on Amazon.
I was unable to specifically identify Richard’s sculptures in the film–a sculptor named Valerie Porter is one of the “main characters” and the movie is heavy on a variety of her sculptures and many sculptures and structures.
I did see an ending credit:
Moonshadow sculpture: Richard Lauren Sample..
According to Richard:
Peter Gowland Playboy and Glamour Photographer
and Paige had met a few years before her appearance as a Playboy centerfold. Paige had already modeled for Gowland several times. This checks out with a few pre-centerfold photos of Paige taken by Gowland. These can be found on the internet.
Peter Gowland is the one who suggested and encouraged Paige to try out for Playboy; he submitted her photos as she recounted in 1969 to newspaper reporters.
I knew Paige mentioned in a few 1969 interviews that “my photographer friend suggested” the idea and he submitted her photos to Playboy. I did not previously mention this to Richard.
Gowland called Richard, in 1974, looking for Paige because he hadn’t heard from or seen her for a while. He called Richard back some time later to tell him that Paige had committed suicide. Peter did not tell Richard the method that Paige used to kill herself, Sample said to me.
Sample is quoted in Daily Mail story as saying he was told by Gowland that it was an overdose.
Richard says he opened Eros Gallery in Westwood in the late 60s.
He can’t remember the location beyond that.
The next several photos are from Playboy magazine November 1968, taken by Peter Gowland.
Richard and I went through them .
Richard said this photo above shows him helping Paige carry one of her paintings into his Eros Gallery.
Richard says the seated woman on the left is “Mrs. Burke, my partner in Eros Gallery.” Mrs. Burke was a local patroness of the Arts. He said that Peter Gowland is the man in between Mrs. Burke and Paige.
He may be mistaken, if it is Gowland, I don’t know who took the shot. Richard said Peter’s wife, who is the co-owner of their photography business, Alice Gowland was not there that day.
Richard said never met her.
According to Richard, this photo of Paige running with her dog Joshua was taken at the Malibu Colony.
Richard said he has no idea who any of these people are at the cookout or in the room with Paige painting. He doesn’t recognize the location. These may or may not be real friends of Paige’s.
Sometimes young people were hired to stand in as “friends” for a Playboy centerfold shoot. Connie Kreski is one.
Richard said that when he was living with Paige he “never questioned where she was going, what she was doing” or with “whom she was doing it.”
“And she never questioned me. That is just the way the relationship was.”
Malibu fire
“Me and Harry Gesner went to Paige’s house during the Malibu fire (he’s not sure which year in the 1960s.) and hosed everything down. Paige’s house didn’t burn but everything around it did.”
I then asked a couple of questions about Paige’s family.
Was there ever an indication that Paige had grown up with a grandmother (Virginia Young LaRocca) who was a Christian Science practitioner/ 1st Reader in the Church for decades?
Richard answered, “Nope, nope, not at all.”
Richard said that Paige never talked about her childhood in the SFV. She never mentioned her family. He did not know that her birth name was Diana Cotterell or that she was married to Mark F. Segal. She never said she used Marvin Mitchelson as her lawyer, Richard had never heard of Mitchelson anyway.
Richard said he met Paige’s sister (Constance/Connie) one time only, when Paige drove him to a visit with her. He said he doesn’t “think that they had a close relationship.”
Richard looked quite exhausted so I ended the interview for the day. I felt bad about telling him too much of Paige’s background that he never knew.
He said it didn’t bother him.
He shared one last thing:
“I introduced Paige to Tony Dow, a good friend of mine. He drove a Porsche. He liked my Vette. He lived in the Valley. “
And Tony purchased some of Richard’s art .
Tony Dow died July 27, 2022, one month and 2 days after Harry Gesner‘s death.
Dow was 77 years old and experienced decades of pursuing his passion of creating sculpture. He had a long and happy 2nd marriage to Lauren.
From an interview with Richard: The Boise Weekly, where Richard was living Early 2007.
After parting ways with Maria Nicolosi, Sample married 1969 Playboy Playmate Paige Young who later died at her L.A home of a sleeping pill overdose. An artist in her own right, Young’s impressionistic portrait of Sample hangs in Gallery 8.
Sample was born on Friday the 13th of November 1936, a “triple Scorpio” by astrological accounts. “I have my Sun, Moon and Mercury in Scorpio,” he says, which may explain his resourcefulness and intensity. The legend of Scorpio tells of a scorpion sent by the immortal huntress Artemis to slay Orion, the great hunter. Scorpio, ever resourceful, fulfilled the deed for the goddess and was given a place in the night sky as his reward.
“I may not be a famous artist, but I am a successful one,” Sample said. And prolific. To date, he has completed and sold 2,761 paintings and is currently at work on six more.
The following is the Entire interview with Richard Sample when he still lived in Idaho and opened a gallery in a storage unit.
Just across the highway from the airport in Hailey, where Gulf Stream jets blast off regularly, lies the South Wood Self Storage Facility. Row upon row of identical containers are filled with furnishings and cargo, all except for locker No. 8, otherwise known as “Gallery 8,” a space used by artist Richard Lauran Sample. Above the door reads a sign: “Art Patrons Association of Idaho,” which Sample refers to as “a group dedicated to the arts, music and literature.” Just inside is the face of the Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby, “… wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door.” A cat named Turpentine studies the ghost-like face in a jar and then ranges freely through the menagerie of paintings and sculptures by Sample that fill Gallery 8: abstracts, Westerns and magical realism paintings, canvases of Batman and numerous other examples of skilled craftsmanship and determined artistic vision. There is an unfinished ivory-handled knife, a tidy collection of cobalt blue glassware and a series of clocks marking time at various Air Force bases across the United States, including Area 51. Gallery 8 is a long way from the Bel-Air, Calif., mansion Sample once called home.
Ever since Sample’s mother, Virginia, posed for the Columbia Pictures torch lady painting, Sample has lived in and around the glamour of Hollywood. During the 1960s, he was featured on several television shows, including the Jack Bailey show Queen for a Day, on which lucky American housewives were given makeovers and European vacations. “I sold 75 pieces from [the notoriety of] that show,” he recalls. Over the years, people like Raymond Burr, Edgar G. Robinson, and Tony Dow of Leave it to Beaver fame have purchased Sample’s work. “I traded one of my Castle paintings to Hollywood stunt man Charlie Wilcox—a family friend who worked on the movie Ben Hur and also did stunt work on The Creature from the Black Lagoon—for a small Picasso in the 1970s,” says Sample. “I should have held onto the Picasso.”
Today, Sample’s studio contains 108 paintings, all of which he has produced within the last year, while restoring antique oil paintings and repairing artwork in the Sun Valley area to make ends meet.
“I paint fast,” he says. “I’m an insomniac, so I rest. I don’t sleep. I’ll lie down on that couch there and have dreams and visions.” Like Salvador Dali, who also experimented with the state between wakefulness and dreaming, Sample creates surrealist landscapes. His are populated with the artifacts of his youth spent in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, where he pumped water from a well and milked 13 cows each day before walking to school. For sustenance, he hunted and fished the nearby James River, named after Jesse James. During a stint as a ranger in the U.S. Army’s Third Missile Command, Sample was part of a three-man team that fired the 32-foot-long Honest John Rocket.
“It was fully manual'” he says. “We could hit a moving tank at 15 miles.” He also painted mess halls in the military.
Sample’s surrealism features whisky jugs and mushrooms, mechanical parts and hillside shacks. A recent work, “Lunar Reactor,” has taken hillbilly motifs and expanded them upon the cosmos. The oil painting shines under several coats of deep varnish that the artist has poured over sections of the piece. “When I am finished, there will be a three-dimensional effect. You will be able to see around the individual brush strokes.”
A similar fascination with technique developed some years ago into Sample’s black and white “Castle Paintings,” which he describes as “oil etchings.” These medieval ramparts above calm rivers are painted using brushes only a few hairs thick with paint strokes made in exactly five directions, similar to the etching procedure used in the production of the U.S. dollar bill.
Sample worked alongside his father at many trades during his youth: making trick poker tables, saddles, doing bronze work and cabinetry. The father and son also ran the West Coast Mint, pounding out thousands of custom bronze medallions under a 350-ton die press, including one of a farm field with a rocket ship commemorating the POMO Air Force Installation in California. They later built a bronze foundry in Pasa Robles from the ground up, which would reconstruct Remington sculptures to exact specifications. An accomplished gunsmith and saddle-maker, Charles Sample designed and built the spectacular silver saddles used in the Pasadena Rose Bowl New Year’s Day Parade. He also introduced his son to the magic and glamour of Hollywood.
“My father made a solid silver telephone and platinum garter clips for Mae West,” Sample says. “She tried to give him a Deusenberg, but he turned her down because the car didn’t have a spare tire.” Sample worked extensively for movie star Bo Derek and made gold leaf and wooden jewelry for Willem de Kooning’s wife, Elaine. De Kooning collected Sample’s work and corresponded with him for some time in letters. Sample keeps the correspondences in boxes with color snapshots and other personal memorabilia. One photo from 1973 was taken at the Marion Davies Mansion in Bel-Air. In it, Sample stands beside a gingerbread castle he made for the Christmas/birthday party of Charlton Heston.
“I put 7,000 pieces of candy in that cake,” he recalls. Nearby stands J. Paul Getty and Sample’s one-time paramour, Maria Nicolosi.
Sample reminisces about the life he shared with Nicolosi for seven years in the mansion, which was built by William Randolph Hearst for his lover, silent film star Marion Davies.
“The place was unbelievable,” he recalls. “It had every tropical tree you could imagine. They used to shoot Tarzan movies in the back yard. There were waterfalls and caves. The swimming pool was the largest in the United States and ran like a snake through the property. Vincent Price collected my paintings. He would stop in from across the street and have tea with us.”
According to Sample, the patriarch of the Nicolosi clan, sculptor Joseph Nicolosi, an artist of international significance, held a 50 percent interest in the Park Plaza Hotel in New York City. He had passed away before Sample took up residence in the mansion with his daughter.
After parting ways with Maria Nicolosi, Sample married 1969 Playboy Playmate Paige Young who later died at her L.A home of a sleeping pill overdose. An artist in her own right, Young’s impressionistic portrait of Sample hangs in Gallery 8. (Richard married Daryl if you remember, in 1968. The stayed married for a few years.)
Sample was born on Friday the 13th of November 1936, a “triple Scorpio” by astrological accounts. “I have my Sun, Moon and Mercury in Scorpio,” he says, which may explain his resourcefulness and intensity. The legend of Scorpio tells of a scorpion sent by the immortal huntress Artemis to slay Orion, the great hunter. Scorpio, ever resourceful, fulfilled the deed for the goddess and was given a place in the night sky as his reward.
“I may not be a famous artist, but I am a successful one,” Sample said. And prolific. To date, he has completed and sold 2,761 paintings and is currently at work on six more.
Sample also inherited a collection of books from his father published by the “photographer on horseback,” L.A. Huffman, who traveled the West in the 1870s. A book of glass plate prints and accompanying stories have provided the heart of Sample’s work for many years. He renders the photographs in sepia-toned oils. “There is a story behind every one of these paintings,” he points out. One is of a prairie Indian burial on stilts, entitled “Spirit Poles.” Another represents a self-portrait of Huffman, painted, as they all are, on maximum density particle board, which Sample says will never warp or bend. “These will last a thousand years,” he says. “You can wash them with soap and water.”
His decision to work in “permanence” came after working in the art of restoration at the L.A. County Art Museum, where several of his cardboard collages were hung in the 1960s.
“I’m self-taught,” he explains, while extolling the virtues of Ralph Mayer’s The Artist’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques.
“I have had three copies of this book over the years. It is the best book ever written for artists wanting to learn. It has taught me permanence. It continues to teach me the chemistry and permanence of paint,” he says.
Sample proudly displays a diploma for an Honorary Doctorate in the Arts from California’s Polytechnic State University, which he earned after completing a rigorous examination on his knowledge of things such as paint chemistry.
Yet Sample’s interests and talents range far beyond the fine arts and include herbology, anthropology, astrology and rock-collecting, to name a few. Against one wall, beside a tableau of religious icons and tribal mementos, is a case filled with meteorites.
Among the artifacts Sample has collected as an amateur archeologist are two nearly perfectly round black stones he found in a dried river bottom near Shoshone. He explains that the natives used them as weapons at one time, bound in hard leather at the end of a battle axe. Sample is incorporating each of the balls into meter-high white plaster abstract sculptures that will resonate with deep history and contemporary sculptural forms. “I also practice Tai Chi and read quantum physics,” he says, “including just about anything Albert Einstein wrote.”
Sample’s studies in physics pertain to certain technical projects he plans to undertake with the U.S. military, projects he would rather not discuss publicly. Relying on friends from NASA, he has plans to install a live video feed of nearby heavenly bodies to a televison set in his studio in the near future.
Even in Idaho, where he continues restoration, cabinetry and painting projects for actors Bruce Willis, John Larroquette and others, Sample still has the occasional brush with fame.
“One night at my brother Bill’s, Muffet Hemingway,” who is Margaux Hemingway’s sister, Joan, “came driving straight across the yard and right over the Christmas tree,” Sample says. “Muffet walked into the house and started munching on a crab leg, waved to herself in the glass window and then got into her car and drove away back across the yard. My brother came out and said, ‘Who’s the chick grazin’ in the kitchen?'”
Sample will auction off some of his work in spring of 2008 and give 15 percent of the proceeds to the Parkinson’s Foundation. “All of these 108 paintings will be sold in two days,” he says. “The last show I had, 1,500 people showed up at the Sage Brush Arena in Hailey. My place is always open to students and lovers of art,” he says.
Paige Young In Art and On Merchandise. Paintings By Paige Young. Never seen before and Rare Images. Several NSFW.
Posted on December 19, 2020
Please note many images will be NSFW
I found the next 4 slides on ebay.
The seller had purchased a batch of slides through an auction.
A handful were labeled (as taken by) Peter Gowland.
I looked through the lot on Ebay and recognized Paige in a handful of the many slides of topless or naked women.
There are very few images of Paige in circulation that weren’t take by Peter and his partner, wife Alice Gowland. She did most of her modeling work with the couple or Peter alone.
I was interested only in Paige’s photos of course, but had to buy the whole lot. Now I own several slides of unknown women.
I wish I had a few non-nude-modeling images of Paige. Especially the kind taken in a natural environment by family or friends.
Gowland took several non-nude photos of Paige modeling the current fashions of the day.
Never used in US Playboy magazine.
NSFW
These are the slides of Paige that I purchased.
Location is the Gowland’s Property in Rustic Canyon?
Image #1 would be an immediate reject. In fact all of them and the whole lot are rejects and that’s how the slides got on the market, probably.
Thank you for restoring and scanning the slides to: glamourphotographers.yolasite.com
Rosler created a series of collages appropriating images of Playmates from the late 1960s. Rosler used this image of Paige from the January 1969 issue. Original image seen in chapter Playboy 1969.
A cigar is just a cigar?
Mel Ramos. Pop artist known for appropriating images of Playboy Playmates intertwined or wrapped up in, consumer objects.
Ramos’ rendition of Paige Young’s face is a spot-on likeness. Her breast size is not, it’s greatly exaggerated.
Found on internet.
The unique stone pattern of Gowland’s swimming pool was used for numerous photos in his photography instruction books over the decades.
Cover of Playboy magazine in which Paige appeared as Playmate of the month November 1968.
She did not appear on the the cover of “her” issue as some Playmates did. A Femlin touting the election instead.
Party Joke page Femlin character by LeRoy Neiman, she appeared in sculpted clay model form a few times as we see in November of 1968, election month between Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon. I remember in El Paso finding out at school that Nixon had won.
Playmate Puzzles
LA based author Duke Haney told me about the history of Playmate puzzles.
Playmate Puzzles-Playboy merch.
It was a series and one of them included the centerfold image of Paige Young. Look on ebay and there are several examples.
“The successful Playmate puzzle series was released periodically, in groups of 4 Playmates at a time. Paige’s group included Cynthia Myers, Gwen Wong and DeDe Lind. It was released in 70/71.”
Haney describes the lid of the Playmate puzzle.
“The mini-centerfold measures 3×6.5 and two were included with every puzzle. One was folded so that only the face of the girl was visible through the opaque cap on the can. This was so that the buyer knew which puzzle it was, which Playmate. There are four pictured on the can itself. Then there was another mini-centerfold inside the can. This one wasn’t creased like the one below the lid. These pictures were guides to be referenced while piecing together the puzzle. Only one would have been necessary but hey…”
Author Duke Haney
Haney says Playmates “never received residuals, Playboy owned the photos outright.” And that “The last of the puzzles were released in 1973, so Paige would have certainly been alive when her puzzle was released.”
Thank you Duke Haney for speaking with me, I really appreciate it!
*NOTE* All the images of Paige’s paintings that follow were publicly posted on Pinterest and/or Facebook.
The Laundress
Painting by Paige Young courtesy of Melanie Myers. Myers said that Paige “was a true artist who stretched her own canvases and mixed her own paint.”
Thank you for contacting me S.D. with this information.
Paige’s lawyer was celebrity lawyer Marvin M. Mitchelson of Beverly Hills.
Please Read corresponding chapter about him.
PETER GOWLAND’S GIRLS exhibit and book curated by Thom Schrimbock 2016. All took place in Germany.
To mark the 100th birthday of Peter Gowland ZEPHYR – Space for Photography in Mannheim & Reiss-Engelhorn Museums curated “Peter Gowland’s Girls,” the first international exhibition of his lifework. “Peter Gowland’s Girls” showcases some 200 works selected from Peter Gowland’s estate, which comprises tens of thousands of superb prints and slides, including the most sensational, most elegant and most daring pictures from his unparalleled career as a pin-up photographer. The exhibition displays his portraits of stars like Joan Collins and Jayne Mansfield, his work for “Playboy” and “Rolling Stone”, and his pictures for innumerable calendars and magazines from the 1940s to the 1970s.
from petergowlandphotography.com
Photo below is from my copy of the book.
NSFW
I do not know if it was included in the German exhibit.
Paige Young had some photo shoots published and distributed in 1970. Like the Playboy Calendar shown above. Image coming soon.
One of the Gowlands long time employers, 1964-2002, was the Ohio-based Ridge Tool Company, a hand tool manufacturing company, using the “Ridgid” brand name.
Ridgid Tool Company became famous for its’ 2-year calendars featuring images of bikini-clad models holding various tools made by Ridgid. I’m guessing Ridge sent these calendars every year to their tool purchasing clients.
Paige appears in the 69/70 edition. Cover below.
Merci Montello when this was taken by Peter Gowland. Mercy Rooney in Playboy December 1972. Merci was a favorite of Peter Gowland and she appears in several of his books and on some of his branded merchandise.
Here she is seen here partying with Mick Jagger and unidentified woman in the Chicago Playboy Mansion.
LA author Duke Haney informed me that Mercy was in town for her Playboy shoot, soon to take place at the mansion, which is Hugh Hefner’s residence.
The Chicago mansion often served as a locale for centerfold photo sessions.
Duke says that Mercy got so bruised up during the party with Jagger and the many revelers that her photo shoot needed to be postponed;
the bruising was too bad even for the makeup artists to cover passably.
This party is recounted in the book Bunny by Miller and involves Hugh Hefner’s secretary Bobbie Arnstein and Mick Jagger. It’s not a sexual encounter either.
(I have written about Bobbie in other chapters.)
Official Rolling Stones app
Lancaster New Era. April 14, 1969.
<<<<<<< I think Merci had this skill.
Mercy “Montelco” took her husband’s last name for Playboy modeling and became Mercy Rooney. She worked as a Playboy Bunny in the LA Club.
April 1
Many more models, starlets and Playboy Playmates were unnamed models in these Ridgid Tool calendars over the decades.
One did go on to great fame: Raquel Welch.
From 1964 until 2002, Peter and Alice photographed models for the Ridgid Tool Calendar (Ridge Tool Company).
Some of the models who appeared in those calendars include Stephanie Drake, Kathy McCullen, Cindy Margolis, and several Playboy Playmates, including Renee Tenison, Nikki Schieler, Barbara Moore, Heidi Sorensen and Penny Baker.
Thanks to:
Michael at glamourphotographers.yolasite.com
I will add Cyndi Wood and Debra Jo Fondren, both Playmates of the Year, appeared in Ridgid calendars shot by Peter Gowland.
NSFW
This image seated in yellow chair was used on a Playboy collectible card. Interesting mid-century chair and brown shag carpet specific to the era.
From an ebay sale several years ago. Probably a gift for special clients of Electro Chemical. There is an association with Ridgid the Tool Company who made the calendars for decades. Early 1970s.
Not identified as Paige Young. Again I recognized her looking through these photos for sale on ebay. I did a search of Peter Gowland and they photos came up.
The other model is a Gowland Favorite:Ann Cushing.
Both Paige and Ann are featured on sets of “sip and strip” glasses, none are identified by name or title of Playmate. I did not buy these I could afford one only.
1969 January. Playboy Magazine. Playmate of the Year Contest. Winner: Connie Kreski. Anthony Newley. Roman Polanski. Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe…..? 1970s James Caan. Under Construction. NSFW. 6-9-25
Posted on July 15, 2020
NSFW
PMOM = Playmate of the Month. PMOY = Playmate of the Year.
This photo of Paige Young appears in the January 1969 issue of Playboy magazine.
A brief update about her life is included, which was truthful I learned, if incomplete.
Update on Paige Young shown with her photo. Jan. 1969 Playboy Magazine.
More specifically Paige lived in Topanga Canyon/ Topanga Beach. And area at that time of artists and hippies of all kinds.
The January 1969 Playboy magazine issue shows all 12 Playmates of 1968.
A brief update accompanies each one, as we read in Paige YOung’s.
Standard protocol for this annual issue.
It means the PMOY title will be announced soon.
1969 is also the 15th anniversary issue of the influential and wildly successful magazine.
Hugh Hefner became famous for his publishing and business empire including the trendy Playboy Clubs and instantly iconic Playboy Bunny cocktail waitresses.
And successful enough to have created scores of imitators in the magazine publishing world during the 1950s and early 1960s.
Titles like Escapade, Nugget, Modern Man, Adam, Dude and Rogue, to name only a few. An easy Google image search.
The imitators experienced varying degrees of success.
The Playmate of the Year
has a higher status than the Playmate of the Month (PMOM) obviously.
Kind of like, the “elite of the elite.“
Or the “creme de la creme.“
A PMOY title is akin to winning a beauty contest, much like Miss America or Miss USA.
The 12 finalists are the 12 PMOMs.
The yearly 12 have already cleared a major hurdle by winning over many other young women for the coveted monthly spot.
Round 2: the 12 finalists are automatically up for the PMOY title.
PMOY means more of everything you have already experienced as a regular PMOM: public appearances, photo sessions, media interviews, a modeling fee, career opportunities.
However, a pink car is reserved exclusively for the PMOY.)
PMOY 1970 Claudia Jennings with her prize of a Playmate Pink Mercury Capri Claudia Jennings.
Claudia Jennings Jennings, an aspiring actress, is interviewed on the Tonight show sitting on Johnny’s famous couch around the time she was given the title PMOY.
More about Jennings in my Start Here page.
A big party is thrown in your honor, often at Hef’s Chicago mansion, later LA, which will be attended by various celebrities, including good looking film actors, the press, Playboy big-wigs, assistants and assorted VIPs.
You would meet 100s of men in particular I imagine.
How was PMOY chosen?
I wonder if reader feedback influenced the decision, was it up to Hugh Hefner alone, or decided by committee?
Paige Young did not win and I doubt if she was even in the top 3.
The winner was Connie Kreski seen here on her PMOY issue, June 1969
Winner Connie was the girlfriend of Victor Lownes, head of the London Playboy Club & Casino, Chicago friend of Hugh Hefner.
A forgotten figure of the 1960s.
There is evidence Connie and Victor met at a Chicago Mansion party to honor her title as PMOY.
More on Victor Lownes coming up.
By the time of her title in 1969, Connie had already filmed a movie directed by English singer, actor, composer Anthony Newley.
Newley wrote many classic songs:Goldfinger, What Kind of Fool and I?, Feeling Good and Candy Man!
Connie Kreski
was born Constance Joanne Kornacki in Wyandotte, Michigan.
She said in press interviews that she grew up in a “strict Polish Catholic family.”
Constance Kornacki was studying for a degree in psychiatric nursing at Mercy College in Detroit when Playboy came calling in the form of a man at a University of Michigan football game.
He worked for Playboy and told Connie he thought she had the ideal youthful face and figure required for Playmate candidates.
Connie appeared to look much younger than her 21 years.
This is why Newley cast her as Mercy in his 1969 released film “Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?”
Anthony Newley had married a beautiful Hollywood starlet in 1963.
She was a native of England named Joan Collins.
Anthony Newley plays himself in the title role of Heironymus, wife Joan Collins plays his wife in the film, named Polyester Poontang.
It was pretty much a flop and skewered by the critics.
The article below was written before the disappointing reviews that followed the debut of the film in 1969.
It’s an interesting look at late-1960s popular culture by way of Newley’s film, filmed on the island of Malta in 1968.
The Newley’s small children Alexander and Tara were in the film as well as and several starlets, models and dancers.
Note the part that Connie “plays a temptress of 14.” Paragraph 4.
Connie, just like Paige Young, had publicity all year long in 1969.
More than they would ever have the rest of their short lives.
Connie had her picture in newspapers across the USA, England and Canada in ‘69
Connie was in newspaper articles many times for her title role in Heironymus Merkin.
One issue of Playboy magazine featured a nine page photo spread, serving as a promo for Heironymus. And for Connie as their Playboy Star.
Newley was a great friend and appeared on Hugh Hefner’s show of 1968-1970 Playboy After Dark.
Connie has several nude shots in the issue and a nearly nude Joan Collins has one.
Victor Lownes
is a colorful and forgotten 1960s character.
Lownes was a close Chicago friend of Hugh Hefner.
People said that Lownes, who moved to London to run the Playboy Club & Casino, embodied the “Playboy man” even more than Hugh Hefner.
He was also known to sexually harass Bunnies at the clubs.
Victor and Connie are seen together in the much viewed film footage of the Tate (and maybe Sebring?) funerals on youtube. However, they are never identified.
Little Known connection to Charles manson killings
Victor Lownes, Hefner and director Roman Polanski, Anthony Newley, were close friends in the late 1960s and 1970s.
Polanski and actress Sharon Tate lived together in London for a time and had their wedding reception at the London Playboy Club in 1968. A party hosted by Victor Lownes.
Connie and Victor appear together with several mourners at Sharon Tate’s funeral in Los Angeles, on film footage seen on youtube.
Roman and Sharon also appeared together on an episode of Playboy After Dark, a show Connie appears on several times.
The couple was interviewed by host Hef; Roman does most of the talking. (Available on youtube and tiktok.)
Paige Young promoted the show in 1969 and may or may not have appeared on the show.
Victoria Vetri, PMOY 1968, and starlet is mentioned in left column. Her reign of ‘68 was honored at the party. The opening of her film, now a cult classic, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, was also celebrated. Victoria Vetri had a small part in the Roman Polanski-directed hit film “Rosemary’s Baby.” Victoria was known as Angela Dorian when she was the September Playmate of the Month in 1967. and Playmate of the Year 1968 as Victoria Vetri. Roman Polanski convinced her to use her real name. of Victoria Vetri, where she had a bit part in Rosemary’s Baby.
The Manson murders would occur just a few months after this article appeared.
Connie holds photo of herself and Victor, who would dump her in about 2 years for the force of nature that was Marilyn Cole. Connie claims there is nothing romantic going on between her and Roman Polanski. This article is only months after the horrific murders.
Victor dumped Connie after he fell hard for a new Bunny at the London Club.
The aforementioned Marilyn Cole
She has her own story to tell and has done so in interviews. But she’s never been asked about her love triangle involving Connie and Victor, that I know of.
Marilyn appears briefly in Secrets of Playboy.
This Bunny was quickly promoted PMOM in 1972 and PMOY in 1973.
Marilyn Cole’s Playboy centerfold is famous/infamous for being the first obvious straight-on view of a PMOM with full frontal nudity. Not subtle or partially hidden as earlier photos.
Cole’s issue came at a time when Playboy magazine experienced a drop in readership. This was due to competition from the new and more explicit Penthouse magazine.
The Marilyn Cole issue provided a huge sales boost for Playboy which she talks about in Secrets of Playboy documentary.
Penthouse magazine feature more explicit and forward photography of their centerfold called a “Penthouse Pet.” In particular full-frontal nudity.
The viewer is more of a voyeur to the private bedroom of the “Pet,” than he may have seen in the Playboy centerfold.
Playboy was “forced” or pressured into publishing more centerfolds in the Penthouse style, to keep up with the new standards in Society, that they helped bring in.
Marilyn in the Daily Mirror 1974. Photo by The now infamous Terry O’Neill. This may have been the time Terry and Anjelica Huston met and became an item. Anjelica was an in-demand model.
Connie Kreski has about 10 TV and film appearances after “Hieronymus.“
April 6, 1969. Long Beach Press Telegraph
From 1969
Connie appeared as a guest on the Merv Griffin and Joey Bishop talk shows.
From the Fremont Tribune, June 21, 1973
In a 1969 episode of Playboy After Dark, Connie is introduced by Hugh Hefner as “Connie Kreski, our Playmate of the Year.” Connie does not say one word the entire show.
She does have more lines on other episodes of PAD, mostly the ones from 1970, the last year of the program.
The People, London. Aug. 23, 1970 A little over a year since Sharon Tate and the others were murdered, Connie remains friends with widower Roman Polanski. Sorry for poor quality.
Kreski’s newspaper press indicates she was signed to a contract with Universal Studios.
Universal signed an extraordinary number of pinup models, beauty contest winners and starlets in the 1950s and 60s.
Detroit Free Press April 27, 1969 The hometown/homestate paper covered their homegrown Hollywood star.
It seems Connie had about 15 minutes of fame as an actress.
She appeared on a memorable 1970 episode of Love American Style starring Kaye Ballard, playing a topless waitress: Love and the V.I.P. Restaurant.
After a few years Connie’s contract with Universal was dropped which merited one sentence in a Hollywood gossip column I read.
Her last credit is a TV mini-series Aspen in 1976.
James CaaN
Connie had a high profile romance with actor James Caan beginning in the early 1970s and lasting around 3-4 years.
She was identified in Hollywood news articles as his “girlfriend” and “ex-Playmate.” T
hey got together soon after Caan’s star making turn in The Godfather; he was much in demand by directors and studios.
And by many beautiful young women, according to several interviews at the time.
Playboy Mansion regular James Caan speaks about girlfriend Connie Kreski in NY Daily News Oct. 8, 1972
Below is from an 1970s Playboy feature on men’s jewelry with Connie and boyfriend James Caan.
It was determined that Connie Kreski died of cirrhosis of the liver at age 48 in 1995. Laennec’s is a cirrhosis most associated with alcohol abuse over time.
What happened in her life that caused it to end this way at the age of 45?
What happened to her friendships with Hefner and Polanski and that crowd? And James Caan?
Connie Kreski is rarely mentioned in any pop culture forum.
I find that strange, given the people that she was seen hanging out with: Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate, Hugh Hefner, Anthony Newley and James Caan.
Many of these people continue to generate attention and conversation. Some are still alive, many dead.
Most recently, Connie’s ex and Playboy mansion regular and good friend of Hefner, James Caan passed away on July 6, 2022. His death drew numerous accolades and a film festival is in the works.
Unusually, Caan lacks a dedicated biography.
This will likely be forthcoming.
Caan hadn’t been asked about Connie since the 1970s, that I have ever seen.
Like Paige Young, Connie’s cause of death is incorrectly identified on the internet. It usually says “blocked carotid artery” or “cancer.” Connie’s entry in The Playmate Book, mentions her death in Beverly Hills, 1995, but doesn’t state a cause. I have included closeups of her death certificate.
Connie and a man named Louis Edelman were married in New York in 1986 per records seen on ancestry.com.
They set up a marital home in Beverly Hills. Connie was pregnant at the time but unfortunately lost the baby the same year.
Connie died in March of 1995 at the young age of 49. She died before her about 10 years older husband, Louis Edelman.
I had long wondered what happened to Connie so I ordered her death certificate.
And after seeing it, of course I wondered how she had become an alcoholic with all her seeming advantages in life. Beauty and a budding career in movies and TV, money.
Cirrhosis of Liver is clearly stated as the cause of Connie’s premature death. Interval between onset and death says years.
I was fortunate enough to get some answers by correspondence with Connie’s stepdaughter Barbara Cooper. Her father was Louis Edelman.
Barbara Cooper told me that after the loss, Connie began an obsession with calorie counting and losing weight. On top of that she abused alcohol and her husband Louis felt compelled to hide liquor bottles from his wife.
With those two illnesses, it’s no wonder that Connie died so young and before her older husband.
Barbara’s daughters spent vacations with “Grandpa and Connie in California.” Barbara told me how consistently kind and sweet Connie was to her daughters and to everybody.
She said that Connie did not talk about Playboy, Hefner, any of the Playmates, or her days in Hollywood.
More on Connie Kreski and her brief time in the spotlight
Telegraph Journal New Brunswick. July 10, 1969
Still a couple years away from meeting Marilyn Cole and giving Connie the heave-ho.
Another famous gossip columnist of the era: Marilyn Beck. Here, she dispels any truth to the rumors of a romance with Connie and Sammy Davis Jr.
She was Sammy’s type in that era given the physical qualities of Sammy’s women mentioned here.
I doubt that Victor Lownes remained faithful to Connie. She was in LA working on her new career as an actress.
Connie had a fair amount of press on and off, for about 6 years. Press for projects and Hollywood gossip due to her relationships with Victor Lownes, Roman Polanski (denied as a relationship) and later James Caan.
I’ll be posting several of all kinds.
She was wafer thin with proportions of being tall; she could have been a perfect commercial model, if not a high fashion one. There are many fashion shots of Connie that I haven’t yet published.
Patriot News 9/12/1975
BACK TO 1969
Paige Young in Los Angeles 