Paige Young in Los Angeles.Paige Young and Bill Cosby 1970 (and before). El Paso, Malibu, Sunset Strip. 2/10/2023
Posted on February 9, 2023
Tamara Green’s account of her interaction with Paige Young and Bill Cosby, was published in the Dailymail.com December of 2014, quoted below.
Tamara Green during modeling days, late 1960s. Photo found on Dailymail.com
“One of Cosby’s victims, attorney Tamara Green, knew Paige from modeling circles and recalls seeing the pair together.
Tamara Green recalls that she ran into Paige while in El Paso, Texas around 1970 and learned she was dating Bill Cosby.
‘I was there seeing my boyfriend and Paige called me and said Bill was on tour and she was travelling with him.
‘They picked me up at my friend’s house and I remember sitting in the back of a stretched black limo with them both and Bill wanted to score some drugs.
‘I called around and found a bag of pot some place on the edge of El Paso.
El Paso Times Feb. 22, 1970
‘Paige was in to her drugs and Bill wanted to get her some, she was along on the trip like his pet dog, she was a very subdued person, more like moon on the water in terms of her personality.
‘They were clearly well acquainted with each other, it didn’t seem like a new thing. As far as I know they dated for a while.
‘Paige always seemed in a stupor, a daze, like he was controlling her. All I remember is that their relationship wasn’t healthy.’
‘Paige was a young thing who was very much taken advantage of by the men of Hollywood, she was intelligent and talented, it’s a tragedy what happened to her.’
Cosby – whom has recently become the subject of at least 17 sex attack allegations dating back to the late 60s and 70s – was obsessed with Young who had caught his eye during his many visits to the glitzy Playboy Club where she worked on Hollywood’s Sunset strip.
Cosby was also a regular at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles as he and Hugh Hefner began working on many projects together.” (reporting by Ryan Parry)
The next account is from a man named Henry who contacted me to say he knew Paige Young from Malibu and used to hike with her frequently in Topanga Canyon.
Again, it happened around 1970.
Henry told me about one time he was with Paige at her home and she began to “break down and cry.” Henry asked her what was wrong and she told him that Bill Cosby had raped her. Henry worked in the television industry and said that he thought always Bill “was a nice guy,” to which Paige replied that he is not nice, he is “a piece of shit,” “scum,” “a bastard” and “don’t even get me started.”
I then asked Henry if Paige indicated that Cosby had drugged her prior to the rape. Henry said he remembers Paige saying how she “came to” and “realized she had been raped.”
Henry said that at one point in this conversation Paige “tilted her head in the direction of her dresser, I looked over and saw a check made out to Paige signed by Bill Cosby,” and that “it had several zeroes.”
Later in the year, Henry let Paige stay in one of the rooms he was renting out in his house in the Trancas Beach area of Malibu. It was off of Broad Beach Rd. across from the Trancas market.
Paige stayed at Henry’s house for only about 3 months. She had been complaining that the “isolation” in the area was making her “antsy” and “unable to paint.”
Henry also told me that he didn’t see Paige very much the last 2-3 years of her life as she had become “reclusive.”
After Paige left Henry’s house on Trancas beach, is likely the time she moved to her final home, a carriage house in Westwood, by UCLA and the Playboy Mansion.
The next incident was told to me by Richard Sample. It must have happened before 1970, because Paige and Richard were not really seeing each other by then. I have also included this account in Richard Sample Interview #1.
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 a frequent visitor and performer at many Playboy Clubs. He was a close friend to Hugh Hefner.
“Bill Cosby was always trying to put the make on Paige. She didn’t want anything to do with him, she ignored him.”
Richard Sample
Richard then told me about one time when he was picking up Paige from the club after her shift.
He was waiting for her and witnessed Bill Cosby get angry at Paige after she rebuffed another one of his advances.
PART 2: Richard Sample Interview
Posted on June 15, 2021
Close up of a small copy: Richard Sample as painted by Paige Young.
To open our interview, I promised Richard on our 2nd day interview, we would end after one hour. It end up being two.
I asked Richard if Paige ever used LSD, the drug that inspired the label “the Psychedelic Era.” Richard said no, not that he ever witnessed or heard.
(Melanie Myers, neighbor who found Paige dead, said on the documentary Secrets of Playboy, that she never witnessed Paige using drugs; she was more into “clean living.”)
I brought up the sex tape mentioned in the Daily Mail article, and I brought up David Shane, who was not mentioned in the article.
Richard said, “I think that that is something Dennis (from a Los Alamos, California art gallery) told me about Jonathan Winters. And that tape. I think Dennis knows something about that tape.”
Richard said this is all he can remember.
He has not heard of David Shane.
Richard again mentioned how he and Paige were regulars at Barney’s Beanery and added that they sometime socialized there with the Smothers Brothers.
Malibu Friends:
“In Malibu we hung out a lot with Don Dwiggens. He wrote the book ‘The Life and Loves of Frank Sinatra’. Another one was ‘The Bachelor.’ “Dwiggins took a lot of pictures of Paige.”
Richard does not know if these photos were were ever published. “His wife still lives in Malibu.”
“He was killed in a car accident.” (1988)
I had never heard of Don Dwiggins and neither have most people. It turns out he was a longtime LA reporter, prolific author, pilot, stunt pilot and aviation historian. And a man of numerous hobbies apparently.
Dwiggins lived in Malibu for decades where he was a legend. There is an in- depth tribute for Don Dwiggins that appeared in the LAT, at the bottom of this page. It is written by Jack Smith, one of Don’s good friends. Smith is a legendary Los Angeles columnist and writer who spotted Huston and Hefner playing backgammon, probably at Pips and possibly Paige Young.
More Malibu friends:
“I had my paintings in Jack Bailey’s (Queen for a Day host) gallery and many of my paintings sold when his gallery was shown on a TV show.”
Jack Bailey resided in Malibu during the mid-60s where he ran the Jack Bailey Gallery for about 2 years. There are articles in the Malibu newspapers to support this.
“He owned about 65 of my paintings.”
Vincent Price was another patron of Richard’s. Price is well-known for his art collection.
About the ending of his relationship with Paige: “I had moved out of the studio in Venice and moved to Solvang, and Paige stayed there. (Venice) She was supposed to pay me rent, but she never did. I went and asked her to leave.”
Paige had moved out and and at some point moved onto a houseboat in Marina Del Rey. (See chapter: Paige’s Most Public Year 1969)
“I only talked to her on her houseboat for about 10 minutes. I don’t know who owned it.”
I got the feeling it was an uncomfortable and sad conversation.
We again discussed Rex Ramsey, who tried to steal Richard’s Corvette and Paige’s Mustang.
The Corvette that Rex Ramsey tried to steal: His wife got a flat tire in the Corvette and was on the side of the freeway, when a semi-truck flattened it.
I have spoken to Rex Ramsey briefly on the phone. He said he does not remember Paige, but does remember her husband of one year, Mark F. Segal, his long time friend from high school.
Ramsey hasn’t answered or returned any of my phone calls since that first one.
Richard brought up Hugh Hefner.
“Paige told me she overheard a conversation, with Hefner, about selling women to business men from a foreign country. They were talking about the money.”
Richard Sample
I responded “For what, like, sex or types of sexual favors, or….?”
Yes, he nodded without elaborating.
I prompted with “When Paige told you this, did she seem shocked, upset or…?”
“She said ‘I hope that doesn’t happen to me.'”
He added, “If I could, I would shoot Hugh Hefner and probably get away with it.”
I pressed but he didn’t answer.
Sample just said “Hefner ruined a lot of good women.”
Anything else you can recall that Paige said about Hugh Hefner or anyone connected to him? “Not that I can remember.”
Richard said he never met Hefner nor hung out with any of his crowd. Richard expressed to me and reporter Ryan Parry that he had a distaste for Hefner and “that crowd.” And he let that be known to Paige.
In my opinion, Paige took this into consideration when sharing things about Hefner and “that crowd.” She avoided telling Richard about it. I think she must have been very distressed to share the particular incidents that she did.
Paige personality:
Did Paige have an opinion about the Vietnam war?
“She said ‘ They should just bomb it and get it over with.'”
Did Paige attend any anti-war demonstrations?
Richard shook his head no and kept shaking his head no as I asked, “So that wouldn’t have been something she would have ever done?
Because I have not found any voter registration records for Paige, but I have found many records for her family members, I asked if he ever knew Paige to have voted for President.
Several minutes long pause.
“Who is the president that had a brother who let that girl drown in Chappaquiddick?“
“Teddy, brother of President John Kennedy.“
“Well, we had a picture of Teddy Kennedy hanging up that we would throw darts at, Paige was there (visiting) and she said ‘I hope he gets what he deserves.'”
I looked around at Richard Sample’s art work. He showed me some of his paintings that are “copies” of famous artists like Picasso, Miro, Kandinsky. He said he paints these because it pays well.
I apologized to Richard if I told him any information about Paige that was upsetting. He said it didn’t.
For example, Richard did not know that Paige was born Diana Cotterell or anything at all about her childhood. (Everyone I have talked to was unaware that Paige was ever Diana Cotterell who grew up in the San Fernando Valley.)
Richard misses Idaho and wishes he were still living there.
He mentions John Chapman, President of the NEA.? “I worked for him. And he bought many of my paintings, He owned a mansion in Sun Valley.”
Info: Don Dwiggins. Paige and Richard’s Malibu friend. Richard says Paige modeled for him several times. It was hard to choose which article about Dwiggins to include, there were so many of them. Lots of reviews of his Hollywood aviation stunt pilot books.
Lower article by legendary LA writer Jack Smith.
Eagle Rock Sentinel OCT.31, 1968
The timing of his accident is chilling….
LAT March 29. 1989.
1974 #1. Death Cert. Witness. “Sex Tapes.” Cremation. Ocean burial. Secrets of Playboy. Questions remain. Updated 03/25/23
Posted on August 7, 2020
March 16, 1974 is Paige Young’s 30th birthday.
April 7th 1974 is a Palm Sunday, on that day Paige commits suicide with a gunshot to her head, the location was her residence, pictured below.
“She was terrified of it coming out, in that day you knew your career was going to be over once it got “round.”
Daily Mail Dec. 2014
“For weeks all she could think about was getting hold of that tape, she thought it was going to ruin her.”
Melanie, Paige’s neighbor in the Daily Mail
Below is the account neighbor Melanie gave to reporter Ryan Parry of the Daily Mail.
“Paige had the whole thing planned down to the last detail… It was Palm Sunday and she came to tell me she was going to kill herself. She stayed in the back of the house where we (B.J.) lived and I was at the bathroom window. She comes up to the window and calls out to me “I want to show you something.” I couldn’t be bothered by any more of her drama. But she was like, “No, you’ve gotta come and see it.” So I go to her apartment and she gave me a guided tour …of her suicide scene in her bedroom….It was chilling..there was a large American flag draped across her bed and there was a pentagram laid out on the wooden floor…I remember her showing me around it because it was somehow important, but I didn’t know what it meant.”
But it was the bedroom was that shocked Myers the most.
“It was covered floor to ceiling with photos of Hugh Hefner, there were news clippings, magazine articles, everything you could think of. Written across it was something like “Hugh Hefner is the devil.” The whole wall was a shrine saying, ‘I hate Hugh Hefner,’ the crux of her anger was against him. That was the message she wanted to get across to me. She was pointing up at things, showing me around it. She’s put a lot of work into this, it must have taken her days.
Myers said that Young then calmly explained that she planned to kill herself.
She produced a gun and put it into her mouth…lay back on her bed and said, ‘this is how I’m going to do it.’
“It was chilling. We were friends but not the best of friends, I was always bitching about her and her dog, so I was scared. I thought maybe she could shoot me, you know, take me with her, it was all so weird. I thought, I’ve got to get out of here.”
“Myers quickly retreated to her apartment and called the police. LAPD officers arrived soon afterwards and cordoned of the whole of Eastbourne Ave.”
Myers said, “The cops didn’t want to go in her apartment first, so they asked me to go check on her, so I did.”
“I walked into her apartment and they were behind me. I walked into her bedroom and she was lying dead on the bed. She had shot herself in the head as she told me she would. There was a huge mass of blood, her whole bed was soaked red, it was shocking. But she looked happy and very peaceful, she didn’t look in distress.”
“The cops had Paige’s suicide note and read some of it to me…the whole thing was about her anger towards the men who she believed had chewed her up and spat her out. The two men who got the most attention were Hugh Hefner and the director John Huston. I know she dated Huston for a while and had just gotten back from a trip to Ireland with him.”
Paige expressed anger to other Hollywood stars who had used her.
“I believe Paige was making a huge statement in a bid to get at the elite of Hollywood…She thought the story of her death would spark a big scandal, but it didn’t. Sadly no one cared.”
Paige in the late 1960s. Photo by Peter Gowland.
In the A&E channel documentary Secrets of Playboy, Melanie is interviewed
and says she was told by Paige Young that a member of Hefner’s entourage filmed and had possession of a tape of her in a sexual situation at the Playboy mansion. And she was very afraid of it “getting out.”
And at her “staged” suicide scene, a wall in her room was dedicated to images of Hugh Hefner and her hatred of him.
Why did Paige “blame” her suicide on Hefner and others?
All evidence points to a major factor being the sex tape she appeared in, and its’ association with the Playboy mansion scene.
Below is a photo of the death certificate copy I obtained. A partial autopsy/police report copy is included in the Daily Mail story, but not the death certificate.
Reporter Ryan Parry of the Daily Mail discovered that Paige did not die of a drug overdose as is stated in “The Playmate Book” and several websites, but actually committed suicide from a gunshot wound to the head, per an autopsy report and death certificate as one can see.
On April 9 Price-Daniel Mortuary handles Paige’s death services. Her cremation takes place at Roosevelt Memorial Park in Gardena. Burial of her ashes to take place at sea near Santa Monica shoreline.
It is unknown how the (false) story of Paige overdosing on drugs started to be written and repeated on the internet so much that it became her “official” means of suicide.
Is the Playmate Book the source? This book is a compendium of all the Playmates (or Sweethearts) who have appeared in the magazine since the first issue in 1953, up to the date of publication.
An update on the lives of the women accompanies each entry.
From an article in 2007 upon the death of Anna Nicole Smith.
Paige Young’s entry says she died of a drug overdose in 1974.
Paige’s suicide appears to have never been reported in the Los Angeles media, in 1974 or since.
I have not yet found any death, obituary or memorial announcement.
In the weeks and months after the Daily Mail article was published, no one spoke out publicly about knowing or having met Paige Young. No one came forward on social or entertainment media to shed any more light on what could have driven or influenced her to take her own life.
This is one reason I was motivated to research more about Paige Young.
Back to 1974……..
What about this alleged sex tape?
A well known part of Hefner’s biography is that he was fascinated by audio and video technology.
He collected home video, film cameras and cutting edge stereo equipment before they were available to the mass consumer.
In the early decades of the magazine, Playboy magazine often featured an ideal “bachelor pad” decked out with the finest stereo equipment and other electronic gadgets, sure to impress the ladies, (or other men) like a Cadillac or Picasso painting might.
The docu-series Secrets of Playboy has revealed accounts of sex being filmed by Hugh Hefner at his mansion in Holmby Hills. (See accounts by Sondra Theodore, Butler Stefan Tetenbaum and many others.)
There are reports of video tapes of sexual encounters over the decades, with some involving celebrities.
Secrets of Playboy shows an interview with former head of Playmate Promotions Miki Garcia, reading her personal notes about actor Tony Curtis. Curtis and his lawyers were quite upset about Tony’s appearance in sex tapes filmed at the mansion.
Stories of “sex tapes” go back to the Chicago Playboy mansion days: an ex-girlfriend of Hefner’s, with help from one of his secretaries, snuck in the mansion and retrieved “her” tape. This incident was told to Russell Miller, and published in his book Bunny: The Real Story of Playboy.
One of the clips shown in the opening of the Secrets of Playboy show, features a 1970s Hugh Hefner talking to reporters about all the “electronic equipment in the mansion,” including cameras and “sometimes stuff happens in the bedroom.”
What happened to Hefner’s collection of sex tapes?
There are reports of Hefner ordering the tapes and films destroyed before his death, by sinking them in the ocean.
Allegedly, Hefner had become fearful after friend and frequent Playboy model Pamela Anderson had her, and her husband Tommy Lee’s, private sex tapes stolen and released to the public.
Article From Page Six Nov. 23, 2018 quoted below:
“Hugh Hefner dumped a casket full of his private sex tapes into the sea before he passed away, insiders have revealed.
The Playboy founder chucked his collection of sex tapes into the Pacific ocean because he feared that his most famous and secret conquests would be exposed, sources told The Sun.
It comes as the Playboy founder’s most personal belongings are being auctioned off later this month.
But while his signature pipe, dressing gowns and other items are currently on show to the public before they go under the hammer, paranoid Hefner made sure his dirtiest secrets would never be found.
The veteran Hollywood lothario, who passed away in 2017 at the age of 91, gathered up his entire hidden collection of tapes, X-rated photos and even intimate notes from superstars.
He then threw them all in a specially-made casket lined with cement and had his aides dump them in the sea.
Hefner’s trusted head of security at the Playboy Mansion Joe Piastro – who died in 2011 – is believed to have overseen the burial.
“Hugh was terrified of the world finding out everything about his past,” a source revealed. “He had kept a treasure chest of memories of his life with all these beautiful women dating back from the 1950s to the mid-1990s.”
“He only shared a few of the stories with his aides, but kept his personal items of his time with many famous beauties a secret.
“There was a batch of tapes, shot on 8 mm and cinefilm, which were filmed during some of the orgies he enjoyed in the 70s.
“Some famous male movie stars too were in those videos and had that come out it would have been a huge scandal.
“Hef also had thousands of photographs taken at photo shoots or given to him by the girls over the years.
“Marilyn [Monroe] was definitely in them as well as many superstars who graced the pages of his magazine.
“Some of the women were in relationships and others never even made the magazine, but simply were partying with him.
“He had hundreds of other photographs of women who were not famous, but he had enjoyed one nights stands with or even short relationships. There were also audio tapes too.
“In the 1990s, he had concerns about these personal items being stolen and sold around the world … it filled him with dread.
“What actually sparked his concern was when Pamela had her tape with Brett Michaels aired and then Tommy Lee.
“He got so upset and paranoid that he decided it was best to have them disappear. He didn’t trust people to burn them in case they got stolen, so he charged Joe with getting rid of them in the ocean.
“Joe had been his trusted head of security for years and had saved Hugh from many embarrassing situations in the past.
“So he decided that Joe should go out in the middle of the ocean with the cask and dump it all.
“Hugh explained that he didn’t want anyone’s lives, marriages or careers to be destroyed by what he had In his library. Joe did it and never told anyone.”
Hefner decided to take action in the late 90s as parties at the Playboy mansion were becoming wilder.
“The parties at the mansion were becoming grander affairs and it was difficult to control where guests were going,” the source added.
“He was terrified that some of this material would be stolen and the leaked out.
“After what [Anderson] had told him, he was certain that this material was best lost rather than locked away.
“He even worried that if anything happened to him it could get in the wrongs hands and hurt those who were still alive.” END.
Former Playboy employee Lisa Loving Barrett says in Secrets of Playboy, that she heard the the ocean burial story and has reason to believe it is true.
I am going to conclude that Paige Young’s case is an early example of what later became known as “sex tape scandals,” or even possibly “revenge porn,” although this was one that never went public. It seems to have remained firmly swept under the rug by people at Playboy, at the time that it happened and subsequent decades.
I was told by an individual working on the Secrets of Playboy docu-series that there was a “female fixer” working for Playboy/Hef in Los Angeles in the early and mid-1970s. I did not see this information included in the series.
Paige’s suicide scene and notes left behind, which implicated Hefner and his friends, certainly presented a problem that needed to be fixed.
April of 1974 was not a good time for bad publicity to be attached to Hefner/Playboy as Bobbie Arnstein, Hefner’s long-time, deeply loyal and equally troubled Chicago secretary, had been arrested for drugs in front of the Chicago Playboy Mansion, only two weeks previous to Paige’s suicide.
San Francisco Examiner Mar. 22, 1974
Context:
Hugh Hefner had been spending more and more time in Los Angeles since meeting 18-year-old Barbi Benton in 1968 on the CBS set of Playboy After Dark.
Driving around one day in 1971, Barbi located the mansion in Holmby Hills in 1971.
Back in the Chicago mansion, Bobbie Arnstein was feeling increasingly left out and let down by her mentor. Hefner had previously been so dependent on her.
Bobbie had shared with a few friends her frustration in not receiving more credit and a commensurate salary for her complete devotion to Playboy the corporation, and Hugh Hefner the man, both professionally and personally.
Despite her conflicted feelings, in 1975 Bobbie was supposed relocate to the west coast and continue as Hefner’s secretary. Tragically, she killed herself shortly before that scheduled date arrived.
In the fall of 1974, Bobbie was given a 15-year provisional jail sentence for a drug trafficking crime she did not commit; it was a set-up, even though Bobbi was a drug abuser. She refused to give false evidence to implicate Hugh Hefner and she praised him in her suicide note.
Bobbie’s suicide in 1975, is usually cited in Hefner biographies as finalizing his decision to leave behind the midwest, and reside in LA full time.
Paige’s home in Westwood is only a 10 minute car drive to the location of the Playboy Mansion.
The local police were friendly, and on good terms with Hef and welcomed at the mansion, as several former employees say in Secrets of Playboy.
Former police were employed by Hef as security guards on many occasions.
The local police would have attended Paige’s suicide scene and written it up. (See chapter LAPD suicide report.) And word of this would have made it to the Mansion in short order. Probably to the “female fixer,” even before Hefner himself.
Math figures show Paige’s age on mortuary paperwork.
Santa Monica Beach Fall 2022
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
Posted on July 21, 2020
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
More on Paige’s date Bill Gardner.
William Louis Gardner
United States
William Louis Gardner was born in Minnesota and finished school there. He
From Bill Gardner’s website.
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.”
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
DeWayne Valentine spent many years living and creating art in Hawaii.
He passed a year ago as I write this, February 2, 2022.
From the Documentary “The Cool School.” Market St, where Valentine, Bell and Irwin had studios. And Richard Sample and Paige Young lived briefly.
Paige Young in Los Angeles. 