Paige Young in Los AngelesMary Jane Harker. Warner Brothers Actress & Model. 2nd Cousin to Paige Young. Bio. & Photos. Under Construction. 11/10/2025
Posted on April 22, 2025
Below are scans of Mary Jane Harker’s birth certificate.
She is not Jane Ellen Harker of Minnesota that appears on her IMDb entry, and Warner Brothers wiki.
*Update*
find-a-grave and IMDb have updated Harker’s entry with the correct birth and death dates and locations.
There remain several websites with the incorrect information about this WB contract player from the 1940s.
Image of full informational birth certificate copy.
Mary Jane Harker was born on November 13, 1923, in the city of San Francisco.
Seal and certification of California birth information.
1940 Census. Jane Harker is living on No. Highland Ave. in Los Angeles. Birthplace “California.”
As this article states, her mother Josephine was a vaudeville performer, often with her sister Virginia.
They used the name “The Virginia Sisters.” Notice it says “California Girl” not Minnesota.
*Below note the Vaudeville group the Virginia Sisters that is written about in the above article*.
Virginia and Josephine Young (Jane Harker’s mother) form a Vaudeville act with Virginia’s husband, Ned Argo.
Jane Harker’s mother originally from Salt Lake City. Brigham Young is an ancestor.
Salt Lake Tribune Jul. 19, 1945
The Cleveland Plain Dealer. “San Francisco Girl.”
Jane retires from Hollywood to marry a Navy pilot. Much more on this soon.
Martinez News Gazette Apr. 15, 1947. Harker quits Hollywood career for marriage to Navy flyer.
“A native of San Francisco”
Jane and Capt. Sam Lanier married and had 4 children.
The family lived in San Diego, Hawaii then around the late 60s, settled in Jacksonville for a long time and then Ponte Verde, Florida where Jane died in 1988 at the age of 64.
Later in Life:
Tampa Bay Times Oct. 22, 1978 Jane Lanier on right. She had 10 years left in her life.
Death record of Jane Harker Lanier Ancestry.com
More on Jane Harker’s Family and brief Hollywood Career
8 x 10 B&W photo from scan purchased on ebay.
The Mary in Mary Jane would soon be dropped. This photo was published in Movie Life Magazine, Sept. 1945. Publicity for Miss Harker’s own Hollywood Myth. I read many news articles that said she was a secretary hiding her beauty behind a pair of glasses. She may indeed have been a secretary to an agent, but Jane had been studying at the Geller Theatre Workshop for a few years and appeared in a few plays at the Geller Theatre. More on this below.
More family history 1930
Mary Jane Harker was living with her family in South Pasadena on Fletcher St. in the census this year.
Father: George Truman Harker, Mother: Josephine Harker, Brother: Jack Truman Young Harker.
Mary J. highlighted in yellow–father George T. Mother Josephine and brother Jack T.
they also had a live-in housekeeper named Pat Kirkpatrick listed under Mary J.
Yellow line is Mary Jane’s lines, she is 6 years old—born in California. George T. was from South Dakota. Josephine Utah, Jack Truman California.
LA Building Records shown online say George T. Harker purchased the house and adjoining chicken house around 1930/31.
I recorded a directory listing from 1932 that George T. Harker owned a place on Arminta in Canoga Park.
SFV Times Jul. 7, 1938 Jane goes with her Uncle Ned, harpist, and her 1st cousin Donna V. on a trip to San Francisco. As you recall, Jane was born in the city in 1923. Donna V. LaRocca was the mother of Paige Young.
1940 census
1937 Josephine and George T Harker divorce.
I found this under the heading
DIVORCE SUITS FILED
May 28, 1937 LAT
This under ^^^^^^DIVORCES GRANTED. June 23, 1937. LAT. An unusually brief time from filing to granted.
Enter Neyneen Hamilton
Jane is 16 years old and living with Neyneen and Gloria, also 16.
In 2 years Jane would be Queen of the Prom in Reseda, San Fernando Valley.
Neyneen was from a musical Mormon family as was Josephine Harker, and they were cousins. Both moved to Los Angeles.
It’s possible Jane was going to Hollywood High School at this time. The adult in the home was Neyneen, a local voice teacher and relative from Utah.
A few press articles about Jane Harker say she graduated from Hollywood High.
,More truthfully, she went to Hollywood High and was now Jane back up in the Valley. In1942 she is elected Prom Queen her Senior year.
High school years.
1942 and Jane Harker is named Queen of the prom at the Canoga Park High School.
The headline misspells her name but the article gets it correctly.
Jane Harker’s publicity states she was “discovered” as a secretary for an agent. And all they needed to do was “remove her glasses,” and Jane was “star-ready.”
Look at the following press articles. Mary Jane had a previous plan for entering the Hollywood industry.
The evidence:
GELLER THEATER WORKSHOP
Los Angeles Times Jan. 13, 1945 Geller write-up says Jane Harker was already at Warner Bros. studio. Bottom of first paragraph. Geller Gossip was a semi-regular column in the Los Angeles Times.
Stardust Row column
Another Stardust Row Column. End of first column mentions Philadelphia Story is playing at the Geller Theatre.
Jane Harker is in cast.
The next paragraph says Jane finished her role in Night and Day at Warner Bros.
Geller article mentions students “before the cameras” this week. Probably work as extras? Or even one line? It was a great way to promote themselves to prospective students.
Some students were called to be extras on the set of The Postman Always Rings Twice. No one guessing, I’m sure, that the film would become one of the most revered Noir films of all time.
More on Parents Josephine and George T.
Josephine is listed as “owner of a chicken ranch” in the1940 census. Jane’s brother Jack T. is listed “poultry worker.” Josephine and George had been divorced since 1937. I believe Josephine won the chicken ranch in the divorce. She tried to make a go of it. I’ve read that the areas of the SFV, including Reseda, Conoga Park and Winnetka, were at one time a popular location to own and operate chicken farms.
Jane Harker’s brother, Jack Truman Young Harker, signed up for service in WW2. Notice he uses his Mother Josephine’s Arminta address for a contact. I don’t know what he was doing in Montebello at this time. Says he works for Lockheed Aircraft in Burbank.
Paige Young’s father Robert Cotterell, spent many years working for Douglas Air.
The Arminta house with adjoining chicken houses owned by the Harkers, was razed in 1968.
I bet there are zero remaining chicken ranches in that area now.
1945-1947 The World of Warner Brothers Studio
Jane’s short career coincides with the popularity of GI pinups during and after WW2. These were largely produced by Hollywood photographers and publicists.
100s of photos of Warner Brothers Studio (WB) starlet Jane Harker were seen in newspapers across the USA. And a few “movie star” magazine of the era.
Of course, WBs was promoting other young starlets in cheesecake/pinup photos at the time like Jane’s fellow contract players: Peggy Knudsen, Dorothy Malone, Andrea King, Angela Greene, Suzi Crandall, Arlene Dahl and Martha Vickers.
Here we see a Studio image combining pinup and patriotism. There were many holiday themed pinups, as you will see.: Christmas, Halloween, Easter Thanksgiving, and the 4th.
From left: Peggy Knudsen, Suzy Crandall and Jane Harker.
credit: Debbie Rich Pinterest
Way above these starlets in bit or minor parts were the Leading Ladies of WB in the 1940s: Bette Davis and Joan Crawford.
Ann Sheridan was an up-and-comer at Warner Brothers working her way up the ladder of stardom. Sheridan wanted to be offered interesting, challenging roles like Bette and Joan.
Davis and Crawford were not posing for cheesecake or pinup type photos at this time in their career, but did their share of establishing Hollywood Glamour photography as a genre.
During WW2,
Bette Davis and actor John Garfield found the Hollywood Canteen, a free club for service members seen in photo.
Joan Crawford dedicated many hours to the Hollywood Canteen. She was one of the first Hollywood stars to join the USO, according to Google AI.
Scroll Down
Shortly after the war ends:
Jane Harker appears in Deception with Bette Davis, 1946.
She appeared with Joan Crawford in Humoresque 1946.
Garfield co-starred with Crawford in Humoresque which features one of Jane Harker’s most memorable Hollywood roles. Brief though it is.
Ann Sheridan from Texas was an up and coming actress/starlet promoted as the Oomph Girl, a Hollywood campaign to boost her career.
Ann Sheridan image used in an advertising campaign for Signal Gasoline. 1940s. Promotion was this free photo of Ann.
Tony Steffer Pinterest
Oomph Girl caught on!
Jane Harker appeared with Ann Sheridan in The Unfaithful 1947. It was one of Harker’s biggest roles in her repertoire of small and bit parts..
Ann was ambitious for the interesting and challenging roles that Bette and Joan were offered.
Later she expressed mixed feelings about the pinup and Oomph image, and wondering if it cost her any roles.
Other well-known actresses and lesser known starlets, became pinup favorites of the GIs during WW2.
During the war, the most famous pinup photos were of Hollywood stars Betty Grable, 20-Century-Fox and Rita Hayworth, Columbia.
Betty Grable’s quintessential WW2 pin-up photo. Produced by a Hollywood studio photographer named Frank Powolny. It was a promotion of Grable’s movie Sweet Rosie O’Grady.
In this first section I will feature several of Jane Harker’s pinup or Hollywood Glamour style photos. Mainly newspaper clippings.
Also, I purchased a few 8×10 original photos.
Jane Harker Studio Pinup
Buffalo News Dec. 19, 1945 Promoting Warner Bros. Night and Day starring Cary Grant and Alexis Smith. Jane has a small role.
Florida Times Union 11/10/46
Pasadena Star News Apr. 17, 1946 Writer makes note of the pillow.
“Pin-up pose.”
Holiday themed pinups
One of several Christmas themed photos of Jane, this one mentions the GIs. The Ogden (Utah) Standard Examiner Dec. 20, 1945
From my collection. An unfortunate crease.
Back of photo below.
August 1945 Santa Barbara News-Press. Mentions Jane Harker’s “backstory” or Myth of her Hollywood beginnings.
There weren’t any TV talk shows at this time.
Jane Harker modeled clothing and fashion photos in addition to the Hollywood pinups.
There were so many, again I include only the best.
I’ll start with some beautiful color prints from Australia.
All found on newspapers.com
Star Weekly Toronto Feb. 1, 1947
Jane appears is many hat adverts along with regular fashion features.
Fashion feature along with Ann Sheridan!
Family History #1: 19-Teens, 1920s, Vaudeville. Joseph And Roxy LaRocca. Peoria. Virginia & Josephine Young. SLC. The Great Depression. Oakland. Meet Jane Harker #1. Warner Bros.
Posted on May 2, 2020
Family Background In Vaudeville:
Census records, military records and local directories show that Joseph Ned LaRocca, Diana Cotterell’s grandfather, was born in 1894 in Peoria, Illinois and grew up there.
Known as “Ned,” Joseph Ned LaRocca was a harpist in a family of several musician brothers, and one sister named Kathryn.
His father was Salvatore LaRocca. “Sal” a harpist from Italy who settled in Chicago. He raised a family in Peoria with Rose Ann, born Dunufrio.
According to Find a Grave website, the couple moved to Peoria when Salvatore was offered the leadership of a local Italian band: Marino’s:
Emigrated in 1872. Married Anna Rosalia Denufrio in 21 Dec 1879 in Cook Co, IL. In 1900, this family lived in Peoria. The children included: Roxie (1886), Katie (1890), Frank (1893), Joseph (1895), Nickolas (1897), and Paul (1899). Listed in Peoria City Directory by 1892. He was a musician, specifically, a harpist in Marino’s Italian Orchestra. It’s hard to read the marker, but Anna is listed as his widow in the 1907 Peoria City Directory. Anna and most of his children are buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery in West Peoria. Find a Grave.
Salvatore LaRocca, died at age 52 in 1906, according to records from Peoria listed on ancestry.com.
I have found a few articles about the band Marino’s Italian Band. UPDATE SOON. Salvatore.
As of 2025, the traditional department store is on it’s way out. Mostly, anyway.
High School commencement ceremonies at an opera house in Mackinaw, Illinois. Marino’s Italian Orchestra from Peoria provides music.
The Weekly Pantagraph, Bloomington Illinois. May 21, 1897
According to the 1910 census
Ned and his brothers were living in Chicago with their widowed mother Anna, at 1245 Ohio St.
Ned LaRocca’s profession is listed as musician and age is 16 yrs.
His older brothers were also listed as musicians and the one sister Kathryn, a telephone operator.
The family returned to Peoria at some point.
Roxy LaRocca, the oldest La Rocca brother, was the family’s most commercially successful brother.
December 20, 1915 Bangor, Maine. Vaudeville was still a popular entertainment form this year.
Roxy was a famous-at-the-time Vaudeville harpist, known affectionately as the Wizard of the Harp.
He had several other monikers during his long career on stage. Roxy’s name made it across the nation when he broke a record for longest harp playing.
May 25, 1923. Middlebury, Vermont Register.
The LaRocca brothers were all musicians. Roxy and younger brother Ned were harpists.
Roxy and Ned both toured with major vaudeville circuits like Orpheum and Pantages in the 19-teens and 1920s.
Yet, none of the LaRocca brothers became quite as well known as Roxy.
Ned La Rocca
is Diana Cotterell/Paige Young’s grandfather and younger brother of Roxy.
Ned’s instrument is the harp, just like brother Roxy and father, Salvatore, Ned often used the professional name Ned Argo or just plain Argo.
Vaudeville was beginning to slide as a popular mass-media entertainment form. “Moving pictures” and Radio continued to chip away at the popularity of Vaudeville.
Ned was to have a future in performing with his harp for radio broadcasts in Los Angeles. More on this later.
RCA Corp. did a study in 1925 and found that 19% of homes had a radio. In 1930, it was 40%.
Part of the Salt Lake City drama and music community, Virginia and her sister Josephine were touring Vaudeville performers while still teenagers. (Not uncommon at the time.)
The sisters’ mother was named Josephine Young.
She died when her daughters Virginia and Josephine were in their early teens.
Virginia and Josephine’s grandfather was Brigham Young, head of the Mormon church aka LDS.
The girls’ grandmother was one of his many wives: Emily Partridge Young.
If you google Emily Partridge Young, you will see that she and her sister Eliza hold a significant place in LDS history.
The sisters were among the first “plural wives” of founder Joseph Smith.
These are the youngest two daughters of Josephine and Albert Carrington Young: Josephine and Virginia. They were the 2 youngest of 4 older siblings in the family.
Who survived to adulthood that is.
(From a Mormon genealogy website.)
Virginia and Joseph Ned LaRocca marry.
The musical play The Wrong Bird was written by Margaret Whitney, part of the theater and music circles in SLC. Whitney was noted as a successful “girl composer,” by several news articles at the time. The homestate Utah newspapers offered generous coverage to Whitney’s career and The Wrong Bird. Pantages picked up the musical play and the SLC based troupe toured on the circuit of Pantages owned theatres
Virginia Young and Ned Argo are both on this Pantages bill. His harp act toured with The Wrong Bird. Local Pantages Playhouse in Salt Lake City.
Salt Lake Herald Apr. 1, 1915
<<<<<<<Virginia Young listed as a player. Josephine is Joe here.
<<<<< Argo the harpist on the bill.
The married couple form a vaudeville act. They tour the US in the late 19–teens. They perform through most, if not all, of the 1920s. Ned continues to use the name Ned Argo or Argo. Virginia uses several different names. Jean Virginia is one. Verjenia is another.
Article about Wrong Bird star, Josephine Young. S
Joseph N and Virginia LaRocca are listed in the 1917 and 1918 and 1923 Peoria, Ill. directory.
1917 Peoria directory lists under LaRocca: Annie, Frank and Rose, Joe and Virginia, Nick, Paul, Roxy and Emma, all at 205 Martin St. ancestry.com
1922 Peoria directory lists Anna, widow, Paul, Roxie (no Emma) Ned and Virginia, Frank and Rose. ancestry.com
Sometimes Virginia’s sister and fellow vaudeville player Josephine, is part of the act. The girls went by the name “The Virginia Sisters.” This is seen in the ad below from the Salt Lake City Tribune. It is from Oct. 1, 1919.
June 30, 1917 Goodwin’s Weekly SLC.
Virginia was married by now and singing in a vaudeville act with her husband Ned, not named here.
.
Saskatoon Daily Star June 6, 1916
Below we see Ned Argo and the Virgina Sisters play the Pantages in LA.
D.W. Griffith will be introducing his film Broken Blossoms and you will need a ticket!
Look at the few lines at the very end of the ad. 1919. ^^^^^^^^^^^^”dainty dancing and musical numbers.”
1920 approx. Josephine Young quit touring with her sister and brother-in-law and moved to San Francisco with her husband George Truman Harker.
They started a family there: Jack Truman Harker born in 1921, and a daughter, Mary Jane, in 1923 .
In the 1920 Federal Census, Virginia is listed as living in Peoria, Illinois with her husband and his family. Her occupation is listed as “Actress on stage.”
Virginia would gave birth to Donna Virginia LaRocca, 1921 in Peoria, Ill.
The whole LaRocca family including in-law Virginia, living together in 1923 in Peoria, Illinois, home base for the LaRoccas.
Her sister Josephine Young Harker is across the country in San Francisco. She gave birth this year to Mary Jane Harker. She had given birth to son Jack Truman Harker in 1921. I’m not sure where right now.
Frank & Rose, another in-law, would soon move to nearby Decatur for Frank’s employment at the Avon Theatre.
<<<<<<from a directory found on ancestry.com
Anna, the matriarch, is listed as a “widow of Salvatore.” J
Ned and Virginia continued to tour Vaudeville throughout the 1920s.
As you have seen.
I don’t know if they brought their young daughter, Donna, along on the tour. She might have stayed in Peoria with Grandma Anna LaRocca.
The couple had a stop over in 1926-1928 in Oakland, California as seen by directories on ancestry.com
Charlotte Observer June 27, 1929. With an act called “From Peoria.”
Ned & Virginia are listed in the 1930 census as living in Peoria, Ill. The family was only a few years away from permanently relocating to Los Angeles.
Vaudeville would soon be dead.
Mount Vernon Argus April 20, 1929
Another ad featuring “From Peoria”: An Act with the theme of middle-America i.e. Ned Argo’s hometown.
As we’ve seen, the couple was living in Oakland, California for two years in the late 1920s.
Yet they can lay claim to being from Peoria, Ned’s hometown, and play this up for their latest Vaudeville act.
1930 Census Marinellos and LaRocca, cousins Mildred and Donna V. are listed next door to each other in the family home on Martin in Peoria. Looks like the Marinellos are sharing 208 Martin with another family. Ned, “Jeanette” and Donna Vey are lodgers at the home of a Lena Buckley. Previous census and directories show the LaRoccas only, listed in this address home.
It appears like they were renting their own home in 1930, just months after the 1929 stock market crash that resulted in the Great Depression.
After Vaudeville died out in the early 1930s, the Great Depression was already in full swing.
Roxy LaRocca retired at this time to the LaRocca family hometown of Peoria, Illinois, where he started a magazine stand. He later became involved in local politics.
Frank and Rose, Ned and Virginia, moved to LA during the Depression early/mid 1930s. See much more information about this in the next chapter……..
Her career there lasted for only about 2 years.
Please see my next chapter Family History #2 for an in-depth history. It includes the move to Los Angeles in the 1930s. It also covers Radio City from 1938 through the 1940s.
There is also much more on Jane Harker, model/starlet. She worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars during her brief career at Warner Brothers studio.
Jane appears in an obscure Noir film: The Unfaithful starring Ann Sheridan. Also starring Angels Flight, one of the last remaining relics of Bunker Hill in Los Angeles. This film has been shown on TCM a few times.
Jane is credited on imdb as the “red-headed snob” in Humoresque starring Joan Crawford and John Garfield.
Harker had small parts in movies with stars such as Joan Crawford, Ann Sheridan, John Garfield, Bette Davis, Jack Carson, Errol Flynn, Eleanor Parker and more.
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Paige Young in Los Angeles 