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.
1960-1964. A New Decade. Paige Young Is “Miss Panorama City.” Robinson’s In the Valley. Stepfather. Birth of Half-Brother. Childhood Home Razed. Updated & Longer: 11/01/2025
Posted on March 2, 2021
1960-1961 Where was Diana/Paige living, and what was she was doing these years? She would have been 16 and 17 years old.
Her grandmother Virginia LaRocca was a recent widow. Virginia has voter’s registrations listed at 13204 Riverside Drive. It was a 4 or 6-plex at the time, on the corner with Atoll Ave. Diana could have lived here with her grandmother as she was still high school age.
Josephine Young Harker, Virginia’s sister and Diana’s great aunt, is also listed with the Riverside Dr. address in a 1960 LA phone directory. Josephine was also listed at least once living at the LaRocca family home at 3834 Evans St. in the 1940s.
13204 Riverside Drive is also the address on Ned LaRocca’s death cert. 1959. It is unknown if he ever lived there. He might have been at the sanitarium for the last year or so of his eventually fatal lung cancer. (see related chapter)
This all means the family had to leave the duplex on Moorpark and Ethel Ave., at some point.
Donna LaRocca Cotterell married Jack Holroyd in 1958. The couple moved to their own place on Oxford Ave. and/or Ventura Canyon Blvd in Panorama City. Did Diana live with them even temporarily?
Sister Constance (Connie) was already married by 1960 when she was 18 years old.
There were profound changes in Diana’s life circumstances these years.
Her de facto father,grandfather Ned LaRocca, died in 1959.
Her mother Donna remarried in 1958.
A move out of a single family dwelling/duplex with family, to multiplex living.
UPDATE 7/25/2022: I had a phone conversation with a close relative of the family named Chris.
Chris informed me that Donna and Jack Holroyd had a son Wesley, born in 1960.
Add this to the list of major life changes for Diana who again, was only 16 in 1960.
Chris/Christain Young also confirmed visiting Diana and Virginia, at the Riverside Drive unit in Sherman Oaks.
Donna and Jack Holroyd, are listed at 12835 1/2 Oxford Ave., a few blocks from Grant High School in 1960, 61 and 62, voter’s registrations.
Donna and Jack Holroyd were married in Las Vegas in 1958, their son Wesley Scott Holroyd was born on August 20, 1960.
That date is almost 9 months to the day after Ned LaRocca died.
If Diana and/ or Virginia both lived here on Oxford, they would have run out of space and privacy pretty quickly. Especially with an infant.
Virginia LaRocca is listed here on Oxford at least once or twice in directories and voter registrations in the early 1960s.
Move to another SFV city: Panorama City
1962 What looks here like a Panorama City Chamber of Commerce ritual, takes place at the popular venue Sportsmen’s Lodge, only 0.6 miles from Diana Cotterell’s childhood home on Moorpark St. in Studio City.
To liven up this dull looking affair there was a special appearance at the lodge….
With 3,000 homes built between 1947 and 1952, Panorama City was the first large postwar community in the San Fernando Valley. In making up the blueprint for the community, Kaiser engineers also designated space for a Kaiser Permanente clinic and hospital, which was completed in 1962.
A General Motors plant completed in 1947 was situated one quarter mile south of Roscoe Boulevard, the southern boundary of Panorama City. A Schlitz Brewery sat immediately to the east, and Lockheed and Vega Aircraft, and Precision Tool, were all within seven miles of the Kaiser development.
Kaiser Permanente website.
This was Robinson’s first store in the SFV opening June 27, 1961. Other major department stores expanded into Panorama City: The Broadway, Orbach’ s, Montgomery Ward. The department stores in Panorama City continued the tradition of hiring the best architects for department stores. Beautiful Department stores thrived in the consumerist post-war years of the 1950s and 60s.
Broadway of the Valley opened a stone’s throw from Robinson’s in the Valley. Photo by famous LA architecture photographer Julius Schulman. Still trying to get a great photo of Robinson’s!
This is the earliest date I have found of Paige’s usage of the name Paige Young: Feb. 1962 when she was 18 and could be the first time she she was publicly documented with the name Paige Young .
The latest date I have seen Paige associated with her birth name, Diana Cotterell: her 9th grade photo listing in the Van Nuys Jr. High yearbook, 1957, age 15 or 16.
Note that in this write-up of Paige, no high school is mentioned. This is out of the ordinary.
I’ve seen and read dozens of newspaper photos with brief write-ups of models, starlets, beauty pageant winners, even “Muscle Beach” beauty contest entrants and winners and runners-up from the 1950s and 1960s.
The article nearly 100% of the time includes where the young woman attended high school and frequently, they were still in high school.
It is probably the only article of several I’ve read interviewing Paige that doesn’t mention her devotion to oil painting.
“Space made for ample parking.”
In 1969 interviews, Paige told reporters she graduated from Van Nuys High School. I have found no school photos of Paige at VNHS. (see 1969: Most Public Year)
My opinion is Paige dropped out of high school after the 9th or 10th grade. And changed her name between ages 16–18.
1963 and 1964 Both Virginia LaRocca and Jack Holroyd are in the phone directory with an address of 8533 Ventura Canyon, Van Nuys. This address is also listed as Panorama City. Paige was married in 1963 and 64, living with her husband”south of the Boulevard” in Sherman Oaks on a steep winding Road known as Crisp Canyon.
Donna Holroyd is not listed in the phone book these years, only her husband Jack Holroyd.
She may have started her studies at UCLA around this time, majoring in Early Childhood Education.
Paige’s cousin Chris told me he remembers visiting Donna and Jack Holroyd and their baby Wesley in the early 1960s, in an apartment building. He couldn’t remember the address. He did remember an unheated pool. Chris said the apartment certainly could have been one near Grant High School or Panorama City. He didn’t see Paige during those particular visits.
Chris said he did see Paige at the Riverside Dr. location.
Paige would be married in Las Vegas 1 1/2 years (Oct. 1, 1963) after this “Miss Panorama City” article appeared.
The marriage lasted for 11 months (Aug 27, 1964).
In 1964, Paige filled out a divorce questionnaire ( below) stating that she had moved out of the marital home and was “living with family”.
Family would have been living at 8533 Ventura Canyon Ave. according to phone listings.
Her answer to employment record says clerical-secretary.
-is this at Robinson’s of the Valley as a clerk-secretary in their business offices, or was she a salesgirl in the department store. Unclear.
See chapter on Marriage and Divorce to Mark F. Segal 1963-1964.
Some of Paige’s quotes from Playboy magazine are about disliking and avoiding the “9-5 doldrums” and “working for impersonal corporations.” Ironically enough.
By 1963, Diana’s childhood home on Moorpark near the Sportsman Lodge had been razed. Records show a city permit (below) requesting a 6-unit apartment to be built.
Notice it says NONE (highlighted) for “existing buildings on lot.” I’m not sure when the house was actually torn down.
Did a developer make the LaRoccas an offer for the Moorpark house back in the late 50s when Ned was sick with lung cancer? Many older houses were now being razed for multi-unit housing to meet demand for higher density populations flooding into the San Fernando Valley.( If you can call a 6–plex multi-housing.)
I’ve been by this complex and it is obvious that more buildings were added over the years.
Nearby Ventura Blvd. continued to thrive with many businesses of all kinds.
SFV continued to experience massive population growth and housing development throughout the 1960s and beyond.
The famous Sportsmen’s Lodge has been demolished as of 2024.
I do not know if any of the structure was saved. I had read that was a possibility.
What happened to Paige’s family, ex Husband, Desmond Guinness, Marvin M. Mitchelson. Updated 1/28/2025
Posted on August 26, 2020
Paige’s grandmother Virginia Young LaRocca died in August of 1976 in the Studio City Convalescent Hospital located at 11429 Ventura Blvd. Location is close to the 1950s family home at 13055 Moorpark St.
Cause of Death: Stroke per a relative on a Mormon family website. A family audio recording to a relative on a Mormon MIssion somewhere in the world. Everyone said at least a few words into the tape recorder, except for Virginia, whom they referred to as “Doing really good Today.” Virginia may have had the debilitating stroke in the early 1970s and been unaware of of her GRANDDAUGHTER Paige’s suicide in 1974.
This address is the Chase Knolls Apts in Sherman Oaks. Ironically named Huston St., not a common name.
Virginia was cremated and her ashes scattered in the ocean near the Santa Monica shoreline, just like granddaughter Paige’s ashes two years previous.
Virginia died of a stroke after one year of onset, according to her death certificate. It may have been more than a year.
Josephine’s daughter, former Warner Brothers starlet Mary Jane Harker Lanier died in 1988 in Jacksonville, Florida. Her husband Samuel Lefkovitz Lanier remarried and lived with his second wife for over 10 years until his death in 2007 at age 88, also in Florida.
The oldest child of Jane and Samuel Lanier, Samuel Harker Lanier, passed away in 2018; he was only in his 60s. A Florida lawyer, he had been disbarred due to a cocaine arrest only a few years previous.
Virginia’s sister and former Vaudeville performing and travelling partner, Josephine Young Harker, Paige Young’s great aunt, died in June of 1979 in the Jacksonville, Florida area. Public record.
.
Donna Virginia LaRocca Holroyd had moved sometime in the late 60s, with mother Virginia? (had she had her stroke?) and husband Jack, to Simi Valley. Were they divorced already? Possibly as it is looking like Jack Holroyd married and divorced twice after Donna. Still need to confirm.
By 1970, Donna was the head supervisor for the Ocean View Children’s Center (5201 Squires Dr.) in Port Hueneme “for low income and welfare families…. so that the mothers (of the Valley Village neighborhood) could work or go to school.” Oxford News 1970.
Article below mentions that Donna received a degree from UCLA in Early Childhood Education.
Oxford Press Courier March 21, 1971. Her daughter Paige was probably living in Westwood or Trancas Beach by this time.
By the time of her daughter Paige’s suicide in April of 1974, Donna and Jack Holroyd were divorced. Donna was living with her mother Virginia back in Sherman Oaks. They stayed at the lovely and historic Chase Knolls Apartment Community on Huston St.
Donna’s Chase Knolls address is on Paige’s death certificate as her next of kin.
This Huston address is also on Virginia LaRocca‘s death cert. in 1976. Donna is listed as her mother’s next of kin. (See Above)
In 1980 this address appears on Donna’s own death certificate.
Donna dies of a “hypertensive arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease,” in her Chase Knolls apartment at age 59 years. Her and Jack’s son Wesley would have been about 20 years.
Donna outlives her mother by 4 years, and her daughter by 6.
Oldest daughter and Paige’s sister Constance Smashey is listed on Donna Holroyd’s death certificate as next of kin with a Simi Valley address.
Constance and Steve Smashey divorced and Connie would move to the Palm Desert area in the 1980s. She now lives in Banning, California.
She turned down my request to ask her a few questions about her sister Paige and their family.
Wesley Scott Holroyd died of alcoholism in 2014 at age 53. He was living in the San Fernando Valley where he spent most of his life.
Paige’s father Robert Morgan Cotterell and his wife Pat, moved to Oregon in the 1970s after he retired from Douglas Air. They lived there until their deaths around 2010.
Bob Cotterell’s obituary is no longer online. When it was, there was no mention of his daughters by Donna LaRocca: Diana/Paige and Constance.
It appears that Connie has reunited with her half siblings.
Richard Sample told me that Paige drove him to meet her sister one time only. He said he “didn’t get any impression” they were close.
Paige did not disclose her personal history or childhood, to anyone I’ve talked with who knew her.
Paige’s ex-husband Mark Frederick Segal married a woman named Denise in 1974. A few years later they had a son: Ivan Mark Segal.
1985/86 Mark F. Segal stayed in the car business:
Segal sold his home on Crisp Canyon Ave. to Rex Ramsey and later bought it back from him. He sold it again and moved to Portland in the late 80s? He died there on October 16, 2012.
4133 Crisp Canyon Ave. was razed and replaced with a really horrible McMansion.
His son Ivan Segal lives in Portland and Scottsdale.
Desmond Guinness married Penelope Cuthbertson in 1984.
She is his cousin according to “International Set” gossip writer Suzy Knickerbocker back in 1973. They were not couple at that time.
Desmond continued fundraising for his Irish Georgian Society well into old age. He died on August 20, 2020. I have read Desmond had some degree of dementia.
Ex-wife Mariga and co-founder of the IGS died decades earlier.
There are numerous obituaries online for Hon. Desmond Guinness.
Desmond’s niece is fashion icon and socialite Daphne Guinness. His granddaughter is popular fashion model Jasmine Guinness.
How and where Desmond became acquainted with Paige Young is a mystery. Possibly was through John and CiCi Huston in Ireland.
Desmond on his own was well connected in Los Angeles and Southern California. He had a receptive audience in the area.
In the late 1970s……..
Paige’s divorce lawyer Marvin Mitchelson gained a reputation beyond Beverly Hills and LA. He became internationally famous when he represented Michelle Triola Marvin in her lawsuit against her live-in lover of 6 years, actor Lee Marvin.
Beverly Hills Lawyer Marvin M. Mitchelson
Mitchelson introduced the term and concept of “palimony” into the courts.
Commonly known as Marvin vs. Marvin, the case received major publicity in the mass-media of the time. It’s something I personally remember as a young teenager. I call it “People magazine” famous.
I didn’t learn the back story in detail until I researched this project. I am condensing the details for this website.
Michelle Triola Marvin was a singer in Hollywood. She felt she was owed part of Lee Marvin’s $3.2 million fortune, as she had given up her own career, per his demand, to become his live-in lover, helpmate, career advisor, and even helped to raise his 4 children from first wife Betty.
Triola said Lee Marvin had promised her life-long financial support. Triola-Marvin was abruptly dumped when Lee Marvin suddenly married his high school sweetheart Pamela Feeney in 1970. Marvin kicked Triola-Marvin out of their Malibu home and cut her off financially.
Because Michelle Triola Marvin was not legally married to Lee Marvin, she had no legal standing to demand any financial compensation.
Mitchelson saw an opportunity in California’s newly enacted “no-fault” divorce laws.
Mitchelson filed a breach-of-contract suit against Lee Marvin in February of 1972 asking for 50% of his estate.
After being rejected by two lower courts, Mitchelson pushed the case to the California Supreme Court, where he won.
The Marvin vs. Marvin case finally reached trial in January of 1979 and it quickly became a mass-media event.
The judge in the case, Judge Marshall, awarded about $100,000 to Triola-Marvin, for the salary she potentially lost giving up her career as a singer.
Lee Marvin’s attorneys appealed, and the decision was reversed, leaving Triola with nothing and Mitchelson with nothing.
Mitchelson didn’t care though, because the fame the case brought him was worth millions of dollars in representing “wronged spouses,” mainly women.
The fact that in the end, Triola got nothing was not well publicized in the many media reports. It happened after the initial hoopala had died down and was never emphasized in the reporting.
Over the years, some of the women Marvin represented were celebrities like Bianca Jagger, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Joan Collins ( a reverse of his norm as Collins was the one being sued by estranged husband Peter Holm.)
Mostly though, Mitchelson took cases of non-celebrity live-in girlfriends or mistresses of rich celebrities: Sara Dylan (Bob), Anna Kashfi (Marlon Brando) Nancy Lee Andrews (Ringo Starr), Veronica Buss and Puppi Buss (girlfriends of Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss) Soraya Khashoggi, Kayatana Harrison (Flip Wilson.)
Marvin represented a few men: Mark Christian, ex-lover of Rock Hudson, in his widely publicized case against Hudson’s estate for failing to disclose his AIDS status to Christian.
Mel Torme, Carl Sagan and Sonny Bono were other clients.
Mitchelson was disbarred in 1988 for grossly overcharging clients and went to prison in 1993 for tax evasion.
Marvin Mitchelson was released from prison in 1998 and died in 2004.
Lee Marvin died in 1987 and is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Michelle Triola went on to have a long live-in relationship with actor- comedian Dick Van Dyke. She died of lung cancer in 2009.
Information from: Ladies’ Man: The Life & Trials of Marvin Mitchelson, by John A. Jenkins. The only published biography of Marvin Mitchelson. It’ a fascinating look at an LA character of his time, nearly forgotten today.
1950s #1 Updated 11/4/25: 1950 Census. Gardena. Move to San Fernando Valley. Ned & Virginia LaRocca. The Marinello/Bartletts. Recording Industry LA. Leith Stevens.
Posted on May 12, 2020
San Fernando Valley abbreviated SFV.
The 1950 census
gives more information about the LaRocca/Cotterell family unit.
We seem the family listed at a residence in Gardena at 1830 W. 147th.
Enlarge the document and you see that Joseph’s occupation is Radio Orchestra Manager, Virginia, a Christian Science Practitioner.
Donna has an empty box for occupation, her daughters Constance S. is listed as 7 years and Diana L. as 5 years.
Constance would have been in the second grade and Diana, kindergarten, if she went.
See the listing for Virginia LaRocca, CSP, at this same address but no Joseph is listed.
It’s unusual that Joseph and Virginia weren’t listed together. The married couple had been listed together every other year for decades, both in directories and voter registrations.
I first connected the family to 13055 Moorpark St. address by a city building permit dated Dec. of 1952.
Christian Young, a relative of Paige Young’s, told me in a phone conversation about a memory from his childhood.
“The house on Moorpark had a cabinet you could crawl through and get to their grandparents’ side (of the house).”
It seems reconstruction was made into a duplex, Ned and Virginia are on one side, Donna and the girls are on the other.
More specifically, off of the intersection of Coldwater Canyon and Ventura Blvd.
The duplex on Moorpark & Ethel, is located on the west side of Studio City, close to the eastern border with Sherman Oaks.
The Los Angeles River is nearby the house, as is Sportsman’s Lodge; a classic Hollywood and SFV landmark.
It’s recently been totally or partially demolished.
Ned & family were aware of this part of the SFV area for some time before their move.
Joseph’s only sister of many brothers was named Kathryn Marinello.
She and her husband Anthony, opened a food store at 13251 Moorpark in 1947, seen below.
“New Business Filings in the Valley” Van Nuys News
There is a 1947 City document I have been unable to download; indicating a “food store” at 13251 Moorpark St. The building was not owned by the Marinellos but a business announced, as seen here.
Mildred and Clifton’s first child James is recorded as 1 year old.
Their daughter Donna Lee was born only a few years later. Looks like she was named for Donna LaRocca Cotterell, and Diana Lee Cotterell.
Meanwhile……Diana’s father Robert Morgan Cotterell also moved to the SFV around this time, but further west of his daughters and ex-wife.
His new wife (1949) Patricia/Pat Frick and their two children born in 1950 and 1951, started out in the Canoga Park/Winnetka area.
Robert’s daughters by Donna V., were living in Gardena when “Bob and Pat” were parenting 2 toddlers on Lurline Ave.
I can’t imagine they saw each other that often but who knows?
It’s the first of many moves around LA for the Cotterell family due to Bob Cotterell Sr.’s career at Douglas Aircraft.
We do not know exactly why the LaRocca family moved to the SFV.
However, we know they were part of a massive migration to the area after World War 2, from both inside and outside California.
“The end of WW2 transformed the Valley and vastly accelerated its growth
with: vast tracts of suburban housing, shopping centers and industrial parks where chicken ranches, orchards and cattle ranches and wheat fields once existed. The 1940s and 50s, when I was growing up, the Valley was full of movie cowboys, beautiful ranches and fine horses.”
Jerry England at cowboyup.com
“In the five years after the war, the population (of SFV) more than doubled to 402,538 residents-the pastoral San Fernando Valley was suddenly the ninth-busiest urban area in the nation. Valley society was a mix of young suburbanites, older families who had come west to try their luck as engineers, animators, or pioneers in the new field of television, and ranchers trying to hang on in the face of the new hordes.”
The San Fernando Valley: America’s Suburb by Kevin Roderick
I discovered that Ned LaRocca spent most of the 1950s working as an “orchestra manager.”
He worked for composer/conductor Leith Stevens.
I saw this information through Ned’s death certificate, seen below.
I can confirm two Leith Stevens projects that have a credit as “contractor” for Ned LaRocca: A Doris Day album recorded in 1951 at 1032 Sycamore Street.
It was a studio known at that time as “The Annex.”
The website careerexplorer.com defines an orchestra contractor is: “He or she has the job of finding the appropriate musicians for Broadway shows, television episodes and commercials.”
Ned had experience adapting to a new mass medium.
In his first industry performing on the Vaudeville stage performing the harp. (See related chapters)
Vaudeville died in the early 1930s during the Great Depression and Radio programming became a mass entertainment form.
One significant factor that changed the popularity of radio programming was the rise of TV in the 1950s.
Drama, comedy and musical variety and interview shows moved to TV.
In the 1950s Los Angeles had a burgeoning music recording industry scene.
Ned worked in each of these mediums. Performing on radio broadcasts and orchestra managing for films.
In 1950, just under 20 percent of American homes contained a TV set. Ten years later, nearly 90 percent of homes contained a TV—and some even had color TVs. The number of TV stations, channels, and programs all grew to meet this surging demand.
encyclopedia.com
Ned LaRocca has a credit on Leith Steven’s 1953 score to the Marlon Brando movie “The Wild One.”
This record was a hit, released by Decca records, it remains Stevens’ most widely known work. J. Ned LaRocca is credited as “Contractor” on the project: Per Discogs.com.
As I understand, the Wild One was the first soundtrack entirely made up of Jazz music.
I recently watched The Wild One and noticed there are long stretches where there is an notable absence of music.
Besides composing and conducting “The Wild One” soundtrack, Leith Stevens composed scores for radio shows, movies and T.V. from the 1930s until his death in 1970.
This includes Film Noir classic Private Hell 36, co-written by and starred Ida Lupino.
Another Stevens credit was for The Bigamist, directed by and starring Lupino. So there was a relationship there with the pioneer female director, Lupino. Or maybe he was just assigned to the project.
A minuscule list of Leith Stevens credits includes both credited and uncredited work.
Just a very few: It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946, Ma & Pa Kettle Back on the Farm, 1951, 1954, Earth Vs. Flying Saucers in 1956, The Ann Sothern Show, 1960, Twilight Zone, early 1960s.
He composed 100s of stock music pieces for Hollywood media.
Virginia Young LaRocca in the 1950s.
Diana’s grandmother. She started out life as a Mormon in Utah, but somewhere along the way became a Christian Scientist.
She is listed as “Chr. Sci.pr.” (Christian Science Practitioner) in Los Angeles telephone directories in the 1940 and 1950s. Virginia was listed with her own telephone line.
(Read more about Virginia and her sister Josephine’s early years as a Vaudeville performer in the family history chapters.)
A Christian Science practitioner is an individual who prays for others according to the teachings of Christian Science. Treatment is non-medical, rather it is based on the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1875) by Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910), who said she discovered Christian Science in 1866 and founded the Christian Science church in 1879. According to the church, Christian Science practitioners address physical conditions, as well as relationship or financial difficulties and any other problem or crisis.
wikipedia
At some point, the Christian Science Church won the right to accept insurance for their practitioners. However, I have been unable to find exactly what year.
So, I can’t tell how much income Virginia might have earned from her vocation as a CSP.
In 1955, an LA telephone directory lists a Ned J. LaRocca at 4414 N. Ethel and a Virginia Young LaRocca with the same address.
Donna Cotterell is listed with the 13055 Moorpark address. 13055 Moorpark is on a corner with Ethel St.
4114 Ethel St. doesn’t seem to be an “real” address; I don’t find a record of it anywhere besides the phone directory.
1957 Virginia Young LaRocca is listed in the phone directory at 4414 N. Ethel State 4-7052 North Hollywood. Cr. Sci. Pr.
This could be a result of the house modification for Donna, Diana and Constance Cotterell, it was made into a duplex.
I’m sure Donna received child support from her ex-husband Robert Cotterell. And likely alimony until Donna remarried in 1958 to Jack Holroyd in a Las Vegas wedding.
It is probable that grandfather Ned LaRocca was the primary breadwinner of this household.
This would have been normal for the times.
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 