Certificates and documents from Paige Young’s cremation and ocean burial, Hugh Hefner’s secretary Bobbie Arnstein. Sex tapes. 1974. Part #1
From my website
Due to the length of the chapter, it will published in 2 or 3 parts for Medium. (Apologies for former version filled with typos)
March 16, 1974 is Paige Young’s 30th birthday.
April 7th 1974, a Palm Sunday, Paige Young 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.”
“For weeks all she could think about was getting hold of that tape, she thought it was going to ruin her.
Melanie Myers, Paige’s neighbor quoted in the dailymail.com 2014 article about an alleged sex tape with Paige, (and others?) which she seemed afraid that someone (s) would view it.
Melanie talked to Paige on the day of her suicide and shortly before the actual suicide.
More quotes below from Melanie Myers.
“Paige had the whole thing planned down to the last detail… It was a 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.” dailymail.com Dec. 2014
In the A&E channel documentary Secrets of Playboy, Melanie Myers gives the same account.
Myers says she was told by Paige Young that a member of Hefner’s entourage had possession of a tape (or film) of her in a sexual situation. Paige seemed “ over the top,” afraid of it “getting out.”
Melanie told me Paige kept saying “CiCi Huston’s brother,” was the one holding on to the tape and refusing to relinquish it to Paige.
I learned in the course of this research that this person was likely a man named David Shane.
Shane was not a celebrity in the way Hugh Hefner was, and not in the way his brother-in-law (at the time) was, director John Huston.
Melanie told me Paige kept saying “CiCi Huston’s brother,” was holding on to the tape and wouldn’t relinquish it to Paige.
David Shane was known on the local Sunset Strip scene where he owned two businesses. And apparently, he was a never-known or little-known Playboy mansion regular or hanger-on.
Shane is a perfect candidate for someone who would be or could be involved with a sex tape and Hugh Hefner.
Would he have a reason to blackmail Paige with this tape? Paige claimed her wouldn’t give up the tape to her, “She thought it was going to ruin her,” said Melanie Myers.
More on David Shane, now deceased, in a future entry.
According to Melanie, at Paige’s staged suicide scene, a wall in her room was filled with images of Hugh Hefner, newspaper and magazines, along with words of hatred for him, a pentagram drawn on the floor, and an American flag.
The other witnesses would have been the LAPD officers at the scene, the I.D. and the coroner’s office.
Why did Paige “blame” her suicide on Hefner in particular and make a entire mural of his image with words stating she hated him?
And hate-filled words on a suicide note left that included others like director John Huston? Who else was on that list? And what happened to it?
Why does the Playboy-published “Playmate Book” say Paige died of a drug overdose?
I began researching the answer to this question with an open mind.
Perhaps Paige Young wrongly, mistakenly, or inappropriately blamed Hugh Hefner for her suicidal ruminations.
Some critics will say it was my motivation to prove Hugh Hefner was an evil man and directly responsible for the death of a vulnerable young woman.
That is not my motivation or opinion.
Hugh Hefner has his fans and his detractors. I believe it will be this way for eternity.
I was, and am still, interested in the truth.
Obviously, Paige had other troubles in her life.
Lack of money was another one, her friend Veronika, wrote to me.
Still, evidence points to at least one factor being the above mentioned sex tape and the connection with the “Playboy Mansion scene.”
A partial autopsy/police report copy is included in the Daily Mail story, but not the death certificate.
The death certificate copy I obtained seen below.
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.
Perhaps the Playmate Book is the source a compendium of all the Playmates that were so named in the magazine since the first issue in 1953, up to the date of publication.
An update on the lives of the Playboy models accompanies each entry.
Marilyn Monroe was famously on the cover of the first issue of Playboy, which included a few of her old nude pinup photos taken when she was broke.
It’s part of both the Marilyn and Playboy Myth.
(The Playmate Books are updated about every 10 years.)
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.
UPDATE: 5/12/2023 I spoke with Paige’s friend from Malibu, Veronika, who says she heard an announcement on a radio station about Paige’s death while she was driving.
Veronika doesn’t remember much more than she was shocked, causing her to pull over and stop at the side of the road.
Veronika was one person I spoke with who couldn’t believe that “Paige would really go through with it (suicide).”
I have not yet found any death, obituary or memorial announcement.
In the weeks and months after the Daily Mail article was published in 2014, 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.
What about the alleged sex tape that caused Paige so much anguish?
“Numerous women say Hefner filmed all of the sex he had in his bedroom at the Playboy Mansion — often without consent — and kept the tapes.”
LAT Review of Secrets of Playboy 2/28/22
That makes sense because a well-known part of Hefner’s biography is his fascination with audio, video and design technology.
He collected cutting edge home video, film cameras, projectors, and stereo equipment, home gadgets etc., 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 Bachelor pad often included “gadgets” in the like the swirling bed and built in stereo, TV and and light controls seen in a mock up below.
One reason Hugh Hefner and Playboy started to get criticized in the late 1960s was for its’ promotion of what was essentially a materialistic, consumerist approach to life.
Not only “Women’s Libbers” criticized Hefner and Playboy in the 1960s and 70s.
Religious people did of course, but for different reasons.
One clip shown in the opening of the Secrets of Playboy documentary, shows Hugh Hefner speaking to reporters at a press conference about his “electronic equipment” in “the mansion.”…”including cameras” and says that “sometimes stuff happens in the bedroom.”
Secrets of Playboy revealed accounts of sexual acts being filmed by Hugh Hefner, or others, at his mansion in Holmby Hills. (See interviews with Sondra Theodore, Butler Stefan Tetenbaum.)
Secrets…shows an interview with former head of Playmate Promotions Miki Garcia, reading work notes she saved, one the notes is about actor Tony Curtis.
Curtis and his lawyer, were highly upset about Tony’s appearance in tapes of sex acts recorded at the mansion. Curtis was close friends with Hef and a regular at the mansion for decades.
Stories of sex tapes or films, go all the way back to the Chicago mansion days, one ex-girlfriend of Hefner’s, with help from one of his secretaries, snuck her into the mansion and retrieved “her tape”. This incident was told to author Russell Miller and published in his book Bunny: The Real Story of Playboy.
Miller appears in Secrets of Playboy but doesn’t tell this story.
What happened to Hefner’s collection of sex tapes?
There are reports of Hefner ordering the tapes and films destroyed before his death, by hiring a crew to sink them in the ocean.
Allegedly, Hefner had become more paranoid after his friend, Playmate, actress and frequent Playboy cover model Pamela Anderson had her, and husband Tommy Lee’s, private sex tapes stolen and released to the public.
In fact, a recent dramatic/comedic streaming series was made about this very thing: “Pam and Tommy sex tape scandal.”
“…..And I’d recently discovered little spy holes on either side of the big televisions at the foot of the bed, where one might set up cameras. When I asked him about them, he just shrugged. ‘But what are they for?’ I asked. ‘I used to do a lot of filming,’ he said proudly. ‘VHS. I had hours of videos, hundreds of sexy tapes.’ ‘Did people know you were filming?’ I could only imagine what, and who, was on those tapes. ‘It’s my bedroom. My house.’ He said this dismissively. When I didn’t say anything back, he got a little defensive. ‘I destroyed them all. After the Pam and Tommy thing…..’
From the book Only Say Good Things by Crystal Hefner
Article From Page Six Nov. 23, 2018 quotes 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.
“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.
“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.
“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.
“He even worried that if anything happened to him it could get in the wrongs hands and hurt those who were still alive.”
“After what [Anderson] had told him, he was certain that this material was best lost rather than locked away. “ END.
Former Playboy employee Lisa Loving Barrett says in Secrets of Playboy, that she heard the the ocean burial story and has reasons to believe it is true.
Paige Young’s case is an early example of what later became known as a “sex tape scandal,” and more recently “revenge porn.” It could have been a blackmail case; likely it will never be known.
It was a would-be sex tape scandal: never went public through the media. Did the tape ever get in private circulation amongst the mansion crowd or beyond, that Paige so feared?
Not only that, the suicide seems to have remained firmly swept under the rug by the organization Playboy, at the time that it happened and in subsequent decades.
In a phone conversation I had with an individual working on the Secrets of Playboy series, I was told the documentary team had learned of the existence of a “female fixer,” working for Hef during that time and place: Los Angeles in the early and mid-1970s).
In the next sentence, she named Joni Mattis as a close assistant of Hef’s at that time.
This information about a female fixer, much less named as Joni Mattis, was not mentioned in the Secrets of Playboy documentary.
Joni’s name (and Hugh Hefner’s) was found in Paige Young’s phone book which I obtained a part of, more on that soon.
This UPI article appeared in many US newspapers. Bobbie Arnstein.
April of 1974 was an especially bad time for unflattering publicity to be associated with Hefner and Playboy.
Bobbie’s drug arrest happened only two weeks before to Paige’s suicide on April 7th.
Secrets of Playboy has an entire episode about Bobbie Arnstein and her suicide in January of 1975.
A brief background for context:
Chicago-based Hugh Hefner had been spending more time in Los Angeles ever since meeting 18-year-old Barbi Benton in 1968, on the set of his new TV show: Playboy After Dark filmed at CBS Studio on Fairfax St.
While driving around by herself one day in 1971, Barbi Benton stumbled upon a mansion in the Holmby Hills neighborhood near Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Barbi knew immediately the place would be a perfect fit for a “Playboy Mansion West.”
Back in Chicago at the Playboy mansion, secretary Bobbie Arnstein held down the fort during Hefner’s increasingly frequent times away.
Bobbie was feeling left out and let down by Hefner who was her boss, mentor, father figure and friend. She shared with a few friends that she was frustrated in not receiving more public credit and a higher salary, for her many years of dedication to Playboy.
Bobbie was struggling with an eating disorder and grief from her boyfriend’s death in a car wreck a few years previous where she was the driver. She was medicating her pain with increasing drug usage.
She never drove a car after the fatal crash.
What happened after Bobbie Arnstein’s very public arrest 2 weeks before Paige’s suicide?
In the fall of 1974, Bobbie was given a 15-year provisional jail sentence for a drug trafficking crime that she did not commit and false testimony by a witness who made a deal with prosecutors.
Despite these conflicted feelings, there was a plan in place for Bobbie to relocate to LA and continue as Hefner’s secretary.
Unfortunately, Bobbie killed herself shortly before that scheduled date arrived.
The zealous prosecutors in Chicago wanted Bobbie to implicate Hugh Hefner in drug trafficking and she refused. She became a scapegoat.
Bobbie was a drug user and abuser and probably involved in purchasing and distributing drugs to friends and maybe friends of friends, according to Secrets of Playboy.
It appears to me that Hugh Hefner was innocent, in this case, of formal organized drug trafficking.
Hefner admitted to having “laissez-faire” attitude about the behavior of his numerous guests at the mansion; he certainly wasn’t going to search their luggage or persons for drugs as he said publically at the time.
The whole case was dropped after Arnstein’s suicide.
END.
