WESTERN PHOTOGRAPHY GUILD
Box 2801
Denver 1, Colorado

SERIES 32: PAUL LABRIOLA

Teenagers get blamed for more than their due in their tremulous eagerness to explore the complexities of life in an atomic age. They seem to go off in all directions, and yet beneath their surface stridency it is usually possible to find much that is good, solid, and purposeful. Take Paul LaBriola. A handsome, healthy young man just out of his teens, he has encountered his share of confusions, unhappiness, and doubt. But the basically good character bequeathed by his parents has emerged untouched by the “perils" of a rock-and-roll generation.

Paul LaBriola by Don Whitman / Western Photography Guild

Paul was born on January 15th in Denver 20 years ago. Both of his parents were native Coloradans, but his grandparents were from Europe, Italy on his father's side and Denmark on his mother's. Paul never knew the guiding hand of his mother, who died when he was six months old. His two sisters and a brother were sent to an orphanage, but Paul, being too young, was given to his paternal grandmother for rearing. He did not live with his father again until the age of nine, when his father remarried and Paul rejoined him in suburban Lakewood. His life with his father was to last only four years, however, because his father died when Paul was 13.

Except for his relative lack of parental influence, Paul’s childhood was a normal, happy one. He attended public schools through the ninth grade, and an alert and inquiring mind brought him generally excellent grades. His favorite study was mathematics, and he participated in many activities. An admirer of Perry Como (the pride of Denver's heavily Italian north side), Paul has a voice not too dissimilar from Como's, and more than once sang popular songs in school assemblies.

He was early fascinated by dramatics, and saw every play and movie he could. Paul appeared in several school plays, and his earliest remembrance as a thespian was in the role of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

Paul was never the proverbial 97-pound weakling. A strong body was his birthright, and a nourishing diet of Italian pasta, meat, and lots of vegetables (his father had a vegetable route) kept his body well nourished. Though he had no favorite sport, Paul participated in all sandlot activities, exhibiting a high degree of muscular coordination. His genial, unaggressive manner made him lots of friends, and it was plain he was the material of which leaders are made. However, a natural disinclination to assert his qualities of leadership confined them to his circle of friends.

Living at his grandmother's again after his father's death, Paul, as a result of her repeated urgings, and in response to a romantic feeling that he might "set the world on fire, " quit school after the ninth grade and got a job delivering telegrams. Then followed a succession of jobs -- grocery store, meat market, department store, construction, gardening, tree trimming -- which enabled Paul to help support the household, but by no means caused him to set the world on fire. These were restless years for Paul, but his character steered him past the pitfalls confronting a youth who quits school early. To this day, for example, he has not taken up smoking.

Model Profile: Paul LaBriola

SERIES 32: PAUL LABRIOLA