[pdx_life] Hollister, Ives, and jimmyhollister.com

Every time I think I've spoken my last on the late Jimmy Hollister, it seems something else comes up.

For one, his old partner, Victor Ives, has established a 'web presence, www.jimmyhollister.com. It's starting small; there are a few pictures of thier television appearances, including three shots of the 1987 Sinister Cinema reunion. Ravenscroft even got the big chair in one. There are a few appearances on KATU-2 that I unfortunately missed whilst young.

He was kind enough to link to my original Jimmy Hollister tribute entry. It's on the Links/Media subpage, click on "One Listener's Reaction".

In one of those bittersweet ironies that qualify the two-sided coin that is human existence, Victor was preparing the website as a present for his long-time friend and performing partner at the time of his death. Jimmy will get the memorial he so richly deserves, from one of those who knew him best.

Absoluetly not to be missed is an audio clip of a bit they did called "Breakfast with the Barclays", which is on the main page at present (dialup customers heads-up: it's about 5.2 MB big). In some of thier best moments, the sit-down comedy team of Hollister and Ives paid homage to the wry, somewhat dry, sometimes corny but always hilarious radio tradition whose best examples were Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding-Bob and Ray, another one of the great acts of 20th century American comedy.

Ray Goulding may not ring any bells amongst the new moderns, but Bob Elliott's son should be known to everyone: he's comedian and actor Chris Elliott (Bob even played his father in some episodes of Chris's surreal comedy series Get A Life!).

Victor Ives has also stayed active in media. He has a committment to old-time radio that could only be that of a fan who's had the opportunity and resources to produce programs with that theme, and has done so for quite some time. His
show Golden Age of Radio has been popular since the 1980's, and still is broadcast in rerun form on USA Radio Network. He has a CV of sorts at www.victorives.com, with links at the bottom of the page so Ives fans can keep up on his career.

You know those actors who cut an interesting presence and then seem to disappear, but really have moved on behind the scenes creating, directing, and producing? They come up with good stuff but you wonder where they've gone. Victor Ives seems like that. For instance, KWBP-32, the local WB station? Victor helped found that. Things like that.