Porn Valley- Naturally I am deeply saddened with the passing of Jim Holliday. It’s being reported that Holliday, the acknowledged adult industry historian, died due to complications brought on by Type II Diabetes. But Holliday’s passing was not unexpected. And I conveyed such thoughts to Bill Margold only last week.
I had been keeping in touch with Holliday on a fairly regular basis, and I spoke to him the night before talking to Margold. Holliday would usually call me at 11 pm or so but over the months his golden vocal chords- one of his great gifts- were shot. Holliday’s speech had been reduced to a cracked, hoarse whisper and he was telling me about how Health Services had come to visit him that morning, how he was confined to bed unable to move, his feet swollen. Holliday couldn’t even drive- he had someone doing that for him. I could tell that Holliday was sinking fast and it was only a matter of time.
I also know that Holliday was very depressed about the downsizing at VCA and we talked a lot about that and his options of where to go should the shoe drop.
Apparently his landlord, checking in on him, dialed 911 and Holliday may have died on the way to the hospital or when he got there. Details are hazy. Bill Margold is also concerned that Holliday’s great legacy to the business, his notes, etc. be retrieved. Holliday had started making those at the beginning of his career when he reviewed movies that were being shipped for mail order.
“I’ve got to get all of the stuff that Holliday pack ratted away,” says Margold. “It can’t be destroyed- it can never be replaced.”
Margold said he had received a number of phone calls from Holliday last Sunday and noted as I did, how his voice had been reduced to a chronic whisper. “It was breaking my heart.” On Monday, Margold told Holliday he had to take better care of himself. “He was disintegrating and it hurt me every time I talked to him. I knew the man for 25 years- it was 1979 when he walked into my office. This is maybe the toughest day in my life because I was prepared for it. By the time Viper left I realized she was leaving. And leaving is not dying. This is death. I don’t get to talk to him in the middle of the night about football or baseball or whatever else is going on. As I referred to him to the guys at VCA he was a walnut inside of an enigma inside of a walnut. But inside that walnut was pure.
“I’d like to, whenever we get to funeral arrangements, is cremate him,” Margold adds. “Then we’ll go up to that miserable high desert of his and toss out his ashes. I just don’t know what else to do. He wanted the Viking funeral. That’s the closest to it instead of the ocean which is too common. We’ll toss him into the desert where at least something good might grow. That’s the best I can do. I think that who will want to come up to the high desert can make that pilgrimage.
“I never wanted to deal with this,” Margold continues. “This was a man who didn’t want to make it to 40 and was very upset that he made it to 50.”
Margold talks about Holliday’s physical condition which was rendered to a crawl. “I thought he’d be like a good ol’ collie dog and crawl off where no one would ever see him again, but he couldn’t even crawl,” says Margold. “His stories to me about laying on the floor for 45 minutes figuring on how to get up are in some strange way amusing in their own perverted humor. But he deserved a lot more than this. He left a lasting memory of a body of work.”
Margold and I both agree that Holliday was a kind and gentle soul.
“Pure,” adds Margold. “I believe of all of us he may have been the least corrupt.”