James Holden, "Adventures in Paradise" actor

[Stephen Bowie]

Classic Images is reporting the death of James Holden (no relation to
William), who played Gardner McKay's (caricatured) Southern-fried
sidekick Clay Baker for two seasons on "Adventures in Paradise."
Holden died January 19, 2005 in Burbank, CA.

IMDB has this info (along with some "new" bit part credits that weren't
there last time I looked), but did anyone see an actual obit for
Holden? I think I would've spotted a paid notice in the L.A. Times, as
I'd been looking for info on Holden ever since I slogged through most
of the "Adventures of Paradise" episodes a couple of years ago. Holden
was a rare case of a non-ingenu(e) actor who had a prominent role on a
TV series but virtually no substantial film or TV work before or after,
so I was intrigued.

[robertc...@yahoo.com]

Stephen Bowie wrote:
I think I would've spotted a paid notice in the L.A. Times, as
> I'd been looking for info on Holden ever since I slogged through most
> of the "Adventures of Paradise" episodes a couple of years ago.

Is "Adventures in Paradise" out on VHS or DVD?

Bob Champ

[Bob Feigel]

On 2 May 2005 08:10:34 -0700, "Stephen Bowie"
<stephe...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Then you might be interested to hear about something that happened
back in around 1960 when the series was being shot on one of the
studio lots in Culver City. In the middle of the night I got woken up
by three friends who asked me if I wanted to join them for some
mischief. I'd had a hard day and said no.

Then just before dawn they returned and wanted to leave some stuff at
my place and I said, sure and went back to sleep. When I woke again I
discovered that what they'd left was a bunch of stuff from the set of
"Adventures in Paradise" - including the tiki figurehead and the wheel
from the reproduction of the schooner "Tiki" that sat in a man-made
"lagoon" on the set. IIRC The wheel was real, but the figurehead was
made of painted fiberglass or something similar. It was also had a
huge, ugly head.

As you can imagine, these things were pretty easy to notice and not
that easy to hide. Thanks a lot, guys. No wonder you wanted to bring
them to my place instead of yours. So I got the usual ringleader back
to my place and asked him what he intended doing with the booty. It
turned out that none of them wanted to keep the stuff and were somehow
able to return it to the set. But "Adventures in Paradise" was one of
my favourite TV shows and even though I slept through most of it, I at
least had the Tiki's figurehead, wheel and other bits and pieces for
a few hours. b

"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Woody Allen

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Wax-up and drop-in of Surfing's Golden Years: <http://www.surfwriter.net>
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[Stephen Bowie]

Thanks for the entertaining story, Bob. Although, "Adventures" was a
Twentieth Century-Fox show, so your friends would've been raiding the
Fox lot in West Hollywood, right?

No, unfortunately "Adventures in Paradise" isn't available commercially
on VHS or DVD, although I keep hoping the Fox Movie Channel will run it
or one of their other early TV series now that they've exhausted the
"20th Century Fox Hour." It's not an especially good show -- it went
through too many producers (including some good ones, like William
Froug and Art Wallace) and could never figure out if it was a tough
action show, a light adventure, or a drama. Gardner McKay impressed
me, though -- he kind of relaxed into his role and turned his stiffness
inside out, playing the character as a put-upon straight man for the
more colorful supporting cast. He's much more tolerable than most of
the wooden leading men in the action shows of that era.

[Brad Ferguson]

In article <1115218458.7...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com>,
Stephen Bowie <stephe...@hotmail.com> wrote:

This is as good a summary of this series as I've ever seen (albeit I
haven't seen that many). Thanks.