Not long ago here, I had to report on the passing of cartoonist Lee Holley, who was best known for his comic strip, Ponytail. Lee was another one of those guys who did very fine work for a long, long time without getting a lot of notice. Our mutual friend Willie Ito sent me the following and I got his okay to share it with all of you…
I was absolutely shocked hearing of Lee. It was just last February that I was in Palm Springs and tried calling him for lunch. Unfortunately, the number I had was not the right number for Lee. I figured the next time I'm in P.S., we will connect.
Little known fact. I was responsible for Lee getting in the animation business. I was attending Chouinard and in T. Hee's cartoon class. Lee was sitting in the back of the room very quiet and seemingly out of place, especially since he was in his full white Navy uniform. He was just mustered out of the Navy and checking out the school. I approached him and started a conversation. He was very soft-spoken especially with a classroom full of rather hippy, Bohemian, oddly dressed cartoonists around. Even the instructor T. Hee was dressed rather unconventional.
I saw the drawing Lee was working on and was rather impressed. I asked to see his sketch book and I was blown away by it! I was working at Warner Bros. Cartoons at Termite Terrace at that time and although production manager Johnny Burton said he was not hiring any inexperienced artists, I convinced him to see Lee's portfolio. The rest is history. Lee was hired on the spot. He advanced very quickly and soon found himself in Friz Freleng's unit assisting Gerry Chiniquy, one of the premiere animators for Friz.
Lee and I became fast "cartoon" friends. We would spend the evenings at my kitchen table working on our own comic strip ideas. He was working on a teenage strip that looked very promising. I was freelancing for Petersen Publishing at that time and referred Lee to the editor of Teen Magazine. The strip was published as a two-page feature that brought great reaction. Meanwhile, Warner's would close up shop during summer vacation. Lee, who was from the Monterey area, went home but made a visit to Carmel Valley to visit Hank Ketcham.
When we all returned from our respective vacations, Lee confided in me that he'd gotten an offer from Ketcham to assist on the Dennis the Menace strip. Hank finally found an assistant he could entrust and he himself could move to Europe. Lee did the Sunday pages as well as the spinoff licensed merchandise. He worked at Ketcham's Carmel Valley studio by the swimming pool. That is where he acquired his love for sports cars. He had a little MG and later a red MGA and then a Porsche. It was the ideal car to tool around Carmel.
He would meet fellow cartoonists at the Cracker Barrel which was a hangout meeting place for local cartoonists who would show up in sports cars also. Lee tried to interest Post-Hall Syndicate, the syndicate for Dennis, in his teenage strip now called Ponytail. Post-Hall was a bit discouraging since Lee was now too important to Hank. Lee, being a bit discouraged, sent it to King Features Syndicate and they jumped at it.
Now Lee was faced with a dilemma. To sell to a competing syndicate was a big "no-no!" How to tell Hank, especially long-distance? Meanwhile, Post-Hall was up in arms and threatened to buy out Ponytail from KFS. They (Post-Hall) should have had first refusal. Eventually, the smoke cleared and Ponytail was a hit.
Lee and I were very close friends both socially and professionally. He had a getaway place in Palm Springs but his home was in Aptos, California. Unfortunately, Lee must have been flying to his home in Aptos when he crashed.
In a follow-up message to me, Willie wrote…
When Ponytail started, Lee found himself extremely busy. Post-Hall Syndicate needed a good healthy lead time on the Dennis Sundays also allowing for time to train a new artist. King Features needed a six-week lead before the launch on both the Sundays and dailies. With Ponytail, Lee drew and also had to write the strips.
During one of his decompressing breaks at the Cracker Barrel, Playboy's Eldon Dedini suggested he submit one of his cute "girly" cartoons to Playboy. It was any cartoonist's greatest dream. At Dedini's urging, Lee submitted a one page, color gag cartoon and he expected the usual reject or extensive creative changes. Much to his surprise, Playboy bought his first time out cartoon and a few months later, it was in print. The Cartoon Editor suggested he might consider being a regular contributor. Needless to say, much to Lee's reluctance, he had to decline.
He finally left Ketcham and his whirlwind career started. It wasn't too long before Ponytail was up to 300 papers.
