Rites for OCC Theater Teacher Holland

A memorial service will be held Sunday for Jack Holland, a longtime teacher at Orange Coast College who had been a figure on the Los Angeles and Orange County theater scenes since the 1940s.

Holland was 81 when he died April 18 of pneumonia. He retired in 1991 after 26 years in the speech and drama departments at OCC, where he also directed numerous student productions. After moving to Orange County in 1965, he continued to work occasionally as an actor; he was in South Coast Repertory’s productions of Eugene O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!” in 1982 and Bertolt Brecht’s “Galileo” in 1985.

“It seems like I’ve known him forever,” said SCR’s Martin Benson, who directed him in both shows. “He was just a great, warm, benign spirit, and we all loved him. I think he was really a seminal influence on any number of drama students in the area.”

Holland started his show business career writing celebrity profiles for Screenplay and other fan magazines in the ‘40s. “He interviewed, I would venture to say, all the stars of the Golden Era,” said his widow, Jodi Holland.

In the ‘50s, he returned to UCLA to earn a graduate degree in theater. He later started an acting studio at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles (where his students included David Janssen and Hugh O’Brian) and directed productions at the Music Box Theater in Hollywood.

After joining OCC, he also became a stage critic for Dramalogue and other publications and was a member of the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle.

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He is survived by his wife, son Bruce, daughters Jacqueline Holland-Radell and Jodi Lynn Holland-Schmaltz, and three grandchildren. Sunday’s service will be at 1 p.m. at St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church, 3233 Pacific View Drive, Corona del Mar. For more information, call (714) 644-0463.

Donations can be made to the Jack Holland Memorial Scholarship Fund in care of the Orange Coast College Scholarship Foundation, P.O. Box 5005, Costa Mesa, CA 92628-5005.