Holly Maxwell

Holly Maxwell was born in 1915, She co-founded the booking agency Famous Artist with Impresario Hugh Pickett in 1950, For more than three decades Famous Artists was responsible for bringing the world’s most prominent entertainers to Vancouver. They booked concerts at the Orpheum Theatre and other venues throughout the city featuring everyone from the Rolling Stones and Janis Joplin to the Sadler’s Wells Ballet and Liberace. Glamorous Holly played host to the showbiz elite of the ’50s and ’60s. She frequently entertained visiting performers such as members of the Bolshoi Ballet, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It is said that the Victorian piano in her British Properties living room was played by Arthur Rubenstein himself. Holly couldn’t play the piano, but she enjoyed talented friends who could, including Van Cliburn, Rosemary Clooney, Oscar Levant and Liberace. Maxwell’s elegant home in the British Properties became the spillover venue for many of the renowned performers. Her first husband Bob Maxwell, died in 1967, then she met Jay Forrester in 1972 and married him several months later. In 1974, just two years after they were wed, Forrester tragically died following a boating accident. Two years later Maxwell married John Brynelsen who died in 1982. Maxwell passed away in March 1993, at the age of 77.