Horace Heidt

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Horace Heidt (1972)

Horace Heidt (born May 21, 1901 in Alameda , California , † December 1, 1986 in Del Mar , California) was an American big band leader, pianist and entertainer, one of the most successful dance orchestras in the United States of the 1930s and 1940s headed.

Life

Heidt attended Berkeley University and originally wanted to play football professionally , but injured his back. In 1923 he founded a dance band that toured vaudeville in the 1920s and was also in Europe. After the orchestra disbanded, he founded a new band in 1932, "Horace Heidt and his Brigadiers", which had its own nationwide radio show in 1936 from the Drake Theater in Chicago . They also distributed cash to the public, which made them extremely popular. Her program "Pot o 'Gold" was filmed in 1941 with Heidt. The film Pot o 'Gold was directed by George Marshall , with James Stewart and Paulette Goddard in the lead roles .

The success of Swing also impressed Heidt and he tried to improve the quality of his band for "Horace Heidt and his Musical Knights" by hiring musicians like Bobby Hackett , Irving Fazola , Frank De Vol and Jess Stacy (and Glenn Miller, who was dissolved Orchestra arranger Bill Finegan and for a short time Tex Beneke ). Heidt also took women into the band. The singers included the "King Sisters", Larry Cotton, "Donna and her Don Juans" (with Donna Wood). The theme song of the band, which was very popular in the late 1930s / early 1940s, was “I'll love you in my dreams”. With “ Gone with the Wind ” they had a No. 1 hit in 1937 and also in 1938 with “Ti-Pi-Tin” and a No. 2 hit in 1939 with “The Man with the Mandolin”. In 1941 he had six top 10 hits, including Goodbye Now and I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire, two titles that reached second place on the charts. The following year he had a top 10 hit with his version of Deep In The Heart Of Texas . His last hit on the charts was in 1947 with the title Don't Fence Me In , which peaked at number 7.

Because of a dispute with his management, he retired in 1945 and devoted himself to his real estate investments, which made him one of the wealthiest orchestra conductors at the time. In 1947 he was back and directed the orchestra in the radio talent shows ("Talent Show", "Youth Opportunity Show"). From 1950 he was also with the "Horace Heidt Show" (a broadcast of his radio talent show, one of the first TV talent shows ever) and 1955 with the "The Swift Show Wagon" on television. Shortly afterwards he withdrew.

22 years after his death, the company's video game developers, Bethesda Softworks, incorporated Heidt's song "I don't want to set the world on fire" into the game Fallout 3 as theme music .

His son Horace Heidt Jr. is also a band leader.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chart listings according to Whitburn, Joel: Top Pop Records 1940-1955 . Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research, 1973, p. 26
personal data
SURNAME Heidt, Horace
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American big band leader
DATE OF BIRTH May 21, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Alameda , California
DATE OF DEATH 1st December 1986
Place of death Del Mar , California