HORACE HEIDT - AUTOGRAPHED INSCRIBED PHOTOGRAPH 1939 - HFSID 88343

HORACE HEIDT
Sepia-toned photograph of big band leader Horace Heidt by Murray Korman in a white tux, signed "I can never thank you enough for your kindness" in 1939
Inscribed photograph signed "To/My Dear Friend/'Clarissa Start'/ -/ Sincerely/Horace Heidt/1939" in blue ink.B/w sepia-toned, 8x10 overall, 7½x9½ image, one surface. Photo by Murray Korman of New York. Heidt (1901-1986, born in Alameda, California), who had a childhood stammer and a seeming lack of interest in music, seemed an unlikely candidate for one of the most successful big band leaders of the late 1930s and early 1940s. He preferred football, but a back injury in college ended any football dreams that he might have had. To make a living, Heidt organized his first band, Horace Heidt and the Californians, in 1923. The band got bigger, went through some name changes and finally hit it big in 1936, when they got their first radio broadcast from the Drake Hotel in Chicago, Illinois as Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights. The show, Heidt's Pot O' Gold, ran for nine years and included an on-air cash giveaway that helped the show retain its popularity. Heidt's hits include Gone with the Wind (1937), Little Heaven of the Seven Seas (1937) Ti-Pi-Tin (1938), The Man with the Mandolin (1939) and The Hut-Hut Song (1941). A number of important musicians and singers got their start with Heidt's band, including singers the King Sisters, Gordon MacRae and Art Carney, composer Frank DeVol, guitarist Alvino Rey, pianist Frankie Carle and Jess Stacy and trumpeter Bobby Hackett. Heidt turned his attention from big band music as musical tastes changed and started investing in hotels and other property, making him one of the wealthiest men in the entertainment business by the 1950s. Lightly toned, cracked, soiled, creased and bowed. Missing top corners. Tack holes in corners and bottom edge, some of which are torn. Tape residue at bottom edge. Light tear on left edge. Light nick at lower right edge. Otherwise in fine condition.