HORACE HEIDT - AUTOGRAPHED SIGNED PHOTOGRAPH - HFSID 200106

HORACE HEIDT
7¼x9¼ b/w Maurice Seymour publicity photo of big band leader Horace Heidt with harpist and sideman Lysbeth Hughes, signed "Very Sincerely"
Inscribed photograph signed "To/'Sherry/Sussman'/Very Sincerely/Horace Hei/Heidt". MCA photo credit label on verso. B/w, 7¼x9¼ overall, 7x9¼ image, one surface. Photo by Maurice Seymour of Chicago and MCA. Heidt is shown with a woman who is, according to photo credit label on verso, harpist LYSBETH HUGHES, aharpist and one of Heidt's sidemen... well, sidewomen. Heidt hired a lot of woman musicians, including three violinists and the vocal quartet the King Sisters. 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, creased and bowed. Pen skipped while writing signature, which is legible. Light impressions on image (not visible head-on). Otherwise in fine condition.