Bandleader Horace Heidt Dead at 85
Bandleader Horace Heidt, who helped launch the careers of such stars as Art Carney, Gordon MacRae and accordionist Dick Contino with his radio talent shows, has died after a long illness, his manager said today. He was 85.
Heidt died at 9 a.m. Monday in Barlow Hospital in Elysian Park after a long bout with pneumonia that began with a heart attack June 5, his manager-controller, Barbara Jackson, said.
Heidt had undergone quadruple bypass surgery after the heart attack in June, his son, Horace Heidt Jr., had said in October.
Heidt Sr. retired from the big-band circuit in 1955. As leader of the Musical Knights, Heidt had hosted a quarter of a century of talent shows on radio and television. Besides Contino’s, MacRae’s and Carney’s, he was credited with starting the careers of such stars as Al Hirt and the King Sisters, the younger Heidt said.
He also was one of the wealthiest graduates of the music business, owning apartment resort communities in the San Fernando Valley.
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