Horace Heidt

Birth Name:

Horace Heidt

Birth Date:

May 21, 1901

Birth Place:

Alameda, Californiua

Death Date:

December 1, 1986

Place of Death:

Los Angeles, California

Age:

Cause of Death:

Pneumonia

Cemetery Name:

Forest Lawn Memorial Park – Hollywood Hills

Claim to Fame:

Music

Horace Heidt was an American pianist, big band leader, and radio and television personality. His band, Horace Heidt and his Musical Knights, toured vaudeville and performed on radio and television during the 1930s and 1940s. As leader of the Musical Knights, Mr. Heidt was the host of talent shows on radio and television and was credited with helping the careers of Art Carney, Joel MacRae, trumpeter Al Hirt and the King Sisters. His band recorded such hits as ''I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire,'' ''Deep in the Heart of Texas,'' ''Ti-Pi-Tin,'' ''The Hut Sut Song,'' ''Little Sir Echo,'' ''The Pennsylvania Polka'' and ''Heigh Ho.'' He is also credited with devising the first radio show to conduct ad-lib interviews with an audience, called ''Answers by the Dancers.'' It got started in 1932 when a microphone from the bandstand fell to the dance floor. Mr. Heidt jumped down, grabbed the mike and began chatting up the audience.

Fact Fact

Heidt developed an early apartment complex in the San Fernando Valley community of Sherman Oaks, in Los Angeles, so that his band members would have a place to live when they were in town for gigs, and many of the band members eventually retired there together. Known as “Horace Heidt’s Magnolia Estates”, the complex is a ten-acre community of apartments, swimming pools, a clubhouse, and a golf course and is still going strong today.

Cemetery Information:

Final Resting Place:

Forest Lawn Memorial Park – Hollywood Hills

6300 Forest Lawn Drive

Los Angeles, California, 90068

USA

North America

Map:

map of Forest Lawn Memorial Park - Hollywood Hill in Los Angeles CA

Grave Location:

Murmuring Trees, Lot 4379, Space 3

Grave Location Description

As you enter the cemetery off Forest Lawn Drive, drive straight ahead on Memorial Drive past the two large sections on your right and as you pass Crystal Lane on your right continue for 200 feet and stop. Look to your right and you will see the final resting place of Horace Heidt six rows up the hill from the road.