Money Maestro

Until a year ago, Horace Murray Heidt was known chiefly as an amiable, nice-looking bandleader whose Pot o'Gold had started the rash of radio giveaway programs. Then he tangled with Jules Caesar Stein's Music Corp. of America, which controls a glittering array of movie and radio talent as tightly as James Caesar Petrillo controls his musicians. As agent for Heidt, Jules Stein was not content to collect only 10% of Heidt's musical earnings; he wanted a cut of all Heidt's earnings. Heidt refused and was forced to quit the music business until 1947, when his contract with Stein expires.

By last week, thanks partly to hardhearted Mr. Stein, Horace Heidt was one of the West Coast's skyrocketing businessmen. His latest deal: a lot he had bought for $36,000 three years ago was sold for $92,000.

Heidt can hardly read music, plays no instrument well. He became a bandleader for a businesslike reason: to make money. He stuck strictly to his musical last until 1941, when he began buying likely bits of property. The big break came two years later. Heidt guessed that a profitable urban Los Angeles ballroom, the Trianon, could be bought by catching the owner off guard with enough ready cash.

The Fast Way. Heidt sold his annuities, put $200,000 in thousand-dollar bills in his pocket, called on the owner, a onetime gambler named Jimmy Contratto.

"Mr. Contratto," said Heidt. "have you ever thought of selling this place?"

"To tell you the truth, I haven't" answered Contratto, "but I suppose if some joker walked in and put $150,000 in cash on this table, I'd sell it to him lock, stock and barrel."

Heidt reached into his pocket and began counting out thousand-dollar bills. Contratto's jaw dropped. "I have $45.000 worth of liquor in the cellar." he demurred.

"I assume, Mr. Contratto," said Heidt coldly, "that you are a man of your word."

Heidt kept on counting out the bills--150 of them. When he had finished, he took out an envelope and wrote a bill of sale on the back of it. Contratto signed it; Heidt hired him as his manager. In a year, the ballroom netted a profit equal to the sale price.

The Easy Way. In February 1945, Heidt bought a faltering restaurant in Beverly Hills for $65,000. A month later he bought a glorified auto court (the Lone Palm Hotel) in Palm Springs for $225,000. (Last fortnight he refused to sell it for $450,.000.)

Last May. Still moving on and up Heidt bought the Nevada Biltmore Hotel in Las Vegas for $500,000. Like most Las Vegas hotels, it had hot & cold gambling. Heidt lost more than $6,000 a night until he discovered that he was playing against loaded dice and marked cards (he now displays them in his home labeled: "We learned the hard way"). Then he hired a professional to run the casino, and the losses stopped.

After buying a new place, Heidt hunts down the most popular managers, bartenders, waiters, cooks, etc. in the neighborhood and hires them. Then he personally rings doorbells in the district and asks people if they have tried his new place--and if not, why not?

This year Heidt will do a business of $566,000 in the Trianon, $248,000 in his Beverly Hills Steak House, $225,000 in the Lone Palm, nearly $1 million in the Biltmore, a round $2,000,000 in all.

The Hard Way. The son of a California small-businessman, Heidt started out to be an athlete. He was well on his way to becoming an All-America guard when he broke his back in the Rose Bowl game of 1922. While he lay abed, Heidt decided to be a bandleader. By 1927 his band was famous, chiefly because of Heidt's clowning with a dog that played bells.

In 1930, playing at Monte Carlo, the trumpeter jokingly threw a bun at Heidt, missed, hit the King of Sweden. Heidt was hauled off to jail, but the pictures made the world's front pages. (Next morning the King showed up to shake hands and apologize for the necessity of maintaining his dignity.)

Back in the U.S. for a triumphant tour, Heidt's band opened at Rockefeller Center, laid "the biggest egg in the history of show business." On the grounds that the $30,000 a week loss was "an act of God," the management pulled Heidt out of Rockefeller Center, sent him to Brooklyn where he laid another egg. Back on the 'West Coast, Heidt led a vaudeville band for two years until he went into radio, finally hit the Pot o'Gold.

Now Heidt spends most of his time in his office in his rambling, glass-brick house in the San Fernando valley, where he raises turkeys and tropical birds--at a tidy profit, of course. When his contract with M.C.A. runs out next year, he plans to get back into music by reviving his publishing company.

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