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Louis Jean Heydt

{{Short description|American actor (1903–1960)}}

{{Use American English|date=May 2021}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2021}}

{{Infobox person

| name = Louis Jean Heydt

| image = Louis Jean Heydt in Raiders of Old California.jpg

| caption = Heydt in Raiders of Old California (1957)

| birth_date = {{birth date|1903|04|17}}

| birth_place = Montclair, New Jersey, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|1960|01|29|1903|04|17}}

| death_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

| resting_place = Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California

| alma_mater = Dartmouth College

| occupation = Actor, journalist

| spouse = Leona Maricle
({{abbr|m.|married}} 1928; {{abbr|div.|divorced}} 19??)
{{marriage|Donna Hanor
|1953}}{{Citation needed |date=October 2019}}

| yearsactive = 1933–1960

}}

Louis Jean Heydt (April 17, 1903 – January 29, 1960) was an American character actor in film, television and theatre, most frequently seen in hapless, ineffectual, or fall guy roles.{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20140720211530/http://matineeclassics.com/celebrities/actors/louis_heydt/details/ "LOUIS JEAN HEYDT BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY"]}} Matinee Classics. 8-23-2013.

Early life

Heydt was born in 1903 (not 1905, as many sources have miscited) in Montclair, New Jersey, the son of German parents George Frederick Heydt, a jeweler and the secretary and executor for Louis Comfort Tiffany,The New York Times, January 29, 1933 and the former Emma Foerster.The New York Times, June 10, 1914The New York Times, August 18, 1928. He was educated at Montclair High School,{{cite news |title=Louis Jean 'Bus' Heydt of Montclair Attains Film Success in Hollywood |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/29106907/louis_jean_heydt/ |accessdate=4 March 2019 |work=The Montclair Times |date=May 2, 1939 |location=New Jersey, Montclair |page=13|via = Newspapers.com}} Worcester Academy, and Dartmouth College, graduating from the latter in 1926. He initially wanted to be a journalist and worked as a reporter for The New York World.

Career

=Stage=

Heydt received his start in the theatre while visiting a classmate backstage while The Trial of Mary Dugan was in rehearsal. As an actual reporter, he caught the attention of the producers and was offered the role of a reporter in the play. He made his stage debut therein and went on to appear in a dozen plays, including Strictly Dishonorable, Before Morning and Happy Birthday.New York Times, January 30, 1960 He also played in the London company of The Trial of Mary Dugan as the male lead, replacing the deceased Rex Cherryman.{{cite news |title=L.J. Heydt Honoreed on Stage |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/29108370/louis_jean_heydt/ |accessdate=4 March 2019 |work=The Montclair Times |date=August 15, 1928 |location=New Jersey, Montclair |page=1|via = Newspapers.com}}

After he left the Broadway production of The Trial of Mary Dugan, Heydt acted in stock theatre with the Alice Brady Company in Buffalo, Rochester, and Toronto. In the mid-1930s, he and his wife were active in summer stock theatre in Skowhegan, Maine.{{cite news |title=Colorful Ladies Are Specialties of Leona Maricle |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/29110534/leona_maricle/ |accessdate=4 March 2019 |work=The Philadelphia Inquirer |date=October 7, 1934 |location=Pennsylvania, Philadelphia |page=SO 11|via = Newspapers.com}}

=Film=

File:Olivia de Havilland on the set of Gone With The Wind.jpg (1939). L-R: Director Victor Fleming, Olivia de Havilland, and Louis Jean Heydt as one of the "hungry soldiers" at Tara.]]

In the 1930s, Heydt traveled to Hollywood, where he appeared in over a hundred films, including Gone With the Wind (1939), The Great McGinty (1940), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) and The Big Sleep (1946). He made an impression as an older, warm-hearted soldier in the 1945 John Ford PT-boat epic They Were Expendable, and co-starred in the 1951 film noir Roadblock in support of Charles McGraw. Heydt remained active in Hollywood throughout the 1950s, appearing in 32 films through 1959.{{cn|date=August 2023}}

=Television=

Heydt moved early into television, initially taking roles in basic Westerns and related programs such as outlaw Tom Horn on the 1950s western television series Stories of the Century, starring and narrated by Jim Davis. He appeared in eleven episodes of Richard Carlson's 1958-1959 western series, Mackenzie's Raiders.{{cite book|title=The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-Present|year=2003|publisher=Ballantine Books|isbn=0-345-45542-8}}Billy Hathorn, "Roy Bean, Temple Houston, Bill Longley, Ranald Mackenzie, Buffalo Bill, Jr., and the Texas Rangers: Depictions of West Texans in Series Television, 1955 to 1967", West Texas Historical Review, Vol. 89 (2013), pp. 112–13

Heydt guest starred on the Adventures of Superman, Treasury Men in Action, Cavalcade of America, TV Reader's Digest, Crossroads, Lux Video Theatre, Fury, The Man from Blackhawk, Wagon Train, and Maverick.{{citation needed|date=April 2017}}

Personal life and death

Heydt married Leona Maricle, an actress in the Broadway company of The Trial of Mary Dugan, on August 13, 1928, in New York.{{cite news |title=Heydt--Maricle |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/29108967/the_montclair_times/ |accessdate=4 March 2019 |work=The Montclair Times |date=August 22, 1928 |location=New Jersey, Montclair |page=4|via = Newspapers.com}} He later married Donna Hanor.Tucson Daily Citizen, January 30, 1960, p. 2

Heydt died of a heart attack on January 29, 1960, in Boston, where he collapsed immediately after leaving the stage following the first scene of a pre-Broadway performance of the play, There Was a Little Girl, in which he appeared opposite Jane Fonda. Actor Joseph Curtiss carried him to his dressing room, but it was apparent that he had died instantly. Heydt's understudy, William Adler, finished the performance and the run.The New York Times, January 30, 1960

Partial filmography

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{{div col end}}

Television

class="wikitable"
Year

! Title

! Role

! Notes

1960RawhideWilsonS2:E15, "Incident of the Devil and his Due"

See also

{{Portal|Biography|New Jersey|California|Theatre|Film|Television}}

References

{{reflist|30em}}

External links

  • {{IMDb name|id=0382195}}
  • {{IBDB name|45065}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heydt, Louis Jean}}

Category:Male actors from New Jersey

Category:1903 births

Category:1960 deaths

Category:American male film actors

Category:American male journalists

Category:20th-century American journalists

Category:American people of German descent

Category:Male actors from Montclair, New Jersey

Category:Male actors from Greater Los Angeles

Category:Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)

Category:20th-century American male actors

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers

Category:20th-century American male writers