Duvall Hecht was someplace between his banking job in Los Angeles and his dwelling in Newport Seashore when he realized he’d heard the identical track for the third or fourth time. On the information stations, the day by day report had grown stale and repetitive. The commercials have been numbing and infinite.
It was, he instructed The Instances years later, probably the most “lethal two hours” in his day, a grinding commute devoid of any mental stimulation.
In a flurry of entrepreneurial magic, he bought his 1965 Porsche, employed a university drama coach and created what would change into quantity No. 1 within the soon-to-be-massive Books on Tape catalogue, a taped recording of George’s Plimpton’s soccer story, “Paper Lion.”
“It by no means as soon as appeared like a wacky concept to me,” he mentioned in 2001, shortly after promoting his start-up to Random Home for an estimated $20 million.
A person of assorted pursuits, Hecht died Feb. 10 at his dwelling in Costa Mesa, his spouse Ann Marie Rousseau mentioned. He was 91.
Lengthy earlier than he arose as a pioneer on the planet of audio books, Hecht was a rower. A superb one. He competed within the 1952 Summer season Olympics in Helsinki and 4 years later received gold in Melbourne.
In 1965, nonetheless full of a ardour for the game, he persuaded Dan Aldrich — the inaugural chancellor at UC Irvine — to make rowing one of many 5 founding sports activities on the college. For many years, he remained loyal to this system as a mentor, fundraiser and coach. He additionally coached at UCLA and Menlo School.
Born in Los Angeles on April 23, 1930, Duvall attended Beverly Hills Excessive Faculty, then Stanford College, the place he hoped to make the soccer staff. However at 6-feet-1 and 185 kilos he was deemed too mild and a coach urged he attempt rowing as a substitute. He went on to change into an Olympian.
Whereas within the Marines, he grew to become a fighter jet pilot and, after his discharge, a Pan Am pilot, which he discovered to be little higher than being a bus driver, his spouse mentioned.
When he landed a job as an funding banker in downtown L.A., he sought alternate options to the radio. For some time, he arrange a reel-to-reel tape recorder on the passenger seat and listened to books that had been recorded for individuals who have been blind. When cassette tapes first arrived on the scene, he turned to these as a chance, however may discover solely motivational recordings.
After recording “Paper Lion,” he started putting adverts in newspapers across the nation and inside 5 years gross sales have been approaching $2 million and he had tens of hundreds of shoppers for his audio books.
There have been methods to be realized, although. It may take years to safe rights from publishing homes and the preliminary recordings have been typically stilted and tough to hearken to. He started hiring actors to do the readings.
“You'll be able to’t ‘announce’ a ebook,” he instructed The Instances in 1983. “You must learn it with feeling, but you don’t wish to dramatize it.”
Prospects would lease ebook tapes for 30 days and since Hecht didn’t cost a deposit, they have been on an honor system to return them. For probably the most half, he mentioned, clients held up their finish of the discount and mailed again the tapes.
There was a bulk issue as nicely. A recorded studying of Leo Tolstoy’s “Struggle and Peace” was 70 hours lengthy and consisted of 47 90-minute tapes, greater than sufficient to fill a glove compartment.
After promoting the corporate, he mentioned he was upset when Random Home minimize his catalog of 6,000 books in half, typically dropping the classics in favor of bestsellers and new releases.
“I believe if I had identified they have been going to do this, I may not have bought them the corporate,” he joked.
Although he’d been a pilot, an Olympian, a banker and an entrepreneur, Hecht immediately discovered himself unemployable after he bought Books on Tape and pursued a brand new profession as a long-haul truck driver, a dream he’d had since he was 16. His spouse mentioned she’d typically accompany him on his cross-country journeys and marveled at how a lot he loved the open street.
“And on these journeys, in fact, we'd hearken to Books on Tape.”
Hecht is survived by his spouse and daughter Oriana Rousseau, and three youngsters from his first marriage to Sigrid M.Hecht; Katrin Bandhauer, Justin Hecht and Claus Hecht; and grandchildren Lorien Bandhauer, Walter Bandhauer and Emma Lawlor.
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