Did You Know: Jascha Heifetz Logged More Than Two Million Travel Miles Before Taking a Sabbatical in 1947?

By Robert Markow | From the November/December 2024 issue of Strings

This figure was by his own reckoning and didn’t account for the many more miles he logged following his 20-month sabbatical. Over the course of those two million miles, he played for 100,000 hours (again by his own reckoning).

Speaking of traveling with Heifetz, more than half a century before the electric car began making headlines, Heifetz owned and drove such a vehicle. In 1967, he spent $5,000 (about $47,000 in today’s currency) to have his Renault (for which he paid $2,000) converted so it could run on batteries. It was the first electric car on the West Coast. Heifetz did this to try to help the environment. Ten years later, he was still driving it. 

When traveling by air, Heifetz always booked his tickets under the name Jim Hoyl so as to protect his privacy. Nevertheless, Mr. Hoyl still expected to be treated like Mr. Heifetz. Ayke Agus, in her book Heifetz as I Knew Him, relates that “he always expected the airline’s hospitality service to give him the royal treatment, which included waiting for him with an electric car at the gate.”