
, composer
, author
, comedian
, and actor
. He was more famous for his mordant character and witticisms, on the radio
and in movies
and television
, than for his music
.
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
, to an Orthodox Jewish
family from Russia
, Levant moved to New York
with his mother, Annie, in 1922, following the death of his father, Max. He began studying under Zygmunt Stojowski
, a well-established piano
pedagogue. In 1924, aged 18, he appeared with Ben Bernie
in a short film, Ben Bernie and All the Lads
, made in New York City
in the DeForest Phonofilm
sound-on-film
system.
In 1928, Levant traveled to Hollywood where his career took a turn for the better.
It's not a pretty face, I grant you. But underneath its flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.
The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.
I don't drink. I don't like it — It makes me feel good.
I'm a study of a man in chaos in search of frenzy.
There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you will find the real tinsel underneath.
I once said cynically of a politician, "He'll double-cross that bridge when he comes to it."
An epigram is only a wisecrack that's played at Carnegie Hall.
Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.
I knew Doris Day|Doris Day before she was a virgin.
, composer
, author
, comedian
, and actor
. He was more famous for his mordant character and witticisms, on the radio
and in movies
and television
, than for his music
.
Life and career
Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to an Orthodox Jewish
family from Russia
, Levant moved to New York
with his mother, Annie, in 1922, following the death of his father, Max. He began studying under Zygmunt Stojowski
, a well-established piano
pedagogue. In 1924, aged 18, he appeared with Ben Bernie
in a short film, Ben Bernie and All the Lads
, made in New York City
in the DeForest Phonofilm
sound-on-film
system.
In 1928, Levant traveled to Hollywood where his career took a turn for the better. During his stay, he met and befriended George Gershwin
. From 1929 to 1948 he composed the music for more than twenty movies. During this period, he also wrote or co-wrote numerous popular songs that made the Hit Parade
, the most noteworthy being "Blame It on My Youth
" (1934), now considered a standard.
Around 1932, Levant began composing seriously. He studied under Arnold Schoenberg
and impressed him sufficiently to be offered an assistantship (which he turned down, considering himself unqualified). His formal studies led to a request by Aaron Copland
to play at the Yaddo
Festival of contemporary American music on April 30 of that year. Successful, Levant began on a new orchestral work, a sinfonietta
. He married actress Barbara Woodell; they divorced in 1932.
In 1939, Levant married for the second time, to singer and actress June Gale (née Gilmartin), part of the singing foursome The Gale Sisters (besides June, there were Jane, Joan, and Jean). They were married for almost 33 years, until his death, and had three children, Marcia, Lorna, and Amanda.
At this time, Levant was perhaps best known to American audiences as one of the regular panelists on the radio quiz show Information Please
. Originally scheduled as a guest panelist, Levant proved so quick-witted and popular that he became a regular fixture on the show in the late 1930s and 1940s, along with fellow panelists Franklin P. Adams
and John Kieran, and moderator Clifton Fadiman
. "Mr. Levant", as he was always called, was often challenged with musical questions, though he impressed audiences with his wide depth of knowledge and quickness with a joke. Kieran praised Levant as having a "positive genius for making offhand cutting remarks that couldn't have been sharper if he'd honed them a week in his mind. Oscar was always good for a bright response edged with acid".
From 1947 to 1949, Levant regularly appeared on NBC
radio's Kraft Music Hall
, starring Al Jolson
. He not only accompanied Jolson on the piano and played classical and popular solos, but often joked and ad-libbed with Jolson and his guests. This includes comedy sketches. The pairing of the two entertainers was inspired. Their individual ties to George Gershwin
--- Jolson introduced Gershwin's "Swanee
" --- undoubtedly had much to do with their rapport. Both Levant and Jolson appeared as themselves in the Gershwin biopic Rhapsody in Blue
(1945).

, Who Said That?
, in which celebrites try to determine the speaker of quotations taken from recent news reports.
Between 1958 and 1960, Levant hosted a television talk show
on KCOP-TV
in Los Angeles
, The Oscar Levant Show, which later became syndicated
. It featured his piano playing along with monologues and interviews with top-name guests such as Fred Astaire
and Linus Pauling
. A full recording of only two shows is known to exist, one with Astaire, who paid to have a kinescope recording of the broadcast made, so that he could assess his performance. This is likely the only Astaire performance to have imperfections, as it was live, and Levant would repeatedly change the tempo of his accompaniment to Astaire's singing during the bridges between verses, which appeared to get him quite off balance at first. He did not dance, as the studio space was extremely small.
The show was highly controversial, eventually being taken from the air after a comment about Marilyn Monroe
's conversion to Judaism
: "Now that Marilyn Monroe is kosher, Arthur Miller
can eat her". He later stated that he "hadn't meant it that way". Several months later, the show began to be broadcast in a slightly revised format—it was taped in order to provide a buffer for Levant's antics. This, however, failed to prevent Levant from making comments about Mae West
's sex life that caused the show to be canceled for good. Levant was also a frequent guest on Jack Paar
's talk show, prompting Paar in later years to sign off by saying, "Good night, Oscar Levant, wherever you are." On an appearance on the Tonight Show, from New York, Levant once quipped that his Jaguar ambulance was waiting outside for him.
The 1920s and 1930s wit Alexander Woollcott
, a member of the Algonquin Round Table
, once said of him: "There isn't anything the matter with Levant that a few miracles wouldn't cure."
Open about his neuroses and hypochondria
, Levant, in later life became addicted to prescription drugs and was frequently committed to mental hospitals by his wife. Despite his afflictions, Levant was considered a genius by some, in many areas. (He himself wisecracked "There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.")
Later life and death
Levant drew increasingly away from the limelight in his later years. Upon his death in Beverly Hills, Californiaof a heart attack
at the age of 65, he was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery
in Los Angeles, California
. In their routines, some comics have claimed, apocryphally, and citing an old joke, that hypochondriac Levant's epitaph was inscribed, "I told them I was ill."
Filmography
- Ben Bernie and All the LadsBen Bernie and All the LadsBen Bernie and All the Lads is a short film made in 1923 by Lee De Forest in the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process. The film features Ben Bernie conducting his band All The Lads, and features pianist Oscar Levant....
(19241924 in film-Events:* Entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures to create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...
), filmed in early DeForest PhonofilmPhonofilmIn 1919, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patent on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back...
sound-on-film process. - The Dance of Life (19291929 in film-Events:The days of the silent film are numbered. A mad scramble to provide synchronized sound is on.*January 20 - The movie In Old Arizona is released. The film is the first full-length talking film to be filmed outdoors....
) - Night Parade (19291929 in film-Events:The days of the silent film are numbered. A mad scramble to provide synchronized sound is on.*January 20 - The movie In Old Arizona is released. The film is the first full-length talking film to be filmed outdoors....
) (uncredited) - In Person (19351935 in film-Events:*Judy Garland signs a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer .*Seven year old Shirley Temple wins a special Academy Award.*The Bantu Educational Kinema Experiment started in order to educate the Bantu peoples.-Top grossing films:-Academy Awards:...
) - Rhythm on the RiverRhythm on the RiverRhythm on the River is a 1940 musical comedy film starring Bing Crosby and Mary Martin as ghostwriters whose songs are credited to a composer played by Basil Rathbone. James V...
(19401940 in filmThe year 1940 in film involved some significant events, including the premieres of the Walt Disney classics Pinocchio and Fantasia.-Events:*February 7 - Walt Disney's animated film Pinocchio is released....
) - Kiss the Boys Goodbye (19411941 in filmThe year 1941 in film involved some significant events.-Events:Citizen Kane, consistently rated as one of the greatest films of all time, was released in 1941.-Top grossing films :-Academy Awards:...
) - Rhapsody in BlueRhapsody in Blue (film)Rhapsody in Blue is a 1945 fictionalized screen biography of the American composer and musician George Gershwin . Starring Robert Alda as Gershwin, the film features a few of Gershwin's acquaintances playing themselves...
(19451945 in filmThe year 1945 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Paramount Studios releases theatrical short cartoon titled The Friendly Ghost, featuring a ghost named Casper.* With Rossellini's Roma Città aperta, Italian neorealist cinema begins....
) - HumoresqueHumoresque (film)Humoresque is a 1946 Warner Bros. feature film starring Joan Crawford and John Garfield in an older woman/younger man tale about a violinist and his patroness. The screenplay by Clifford Odets and Zachary Gold was based upon a novel by Fannie Hurst...
(19461946 in filmThe year 1946 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*November 21 - William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives premieres in New York featuring an ensemble cast including Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, and Harold Russell.*December 20 - Frank Capra's It's a...
) - Romance on the High SeasRomance on the High SeasRomance on the High Seas is a 1948 Technicolor musical romantic comedy film starring Jack Carson, Janis Paige, Don DeFore, and Doris Day in her film debut....
(19481948 in filmThe year 1948 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Laurence Olivier's Hamlet becomes the first British film to win the American Academy Award for Best Picture.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :...
), Doris Day's first picture. - You Were Meant for MeYou Were Meant for Me (film)You Were Meant for Me is a 1948 20th Century Fox musical film directed by Lloyd Bacon starring Dan Dailey and Jeanne Crain as a bandleader and his wife. Marilyn Monroe worked on the film as an uncredited extra.-See also:...
(19481948 in filmThe year 1948 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Laurence Olivier's Hamlet becomes the first British film to win the American Academy Award for Best Picture.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :...
) - The Barkleys of BroadwayThe Barkleys of BroadwayThe Barkleys of Broadway is a 1949 musical film from the Arthur Freed unit at MGM that reunited Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers after ten years apart...
(19491949 in filmThe year 1949 in film involved some significant events.-Top grossing films :- Awards :Academy Awards:*Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff, starring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello...
) - An American in ParisAn American in Paris (film)An American in Paris is a 1951 MGM musical film inspired by the 1928 orchestral composition by George Gershwin. Starring Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guetary, and Nina Foch, the film is set in Paris, and was directed by Vincente Minnelli from a script by Alan Jay Lerner...
(19511951 in filmThe year 1951 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Sweden - May Britt is scouted by Italian film-makers Carlo Ponti and Mario Soldati-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:...
), where he played a bohemianBohemianismBohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
pianist. - O. Henry's Full HouseO. Henry's Full HouseO. Henry's Full House is an anthology film made by 20th Century Fox, consisting of five separate stories by O. Henry. The film was produced by André Hakim and directed by five separate directors from five separate screenplays. The music score was composed by Alfred Newman...
(19521952 in filmThe year 1952 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 10 - Cecil B. DeMille's circus epic, The Greatest Show on Earth, premieres at Radio City Music Hall in New York City....
) - The I Don't Care Girl (19531953 in filmThe year 1953 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*September 16 — The Robe debuts as the first anamorphic, widescreen CinemaScope film.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:A...
) - The Band WagonThe Band WagonThe Band Wagon is a 1953 musical comedy film that many critics rank, along with Singin' in the Rain, as the finest of the MGM musicals, although it was only a modest box-office success. It tells the story of an aging musical star who hopes a Broadway play will restart his career...
(19531953 in filmThe year 1953 in film involved some significant events.-Events:*September 16 — The Robe debuts as the first anamorphic, widescreen CinemaScope film.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:A...
), where his songwriter character was based on the movie's own co-screenwriter — songwriter Adolph GreenAdolph GreenAdolph Green was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at MGM, during the genre's heyday...
. - The CobwebThe Cobweb (film)The Cobweb is a MGM film. It was directed by Vincente Minnelli and based on a novel by William Gibson. It was released on DVD as part of the Warner Archive Collection on January 18, 2011....
(19551955 in filmThe year 1955 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* November 3 - The musical Guys and Dolls, starring Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra, debuts.* June 27 - The last ever Republic serial, King of the Carnival, is released....
) - The Oscar Levant Show (19581958 in filmThe year 1958 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 16- "In the Money" by William Beaudine is released on this date. It would be the last installment of The Bowery Boys series which began back in 1946....
)
Broadway
- Burlesque (1927) - musical playPlay (theatre)A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
- performer - Ripples (1930) - musical - co-composerComposerA composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
- Sweet and Low (1930) - musical revue - songwriter
- The Fabulous Invalid (1938) - musical playPlay (theatre)A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
- replacement conductorConductingConducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble... - The American Way (1939) - musical playPlay (theatre)A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
- conductor and composer
Memoirs
- A Smattering of Ignorance, New York : Doubleday, 19401940 in literatureThe year 1940 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Aldous Huxley is a screenwriter for the movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.*Jean-Paul Sartre is taken prisoner by the Germans....
- The Memoirs of an Amnesiac, New York : Putnam's, 19651965 in literatureThe year 1965 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Lloyd Alexander - The Black Cauldron*J. G. Ballard - The Drought*Ray Bradbury - The Vintage Bradbury*John Brunner...
- The Unimportance of Being OscarThe Unimportance of Being OscarThe Unimportance of Being Oscar is a 1968 memoir by writer/pianist/actor Oscar Levant. The book is known for Oscar's laconic witticisms, such as "everyone in Hollywood is gay, except Gabby Hayes — and that's because he is a transvestite."-Details:...
, New York : Putnam's, 19681968 in literatureThe year 1968 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* Dean R. Koontz's first novel, Star Quest is published....
External links
- Levant at Classical Net
- Ben Bernie and All the Lads (1924), a film featuring Levant as pianist, made in PhonofilmPhonofilmIn 1919, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patent on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back...
process by Lee DeForest in New York City - Web biography
- 1958 clip from the Oscar Levant Show featuring Fred AstaireFred AstaireFred Astaire was an American film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer and actor. His stage and subsequent film career spanned a total of 76 years, during which he made 31 musical films. He was named the fifth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute...
at YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....