Oscar Levant

Trivia

• A close personal friend of George Gershwin's, Levant's performances of Gershwin's piano works are still considered definitive by many.
• A composer as well as a pianist, he had more than fifty published songs to his credit, most notably the standard "Blame It on My Youth," and several short instrumental works, including the whimsically titled "A Polka for Oscar Homolka."
• A lifetime sufferer of real and imagined ailments, his frequent stays in mental hospitals provided grist for his frequently biting humor.
• At the time of his death in August, 1972, he had been off the entertainment scene for so long (almost a decade) that the police and ambulance attendants had to be told who he was.
• Was a regular panelist on the popular radio quiz show "Information, Please" in the late 1930s and early 1940s, as well as a semi-regular on Al Jolson's radio program in the late 1940s.
• Recorded for Columbia and American Decca records.
• Some of his last public appearences were on the television quiz show "The Celebrity Game" in 1964, he also appeared October 17, 1965 on "What's my Line" as the mystery guest promoting his book 'Memoirs of an Amnesiac'. It was around this time that he increasingly withdrew from the public eye (although he continued to write and his book 'The Unimportance of Being Oscar' was published in 1968) and lived remainder of his life (he died in 1972) with his second wife June and their three daughters out
• The role of Cosmo Brown in Singin' in the Rain (1952) was written with him in mind, but was instead immortalized by Donald O'Connor.
• He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6728 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.

Quotes

• "I'm a controversial figure. My friends either dislike me or hate me."
• "I hate cold showers. They stimulate me, and then I don't know what to do."
• "Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember."
• "I am no more humble than my talents require."
• "I envy people who drink. At least they have something to blame everything on."
• "The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too."
• "There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line."
• "I admire Leonard Bernstein, but not as much as he does."
• "I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin."
• "Strip the phony tinsel off Hollywood and you'll find the real tinsel underneath."