Oscar Levant

NPR tells me that this week is the 100th anniversary of Oscar Levant's birthday. Now here was a special talent! Perhaps most fondly remembered as a pianist and interpreter of Gershwin, he had an acerbic wit second to none. I used to watch his TV show in L.A. when I was a teenager, and it was there I witnessed one of the truly amazing things I've seen on television.

TV was live in those days. Thus Levant did his talk show -- and his commercials -- live. One time he was advertising a clock but having trouble reading the cue cards. When he got to a line about the clock being unbreakable, he stopped. Suddenly he threw the clock down on the floor and started stomping on it. The camera had a hard time keeping him in frame but eventually he emerged with a devilish grin and pieces of the clock he'd just destroyed. I don't think I've seen a better commercial on TV since.

Info on Levant:

If George Gershwin had an alter-ego, most people would agree that it was Oscar Levant (1906-1972), film composer and arranger. Levant, who was best known as a jazz pianist, was considered to have been the most accomplished interpreter of the vast songbook of U.S. composer George Gershwin, and was the first performer to record "Rhapsody in Blue" after Gershwin. He also scored numerous Broadway plays and Hollywood films, composed classical music, authored several books, and contributed numerous articles on musical topics.

Read more.

Biography.

Oscar Levant: Early-Night Talk Show Host, reminiscences by Roger M. Grace.

Famous remarks:

I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.

Elizabeth Taylor should get a divorce and settle down.

Behind the phony tinsel of Hollywood lies the real tinsel.

What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left.

Marriage is a triumph of habit over hate.

Happiness is not something you experience, it's something you remember.