Oscar Levant

Oscar Levant (December 27, 1906 – August 14, 1972) was a Pittsburgh-born pianist, composer, conductor, actor, author, comedian, radio panelist, and television host. His parents were Max, an Orthodox Jewish watchmaker, and Annie, who had emigrated from Russia; his maternal grandfather, a rabbi, performed his parents' wedding ceremony. Levant relocated to New York in 1922 and began piano studies under Zygmunt Stojowski.

His Broadway career began in 1927, when he appeared in both the musical Ripples and the play Burlesque. In 1925, prior to those stage credits, he had appeared alongside Ben Bernie in a short De Forest Phonofilm sound film, Ben Bernie and All the Lads, shot in New York City, and he also recorded with the Ben Bernie Orchestra during the 1920s. Levant traveled to Hollywood in 1928, where he befriended George Gershwin and began composing for film; between 1929 and 1948 he composed music for more than twenty movies. Among the songs he wrote or co-wrote during this period, "Blame It on My Youth" (1934) came to be regarded as a standard. Around 1932 he undertook serious compositional study under Arnold Schoenberg, who was sufficiently impressed to offer Levant an assistantship, which Levant declined. That same year Aaron Copland invited him to perform at the Yaddo Festival of contemporary American music on April 30, after which Levant began work on a sinfonietta.

Levant returned to Broadway as a conductor in 1938, stepping in for his brother Harry for sixty-five performances of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's The Fabulous Invalid. The following year he served as both composer and conductor for another Kaufman and Hart production, The American Way. By the 1940s he had become the highest-paid concert pianist in the United States, and he was widely recognized for his recordings of Gershwin and various classical composers.

During the late 1930s and 1940s, Levant became a fixture on the radio quiz program Information Please, originally booked as a guest but retained as a regular panelist alongside Franklin P. Adams, John Kieran, and moderator Clifton Fadiman. He was consistently addressed on the program as "Mr. Levant." He also appeared regularly on NBC radio's Kraft Music Hall, where he accompanied Al Jolson on piano and participated in comedy sketches and ad-libbed exchanges. Both Levant and Jolson appeared as themselves in the 1945 Gershwin biopic Rhapsody in Blue. In the early 1950s Levant was an occasional panelist on the NBC radio and television game show Who Said That?. From 1958 to 1960 he hosted The Oscar Levant Show on KCOP-TV in Los Angeles, a program that was later syndicated and featured his piano playing alongside monologues and guest interviews, including appearances by Fred Astaire and Linus Pauling.

His film acting career spanned the late 1920s through the mid-1950s, with roles frequently casting him as a pianist or composer. He appeared in supporting parts in three Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musicals: The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers; An American in Paris (1951), starring Gene Kelly; and The Band Wagon (1953), starring Astaire and Cyd Charisse. In 1960 he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his recordings as a pianist.

In his personal life, Levant married actress Barbara Woodell in 1932; the couple divorced in 1933. In 1939 he married singer and actress June Gale, with whom he had three daughters: Marcia, Lorna, and Amanda. He spoke openly about his neuroses and hypochondria, became addicted to prescription drugs, and was committed to psychiatric hospitals by his wife on multiple occasions.

Levant died of a heart attack on August 14, 1972, at his home in Beverly Hills, California, at the age of 65. His wife June discovered him when she went to wake him from a nap ahead of a scheduled interview with Candice Bergen, who was working as a photojournalist at the time. He is interred at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.

His life continued to attract creative attention after his death. Actor John Garfield drew on Levant as a model for the character of troubled genius Mickey Borden in the 1938 film Four Daughters, and Levant served as the inspiration for the neurotic pianist Henry Orient in Nora Johnson's 1964 novel The World of Henry Orient. In April 2023, the play Good Night, Oscar, written by Pulitzer Prize winner Doug Wright, premiered on Broadway at the Belasco Theatre. The production starred Sean Hayes, who received the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his portrayal of Levant.