Oscar Levant Quotes Page

Notes

RhyneCats

Oscar Levant ( 1906 - 1972 )

Oscar Levant, the witty and TV star who was also an accomplished pianist,
drank forty to sixty cups of coffee a day, then complained endlessly
about his insomnia.

Oscar Levant was one of George Gershwin's closest friends, he was a true
renaissance man ala 1920s, 30s & 40s.  He was a gifted composer, brilliant
solo pianist, wise-cracking movie actor, ( he played Gene Kelley's piansit
buddy in the movie version of "American in Paris" ) and an author.
He has a Columbia Album, "Oscar Levant in a Recital of Modern Music" (COL M-508).

Oscar Levant was born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1906. In the liner notes for his 1942
album of Rhapsody in Blue, (COL MX-251) he started his auto-biographical sketch by
commenting: "I was born, like many other children whose parents happened to live in
Pittsburgh, in Pittsburgh, December 27, 1906. It has always been a regret that the
event could not have been delayed four days, so that I would have been born in 1907.
As it is, I'm reckoned as a nineteen-sixer, and thus thirty-five at the present time,
(1942) when I am really only thirty-four." He died in California in 1973.

As the title suggests, this album is a collection of a number of lesser-known "modern"
(ca late 1930s) musical pieces by such composers as George Gershwin, Claude Debussy,
Maurice Ravel and others including one of Oscar's own compositions,
"Sonatina: First Movement: Con ritmo", (COL 17336-D/CO 32411).

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

A dollar saved is a quarter earned.
A pun is the lowest form of humor -- when you don't think of it first.
An epigram is only a wisecrack that's played at Carnegie Hall.
Behind the phony tinsel of Hollywood lies the real tinsel.
Every time I look at you I get a fierce desire to be lonesome.
Happiness isn't something you experience, it's something you remember.
I am no more humble than my talents require.
I don't drink. I don't like it. It makes me feel good.
I envy people who drink. At least they have something to blame everything on.
I have given up reading books, I find it takes my mind off myself.
I have no trouble with y enemies. But my god damn friends... they are the ones that keep me walking the floors at night.
I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.
I once said cynically of a politician, He'll doublecross that bridge when he comes to it.
I'm a study of a man in chaos in search of frenzy.
I'm going to memorize your name and throw my head away.
I've given up reading books. I find it takes my mind off myself.
Once Dwight Eisenhower makes up his mind, he's full of indecision.
Once I make up my mind, I'm full of indecision.
Once he makes up his mind, he's full of indecision. [On Dwight D. Eisenhower]
Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm schizophrenic, and so am I.
So little time and so little to do.
Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you will find the real tinsel underneath.
The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too.
There are two sides to every question: my side and the wrong side.
There is a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.
Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.
What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Steve and Brigid     eMail Us