Oscar Levant

Artist: Oscar Levant

LP: Levant's Favorites

Song: Manuel de Falla's "Fire Dance" (No. 7 from "El Amor Brujo")

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Just to be clear, that is not Oscar Levant on the LP cover—but perhaps she's another one of his favorites? Here's a picture of Oscar taken from the back of the record: 

I first became a fan of Oscar Levant when he appeared as John Garfield's piano-playing sidekick in what became one of my all-time favorite movies, HUMORESQUE—a Joan Crawford vehicle from 1946. His talent on the piano is well showcased there, just as it is in the breezy musical comedy film debut of Doris Day, ROMANCE ON THE HIGH SEAS (1948), and, of course, in the classic 1951 Gene Kelly musical, AN AMERICAN IN PARIS. On the internet today I learned that Levant wrote (or maybe co-wrote) the song "Blame It On My Youth," that he was known for making offhand cutting remarks ("he was always good for a bright response edged with acid"), and that Levant's radio shows were frequently yanked off the air because of his dirty/funny wisecracks about things like Mae West's sex life or for saying this about Marilyn Monroe's conversion to Judaism: "Now that Marilyn Monroe is kosher, Arthur Miller can eat her." Click here to read more of Oscar Levant's brilliant quotes, to get further details about his life and career and to see a list of the films he appeared in throughout the 1940s and '50s. Notes from the back of Columbia Records' 1958 "Levant's Favorites" LP are included below, and if you're interested in learning a little about Spanish composer Manuel de Falla, click here.

 

  

[ Oscar Levant: December 27, 1906 — August 14, 1972 ]