Customer Reviews

The Unimportance of Being Oscar

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Oscar Levant (1906- 1966) was a many- sided close-to- genius figure. He was among other things a composer of considerable distinction, a classical pianist of the first rank, one of the greatest interpreters of Gershwin's music. He was also a tremendous 'character' a man of amazing wit and humor, a regular attendee of the famous Algonquin Round Table. In his last years he also became a television celebrity, and I well remmeber his performances on the Old Jack Paar show. He was always falling apart, the most nervous person imaginable, with a kind of sarcastic self- deprecating humor which was amazingly unexpected and funny.
This book like all his writing displays the incisive humor and sharp self- observation that characterized him.
One small anecdote gives a sense of who he is .After the death of his beloved friend and musical colleague George Gershwin, a mutual friend came to him and said that he had written an elegy and asked Levant to listen to it. Reluctantly , he did so. When it was over and the composer asked his opinion Levant said, "It would have been better if you had died, and Gershwin had written the elegy'.

Sadly, this tedious and monotonous parade of three or four-sentence anecdotes about "Famous People I Have Known" makes for a deeply boring book. Levant at his best (read "Memoirs of an Amnesiac") can be full of wit and acid, but here he's just rolling out story after story after story about his Hollywood pals. It reads like his wife put down every anecdote he could think of on index cards, then threw them up in the air and sent them to the printer to be bound. Repetitive and trivial, this book is not worth tracking down, even for fans of the great Oscar.

This book should be republished. It's Oscar's third and last. A priceless treasure trove of witticisms and rememberences. Impossible to put down.