“The definitive tale of Oscar.”
—Ian Whitcomb

“Whether you’ve ever heard of Oscar Levant or not doesn’t matter. This book’s a page-turner on any terms. It’s also a biography that’s simultaneously frank, funny and frightening.”
— The Hollywood Reporter

“Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger give us this maddening sprawl of a life with clear-eyed sympathy.”
— Entertainment Weekly

Oscar Levant was the Amadeus of Hollywood, the Oscar Wilde of Broadway, and the most wildly self-destructive personality ever to become a household name. An astonishingly gifted concert pianist (and the premier interpreter of Gershwin’s concert works), composer, film and stage presence, radio and television raconteur, insult wit, and bestselling author, Levant steered a maniacally masochistic course through seven decades spent in the company of some of America’s most noted literary, musical, and entertainment personages.

He penned three popular volumes of autobiography; made more than 100 recordings, including a version of Rhapsody in Blue that remained a bestselling classical record for ten years; and appeared in thirteen films, including An American in Paris, The Band Wagon, and Rhapsody in Blue, in which he literally played himself, best friend to George Gershwin.

His death in 1972, at the age of sixty-five, left the entertainment community shocked—largely with amazement that a four-pack-a-day smoker with a long history of drug abuse and mental illness had lasted as long as Levant did. Already hobbled by complex superstitions meant to ward off the terrors of performing, his addiction to Demerol in the 1950s almost destroyed him, but it didn’t keep him from appearing on television to talk about it. His uncensored comments on The Jack Paar Show and his own Los Angeles talk show made national news.

Sam Kashner is the co-author, along with his wife Nancy Schoenberger, of Hollywood Kryptonite: The Bulldog, the Lady, and the Death of Superman. He is the author of three books of poetry, most recently Don Quixote in America. Nancy Schoenberger won the Devins Award for her book of poetry The Girl on a White Porch. She’s an associate professor of creative writing at the College of William and Mary, where she edits Verse, an international poetry journal. She is currently working on a biography of Caroline Blackwood.