Squab? Why thank you Oscar. I never heard of you before this and now you just taught me a new word; squab. Should come in handy in Scrabble one day. All I know is: the more genius they are, the more stranger they appear.
"dentelTV1" made an error labeling this video "10-1-1965." CBS broadcast it live in the eastern and central time zones on Sunday night, October 17, 1965.
You might have to rewind the video a few seconds to catch this. While Oscar Levant is extending his arm to point to Dorothy Kilgallen, you can hear him say, referring to Kilgallen's alleged interview with him when her newspaper column was new, "It was just before Dr. Sheppard's murder."
Kilgallen's Voice of Broadway column started in November 1938. The murder of Dr. Sam Sheppard's wife Marilyn, which prompted Kilgallen and many other journalists to report on his trial, happened in July 1954.
"oscar's memory was correct. dorothy had written a column about him that helped get him a lot of publicity when he was looking for a push. with all her drug-taking, she probably forgot."
It's very possible Oscar's memory failed. He might have been wrong when he said on-camera that he had been the third person Kilgallen interviewed for her Voice of Broadway column when it was new. He added, "It was just before Dr. Sheppard's murder."
@Trevoc2 Anyone who watched TV late 1950s early 60s will recall Levant's frequent appearances on NBC's Jack Paar Show. It was during those appearances Levant became the first celebrity to candidly discuss, in front of national audience, his battle with drug addiction, obsessive–compulsive behavior & depression, neurotic phobias, his experiences with psychiatry, shock treatments & group therapy. Paar would often sign off with the phrase, "Good night, Oscar Levant, wherever you are." !
@onstageagain thanks for taking time to explain this bit of history. In the 50's I was living in another country, and in the 60's I was just learning English and not too familiar with the Whats My Line show, I preferred many of the other youth oriented shows. So, your explanation really helps to connect some of the missed dots of that period. Thanks!
OH Berle! Sometimes you just annoy me. I love it when Groucho said to Berle one time when Berle said to him I learned from you, "then you weren't watching." But as for Oscar-he was known and admitted jokingly many times about his mental health. He was known as the troubled pianist. Great sometimes. Depressing at other occasions.
I literally laughed out loud when Milton kissed Preemo's head as he was leaving. Milton was rather annoying at times (I like when they just play the game, not go off on comedic tangents) but once in a while he said or did something very funny.
This man was a fallen genius. He should never have appeared on TV in his condition. He had a book to promote (which I've read and thoroughly enjoyed) but he was not fit to promote it. How very sad to see him this way. He was one of the most brilliant talk show guests and wits TV ever had.
@DougStoneent This appearance did not hurt Oscar nor his image in the slightest. Levant was very much loved & had a huge fan following. Were he to appear any other way that this, I'd wonder if he was being impersonated by someone else. I only wish there were more videos of him around. He was stoned most of the time on his own TV show. If you really think that he shouldn't be seen in this condition, you got your wish, because there's only 1 surviving show.
@dogshy61 He was widely appreciated during the 1940s and 50s as one of the cleverest and talented public people around. Unbelievably smart, he was also a great pianist, famous in movies and radio, composed music, movie scores, and several popular books, and knew most of the interesting people of his time. By this time, addiction and mental illness started to take their hold in the 50s. He wrote about that too. An extraordinary man in his day, it was sad to see him like this.
Oscar looks like he was under a good, strong dose of Demerol which was one of his favorite drugs. He also liked Seconal but had he been on that, he wouldn't have been so much as able to talk let alone walk.
Oscar & June gave the world 3 gorgeous daughter, but what ever happened to them? We have lost all but 1 of Oscar's TV shows, why don't they come out & share pictures, home movies, etc. with the world? Oscar had guests like Aldous Huxley on his show. What a crime losing those shows!
Alcohol, pills... it happens occasionally when someone is that brilliant: The rest of the world seems to be going by in slo-mo, and they need to find stimulation somewhere, somehow. Sad, very, very sad.
Levant was a famous hypochondriac and Cerf was a friend of his: he wasn't making a cheap shot. Cerf was underscoring the reason behind Levant's FAME. And Levant picked right up on it.
This saddens me... one of the greatest minds the human race has ever produced, and, due to self-abuse of a largely chemical nature, Levant can now barely speak.
@NellsStuff "In April 1970, Congress passed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act banning the advertising of cigarettes on television and radio starting on January 2, 1971." - Wikipedia
@uofjim Uncle Milty was known as Mr. Television, but to insiders he known for something that Congresspunk Joseph Weiner could only dream about having. Check out the Howard Stern interviews. Howard used to love ribbing him about it, always trying to get Uncle Milty to fess up to it. Milton Berle may have seemed annoying but after all, it was him who created television.
@uofjim Whom are you referring to? I cannot picture Levant frequenting clubs & stealing anything. I don't know how he'd even get to a nightclub in his typical condition & he was too spontaneous to ever need someone else's material. Levant was too authentic to have to copy anyone but himself.
If you had told the people in that studio, "Did you know that by the first decade in the 21st century, you'll not only be prohibited from smoking in here, but anyplace in New York City, even in a bar, and by the end of that decade they'll even be banning it in Central Park?" they would have thought you were crazy. If they believed it at all, they would have assumed the Communists were going to take over.
Close: Communism collapsed, but we grew our own crop of totalitarians instead.
oscar's memory was correct. dorothy had written a column about him that helped get him a lot of publicity when he was looking for a push. with all her drug-taking, she probably forgot.
"oscar's memory was correct. dorothy had written a column about him that helped get him a lot of publicity when he was looking for a push. with all her drug-taking, she probably forgot."
Her failure to remember had nothing to do with drug taking. You can hear Mr. Levant say she wrote about him in one of her earliest columns. That means he was remembering something from almost 27 years ago. How much can you remember from a particular day at your job in 1983 ?
This was good therapy for Mr. Levant although he is truly falling apart here.
Hopefully @63utuber will look at "The Bandwagon" or "The Barkley's of Broadway" films to see Mr. Levant in a better light. Better yet, see "Rhythm On The River" or, especially, "Humoresque" to see him young and very "fresh"!
I agree with @soulierinvestments about Bennett. He was tactless about identifying Mr. Levant. His weak, cheap attempt at humor, at Oscar's expense, was disgraceful.
@auntbecky Are you old enough to know anything about Levant's life? He was very sensitive, and clearly forcibly docile and drug-addled by this point. Cerf was a self-important jerk--(I just read his autobiography "At Random").
I stand by my comment--it was good for Oscar to get out and force himself to be sociable, but he suffered the withdrawals of the damned with his myriad drug issues.
@ipmoic I read somewhere that, when he died of a heart attack in 1972 at the age of 65, he'd been off the scene for so long that the EMTs answering the emergency call had to be told who he was.
He initially made his reputation as a concert pianist. His interpretations of the music of his close friend, George Gershwin, are regarded as definitive and have never been out of print.
"There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased that line." -- Oscar Levent
Interesting. I don't think Bennet's question was too bad considering Levant was always so open about his neurosis. He was so associated with his mental "illness's" that even the characters in his movie roles were often neurotic hypochondriacs.
1:45 --- This I do not miss from "the golden age of network television" -- those d^nmed cigarette commercials selling lung cancer and heart disease by the pack gussied up as male bonding amid cool guy technocrats.
3:27 --- Levant's smoking here on live TV was one of the last such displays in the history of Sunday night WML, so the irony lies rather thick on the ground: the commercial lies on the one hand and the obvious effects of smoking on Levant on the other hand.
Bennett, JESUS! Listen to that gasp/groan from the audience @5:00 - and John Daly's uncomfortable throat clearing when he has to repeat the question, haha!
I'm sure Bennett could be that way but this isn't so bad if you know the context. Oscar had about 20 appearances on Jack Paar (Tonight Show) in the years prior to this taping, where about all they did was joke about Oscar's problems. One example:
Paar: "We left some pills for you in the dressing room"
Levant, waving his hand at Paar: "Yeah I took them - they were nothing!"
Bennett in this case is just playing along with that shtick, which the public of that time was well aware of.
For those YouTubians unfamiliar with Oscar Levant's talents as an actor and concert pianist, I recommend these movies: Rhapsody in Blue, The Barkleys of Broadway, an American in Paris, and The Bandwagon.
Cerf certainly could be tactless; however, Levant was delightfully open about his various mental health troubles. I am loath to call them illnesses because he was a genius on many levels right to the end. Unfortunately, he suffered from (as we see) tobacco and prescription addictions.
I'm not clear on what you mean by "as we see". I've never heard of a tobacco prescription manifesting itself in the physical traits of a person. And in another comment, you mention "the visual effects of smoking". What are you referring to that I'm missing in the video?
I think the effects on Levant of his prescription addictions are evident in his compulsive ticks-and yes, smoking 4 packs a day for decades does show on the face-it ages people and it aged Levant, too.
Comment removed
triarii11 1 week ago
Squab? Why thank you Oscar. I never heard of you before this and now you just taught me a new word; squab. Should come in handy in Scrabble one day. All I know is: the more genius they are, the more stranger they appear.
LisaDawnn 1 month ago
I worked with and was friends with Mr. Levant in the 50s and 60s. He was a great deal of fun. I worked with his psychoanalyst as well.
howbeautiful32 1 month ago
"dentelTV1" made an error labeling this video "10-1-1965." CBS broadcast it live in the eastern and central time zones on Sunday night, October 17, 1965.
giuraesuda 2 months ago
You might have to rewind the video a few seconds to catch this. While Oscar Levant is extending his arm to point to Dorothy Kilgallen, you can hear him say, referring to Kilgallen's alleged interview with him when her newspaper column was new, "It was just before Dr. Sheppard's murder."
Kilgallen's Voice of Broadway column started in November 1938. The murder of Dr. Sam Sheppard's wife Marilyn, which prompted Kilgallen and many other journalists to report on his trial, happened in July 1954.
alanwatts1 2 months ago
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"bigred997" said one year ago:
"oscar's memory was correct. dorothy had written a column about him that helped get him a lot of publicity when he was looking for a push. with all her drug-taking, she probably forgot."
It's very possible Oscar's memory failed. He might have been wrong when he said on-camera that he had been the third person Kilgallen interviewed for her Voice of Broadway column when it was new. He added, "It was just before Dr. Sheppard's murder."
alanwatts1 2 months ago
Comment removed
unclejuniorsoprano 2 months ago
@Trevoc2 Anyone who watched TV late 1950s early 60s will recall Levant's frequent appearances on NBC's Jack Paar Show. It was during those appearances Levant became the first celebrity to candidly discuss, in front of national audience, his battle with drug addiction, obsessive–compulsive behavior & depression, neurotic phobias, his experiences with psychiatry, shock treatments & group therapy. Paar would often sign off with the phrase, "Good night, Oscar Levant, wherever you are." !
onstageagain 2 months ago
@onstageagain thanks for taking time to explain this bit of history. In the 50's I was living in another country, and in the 60's I was just learning English and not too familiar with the Whats My Line show, I preferred many of the other youth oriented shows. So, your explanation really helps to connect some of the missed dots of that period. Thanks!
Trevoc2 2 months ago
Thank you Mr. Levant for your humour. One of a kind.
grafonolafavorite 3 months ago
OH Berle! Sometimes you just annoy me. I love it when Groucho said to Berle one time when Berle said to him I learned from you, "then you weren't watching." But as for Oscar-he was known and admitted jokingly many times about his mental health. He was known as the troubled pianist. Great sometimes. Depressing at other occasions.
OldTelivisionRocks 3 months ago
@Trevoc2 He was a talented pianist who appeared in several Hollywood movies.
xander7ful 3 months ago
@Trevoc2 It's way more fun if you Google it.
acr08807 3 months ago
I literally laughed out loud when Milton kissed Preemo's head as he was leaving. Milton was rather annoying at times (I like when they just play the game, not go off on comedic tangents) but once in a while he said or did something very funny.
harrietcow 4 months ago
And they say Kilgallen took drugs!
SatchmoSings 5 months ago
This man was a fallen genius. He should never have appeared on TV in his condition. He had a book to promote (which I've read and thoroughly enjoyed) but he was not fit to promote it. How very sad to see him this way. He was one of the most brilliant talk show guests and wits TV ever had.
DougStoneent 5 months ago
@DougStoneent This appearance did not hurt Oscar nor his image in the slightest. Levant was very much loved & had a huge fan following. Were he to appear any other way that this, I'd wonder if he was being impersonated by someone else. I only wish there were more videos of him around. He was stoned most of the time on his own TV show. If you really think that he shouldn't be seen in this condition, you got your wish, because there's only 1 surviving show.
unclejuniorsoprano 2 months ago
Uncle Miltie and Groucho should have been a guests more often.
1madDogz 5 months ago
Milton is hilarious!
Belugawhale8 6 months ago
Why did they let pathetic junkie retards like this on the show? He looks like he's just about to piss his pants.! Who the fuck is this guy anyway?
dogshy61 6 months ago
@dogshy61 He was widely appreciated during the 1940s and 50s as one of the cleverest and talented public people around. Unbelievably smart, he was also a great pianist, famous in movies and radio, composed music, movie scores, and several popular books, and knew most of the interesting people of his time. By this time, addiction and mental illness started to take their hold in the 50s. He wrote about that too. An extraordinary man in his day, it was sad to see him like this.
dp7653 6 months ago
@dogshy61 He wasn't a junkie, he was on anti-psychotics.
acr08807 3 months ago
Oscar looks like he was under a good, strong dose of Demerol which was one of his favorite drugs. He also liked Seconal but had he been on that, he wouldn't have been so much as able to talk let alone walk.
Oscar & June gave the world 3 gorgeous daughter, but what ever happened to them? We have lost all but 1 of Oscar's TV shows, why don't they come out & share pictures, home movies, etc. with the world? Oscar had guests like Aldous Huxley on his show. What a crime losing those shows!
unclejuniorsoprano 8 months ago
@tamerswan
Alcohol, pills... it happens occasionally when someone is that brilliant: The rest of the world seems to be going by in slo-mo, and they need to find stimulation somewhere, somehow. Sad, very, very sad.
tuxguys 9 months ago
Wow... Oscar looked like a real mess! Hard to watch... a shame...
NellsStuff 9 months ago
I almost hurled during the sparkplug commercial. made me car-sick.
Lockbar 10 months ago
Levant was a famous hypochondriac and Cerf was a friend of his: he wasn't making a cheap shot. Cerf was underscoring the reason behind Levant's FAME. And Levant picked right up on it.
thedoeguy 11 months ago
This saddens me... one of the greatest minds the human race has ever produced, and, due to self-abuse of a largely chemical nature, Levant can now barely speak.
tuxguys 1 year ago
never saw a cigarette commercial before. were they on television?
Calsummersishere 1 year ago
@Calsummersishere Cigarette commercials were all over TV and Radio until '72 or '73, at which point they were banned forever.
jsteeber 1 year ago
@Calsummersishere YES! I think they stopped when I was a kid, in the early 1980s. Can anyone confirm?
NellsStuff 9 months ago
@NellsStuff "In April 1970, Congress passed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act banning the advertising of cigarettes on television and radio starting on January 2, 1971." - Wikipedia
stormyhawn 5 months ago
side effects from the psychiatric meds are painfully obvious here. Great posting, though
bt10ant 1 year ago
In todays parlance, Bennet Serf is an elitist.
44mkb 1 year ago
Milton Berle really is annoying
uofjim 1 year ago 13
@uofjim Totally.
ayokay123 10 months ago
@uofjim Uncle Milty was known as Mr. Television, but to insiders he known for something that Congresspunk Joseph Weiner could only dream about having. Check out the Howard Stern interviews. Howard used to love ribbing him about it, always trying to get Uncle Milty to fess up to it. Milton Berle may have seemed annoying but after all, it was him who created television.
unclejuniorsoprano 8 months ago
@unclejuniorsoprano he was also known for going to clubs, seeing comics perform, and stealing their material for his TV show.
uofjim 2 months ago
@uofjim Whom are you referring to? I cannot picture Levant frequenting clubs & stealing anything. I don't know how he'd even get to a nightclub in his typical condition & he was too spontaneous to ever need someone else's material. Levant was too authentic to have to copy anyone but himself.
unclejuniorsoprano 2 months ago
@uofjim I thought the same... he had to be in front of any audience... buy making a fool of himself.
onstageagain 2 months ago
If you had told the people in that studio, "Did you know that by the first decade in the 21st century, you'll not only be prohibited from smoking in here, but anyplace in New York City, even in a bar, and by the end of that decade they'll even be banning it in Central Park?" they would have thought you were crazy. If they believed it at all, they would have assumed the Communists were going to take over.
Close: Communism collapsed, but we grew our own crop of totalitarians instead.
racookster 1 year ago
@racookster we almost did........but we got some common sense and refused to let them give us cancer while they killed themselves.
auntbecky 1 year ago
oscar's memory was correct. dorothy had written a column about him that helped get him a lot of publicity when he was looking for a push. with all her drug-taking, she probably forgot.
bigred997 1 year ago
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@bigred997 said yesterday:
"oscar's memory was correct. dorothy had written a column about him that helped get him a lot of publicity when he was looking for a push. with all her drug-taking, she probably forgot."
Her failure to remember had nothing to do with drug taking. You can hear Mr. Levant say she wrote about him in one of her earliest columns. That means he was remembering something from almost 27 years ago. How much can you remember from a particular day at your job in 1983 ?
alanwatts1 1 year ago
His autobiography they mentioned is hilarious. There's also a good biography of him called 'A Talent for Genius'.
revaluator 1 year ago
An extremely talented man but deeply troubled. My mother had all his albums and I was mesmerized listening to him play the piano as a kid.
TheBlueyedblond 1 year ago
This was good therapy for Mr. Levant although he is truly falling apart here.
Hopefully @63utuber will look at "The Bandwagon" or "The Barkley's of Broadway" films to see Mr. Levant in a better light. Better yet, see "Rhythm On The River" or, especially, "Humoresque" to see him young and very "fresh"!
I agree with @soulierinvestments about Bennett. He was tactless about identifying Mr. Levant. His weak, cheap attempt at humor, at Oscar's expense, was disgraceful.
ipmoic 1 year ago 7
@ipmoic Well Oscar didn't seem to mind so i don't call it cheap.
auntbecky 1 year ago
@auntbecky Are you old enough to know anything about Levant's life? He was very sensitive, and clearly forcibly docile and drug-addled by this point. Cerf was a self-important jerk--(I just read his autobiography "At Random").
I stand by my comment--it was good for Oscar to get out and force himself to be sociable, but he suffered the withdrawals of the damned with his myriad drug issues.
ipmoic 1 year ago 2
@ipmoic I read somewhere that, when he died of a heart attack in 1972 at the age of 65, he'd been off the scene for so long that the EMTs answering the emergency call had to be told who he was.
He initially made his reputation as a concert pianist. His interpretations of the music of his close friend, George Gershwin, are regarded as definitive and have never been out of print.
"There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased that line." -- Oscar Levent
librarybob1958 10 months ago 2
My grandfather was a guard at Sinhg Sinhg.
tallpaul521 1 year ago
Love the commercials... but what a strange twitch he has.
panhead1219 1 year ago
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Love the commercials
panhead1219 1 year ago
Love the commercials
panhead1219 1 year ago
OH MY GOD! I'm reading that book now! It is (and he was) BRILLIANT!
ScarletSinn 1 year ago 3
Interesting. I don't think Bennet's question was too bad considering Levant was always so open about his neurosis. He was so associated with his mental "illness's" that even the characters in his movie roles were often neurotic hypochondriacs.
The segment with the water salesman was great.
Poor Dorothy--only one month to live :(
Marckymarc71 2 years ago
I've heard Oscar Levant on OTR (that's old time radio) shows many times. Now i finally know what he looks like.
63utuber 2 years ago
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1:45 --- This I do not miss from "the golden age of network television" -- those d^nmed cigarette commercials selling lung cancer and heart disease by the pack gussied up as male bonding amid cool guy technocrats.
3:27 --- Levant's smoking here on live TV was one of the last such displays in the history of Sunday night WML, so the irony lies rather thick on the ground: the commercial lies on the one hand and the obvious effects of smoking on Levant on the other hand.
soulierinvestments 2 years ago
Bennett, JESUS! Listen to that gasp/groan from the audience @5:00 - and John Daly's uncomfortable throat clearing when he has to repeat the question, haha!
ClassicShowbiz 2 years ago 2
@ClassicShowbiz
Gil Fates wrote that Bennett Cerf could be tactless, and this unfortunately is one of his more notorious examples of it. Egad.
soulierinvestments 2 years ago
I'm sure Bennett could be that way but this isn't so bad if you know the context. Oscar had about 20 appearances on Jack Paar (Tonight Show) in the years prior to this taping, where about all they did was joke about Oscar's problems. One example:
Paar: "We left some pills for you in the dressing room"
Levant, waving his hand at Paar: "Yeah I took them - they were nothing!"
Bennett in this case is just playing along with that shtick, which the public of that time was well aware of.
VonCringe 1 year ago 2
Comment removed
soulierinvestments 2 years ago
For those YouTubians unfamiliar with Oscar Levant's talents as an actor and concert pianist, I recommend these movies: Rhapsody in Blue, The Barkleys of Broadway, an American in Paris, and The Bandwagon.
Cerf certainly could be tactless; however, Levant was delightfully open about his various mental health troubles. I am loath to call them illnesses because he was a genius on many levels right to the end. Unfortunately, he suffered from (as we see) tobacco and prescription addictions.
soulierinvestments 2 years ago 2
I'm not clear on what you mean by "as we see". I've never heard of a tobacco prescription manifesting itself in the physical traits of a person. And in another comment, you mention "the visual effects of smoking". What are you referring to that I'm missing in the video?
Thanks.
guerilla1977 2 years ago
I think the effects on Levant of his prescription addictions are evident in his compulsive ticks-and yes, smoking 4 packs a day for decades does show on the face-it ages people and it aged Levant, too.
blackwingy 2 years ago
one of the few classiest game shows:)
sexymama1966 2 years ago
thanks,. i'm glad someone with the game show network felt a need to upload some more material.
bigred997 2 years ago
Excellent. Thanks very much for posting.
13loomisst 2 years ago