“I once said cynically of a politician, ‘He'll double-cross that bridge when he comes to it.’”—Pianist-composer-wit Oscar Levant, in The Memoirs of an Amnesiac (1965)
Oscar Levant, born in Pittsburgh on this date in 1906, was a close friend of George Gershwin. He is probably best known to film fans for musical comedies that highlighted his caustic wit, such as An American in Paris and The Band Wagon. For the two decades before his death in 1972, his mounting neuroses, stage fright and hypochondria led to several stints in mental hospitals, inspiring increasingly self-directed humor.
I prefer his one-liners directed at outside targets, such as today’s quote—a statement that, I think, never really goes out of fashion.
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