"So little time, and so little to do"

The other morning on the "Today" show, Hoda Kotb was talking to Sean Hayes, who has mounted a Broadway show "Good Night, Oscar," about the amazing Oscar Levant (1906 - 1972) who was a pianist, wit, author, actor, and all-around genius.

Hoda began the interview with Hayes, who is getting raves all over for his portrayal of Levant, by saying she was sure that most people did not know who Levant was. And all I could think of was Oscar himself would have said about that comment.

Oscar has been a hero of mine since my childhood. I would watch him on shows such as the Jack Paar broadcast, and I was impressed with the depth and breadth of his talent, knowledge, and wit. Many people have one or two of those qualities. But in my lifetime, Oscar stood alone for possessing all three magnificently.

Talent? He was once considered among the best of the American concert pianists, and his recording of Gershwin's "Rhapsody In Blue" was one of the top sellers for Columbia Records for many years. An eight-CD collection of his selections entitled “Rhapsody in Blue: The Extraordinary Life of Oscar Levant” is on sale. His concerts were sellouts, and he played parts in a lot of movies, sometimes as himself, and sometimes as himself under another name - an acerbic pianist.

Knowledge? There was a radio show called "Information Please" that ran from 1938 until 1951. The premise was simple - people at home would send in questions to ask of a panel of well-informed and witty people, and if they stumped the experts, they won a few dollars and a set of encyclopedias. Oscar was once a guest panelist, but soon became a regular when people saw how much he knew about music, the movies, and diverse topics such as baseball. 

Wit? Take your choice of snappy comments, from "I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin" to "I think a lot of Bernstein, but not as much as he does" to "I've given up reading books. I find it takes my mind off myself" to, "For exercise, I stumble and fall into a coma." 

Oscar's father was cold and distant, and his mother was harsh and critical. Even though he was blessed with enormous natural talent, he also went through life carrying the burden of self-doubt and insecurity, which manifested itself in his acerbic outlook. As a child in Pittsburgh, he once gave an orange to a little girl in his class he had a crush on. The girl rejected him and his gift. For the rest of his life, Oscar refused to wear any orange clothing or have anything orange in his house - including oranges. That's just one example he mentioned in his two autobiographies, "The Unimportance Of Being Oscar" and "Memoirs Of An Amnesiac."

Trying to imagine how many more things Oscar Levant might have accomplished without the crippling neuroses that bedeviled him is fascinating, but maybe we should just appreciate what he was for what it was. 

It's just a shame that he felt like having to say things such as “It isn’t what you are, it’s what you don’t become that hurts” when he became so much.