A close personal friend of George Gershwin's, Levant's performances of Gershwin's piano works are still considered definitive by many.
A composer as well as a pianist, he had more than fifty published songs to his credit, most notably the standard "Blame It on My Youth," and several short instrumental works, including the whimsically titled "A Polka for Oskar Homolka.".
A lifetime sufferer of real and imagined ailments, his frequent stays in mental hospitals provided grist for his frequently biting humor.
At the time of his death in August, 1972, he had been off the entertainment scene for so long (almost a decade) that the police and ambulance attendants had to be told who he was.
He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6728 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
Recorded for Columbia and American Decca records.
Some of his last public appearances were on the television quiz show "The Celebrity Game" (1964) in 1964; he also appeared October 17, 1965 on "What's My Line?" (1950) as the mystery guest promoting his book "Memoirs of an Amnesiac". It was around this time that he increasingly withdrew from the public eye (although he continued to write and his book "The Unimportance of Being Oscar" was published in 1968) and lived the remainder of his life (he died in 1972) with his second wife June and their three daughters out of the limelight.
The role of Cosmo Brown in Singin' in the Rain (1952) was written with him in mind, but was instead immortalized by Donald O'Connor.
Was a regular panelist on the popular radio quiz show "Information, Please" in the late 1930s and early 1940s, as well as a semi-regular on Al Jolson's radio program in the late 1940s.