Learn about Oscar Levant ahead of 'Good Night, Oscar' at the Barbican

Sean Hayes reprises his Tony-winning role as the multi-faceted musician and entertainer, dubbed "America's first publicly dysfunctional celebrity".

Julia Rank16 July, 2025, 09:00

This summer, Doug Wright’s play Good Night, Oscar, which dramatises an episode in the life of entertainer and “personality” Oscar Levant, runs at the Barbican in London. Levant might not be a household name now, but he was enormously well-known in his heyday and a significant figure in 20th-century American entertainment. Best known as a musician, he was also a celebrated wit and he broke taboos around mental health.

Read on to learn more about Levant’s remarkable life and career ahead of Good Night, Oscar’s UK premiere starring a Tony Award-winning Sean Hayes.

Book Good Night, Oscar tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk.

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Who was Oscar Levant?

Oscar Levant was a multi-faceted American entertainer and showbiz personality who worked as a concert pianist, composer, conductor, game show panellist, talk show host, actor, comedian, and memoirist from the 1920s to the 1960s.

Levant was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1906 to Orthodox Jewish parents and he moved to New York City in 1922 to study with the pianist Zygmunt Stojowski. He went to Hollywood in 1928 to compose film scores and pop songs. Levant aspired to become a “serious” composer and studied with the Austrian-American modernist composer and musicologist Arnold Schoenberg.

However, he achieved greater success as a pianist and, in his prime, he was the highest-paid concert artist in America and was particularly renowned for his interpretations of the works of George Gershwin (more on that below). As a songwriter, he composed one standard, "Blame it on My Youth" (1934), which went on to be recorded by Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Gordon MacRae, Rosemary Clooney, and many others.

He appeared in several films, and his spiky, self-deprecating sense of humour lent itself to panel shows and talk shows (as seen in Good Night, Oscar), which made him a familiar face among audiences across America.

Levant talked publicly about his mental health challenges and would appear on television in a state of mania at a time when such topics were taboo. He remarked: "There is a fine line between genius and insanity, I have erased that line." NPR called him “America’s first publicly dysfunctional celebrity”. Levant died of a heart attack in 1972 at the age of 65.

What was Oscar Levant’s association with George Gershwin?

Levant first heard George Gershwin’s music at the age of 12 and instantly became an acolyte. They met when Levant moved to Hollywood in 1928. Their friendship was often strained as Gershwin penned hit after hit (including the scores of Porgy and Bess, Of Thee I Sing, and Strike Up the Band, as well as many orchestral works), while Levant's composing career was less elevated.

Gershwin tragically died of a brain tumour in 1937 at the age of 38 and Levant lived for another 35 years. Levant continues to be considered one of the foremost interpreters of Gershwin’s work by music lovers and musicologists, and the great composer appears in Good Night, Oscar as a manifestation of Levant's hallucinations.

What films did Oscar Levant appear in?

Levant appeared in almost 20 Hollywood films in cameo or supporting roles, usually playing versions of himself. He made his debut in the 1925 silent film Ben Bernie and all the Lads and he played himself in the 1945 George Gershwin biopic Rhapsody in Blue (starring Robert Alda as Gershwin - he also dubbed Alda on the piano)

He played Doris Day’s unrequited love interest in her film debut Romance on the High Seas (1948) – it was Levant who quipped “I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin” – and appeared in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949), which featured the final pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

The two best films that he appeared in came in the early 1950s, both directed by Vincente Minnelli. Featuring the music of George Gershwin, An American in Paris (1951) starred Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron and won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Levant played Kelly’s friend and neighbour Adam, a struggling concert pianist. You can watch Levant and Kelly in action here, each playing to their strengths and complementing each other brilliantly:

In 1952’s The Band Wagon, which starred Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, Levant played Lester, husband to Nanette Fabray’s Lily. The characters were based on the film’s screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green (though Comden and Green’s relationship was purely professional). Here is Levant performing the joyous "That's Entertainment" with Astaire, Fabray, and Jack Buchanan.

What was Tonight Starring Jack Paar?

Tonight Starring Jack Paar (later titled The Jack Paar Tonight Show) was the second incarnation of The Tonight Show, which ran from 1957-62. Paar was the most celebrated talk show host of his time and, according to his obituary in Time magazine, "his fans would remember him as the fellow who split talk show history into two eras: Before Paar and Below Paar."

Set in 1958, Good Night, Oscar is a fictionalised account of a true incident in Levant’s life in which he was discharged from a psychiatric unit for four hours in order to appear on the show. Would he hold it together or would he go off the rails and scandalise Middle America? Levant might have been a liability but his candidness guaranteed high audience figures and he was Paar’s own favourite guest.

Who is in the cast and creative team of Good Night, Oscar?

In Good Night, Oscar, Levant is played by Sean Hayes, who is best known for his Emmy Award-winning performance as Jack McFarlane in Will & Grace. In 2023, Hayes won a Tony for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his performance. Before becoming an actor, Hayes trained as a pianist and plays the piano himself in the show.

The cast also incudes Rosalie Craig (Company) as Levant’s second wife June, and Ben Rappaport (The Good Wife) reprises his Broadway role as Jack Paar.

Playwright Doug Wright wrote the dark historical satire Quills about the Marquis de Sade, which was turned into a film starring Geoffrey Rush and Kate Winslet. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for his debut Broadway play I Am My Own Wife in 2004, and he contributed the books for the musicals Grey Gardens, The Little Mermaid, and War Paint. The show is directed by Lisa Peterson, who has worked extensively across the US.