Memoirs of an Amnesiac

Description

The Memoirs of an Amnesiac is the autobiography of composer, radio, and television personality Oscar Levant. Published in 1965 by G. P. Putnam's Sons, it was Levant's second best-seller, following a quarter-century after his first book, A Smattering of Ignorance. Levant intersperses his reminisces about Hollywood in its heyday with one-liners and pithy quotes by himself and others. When asked about writing a book on Victor Herbert by a publisher, for example, Levant remarked "I wouldn't even read one!" Dorothy Parker, when Levant asked her if she ever took sleeping pills, supposedly answered, "In a big bowl with sugar and cream." A world class pianist, composer, television and film personality, Levant seemed to know everyone who was anyone. His career took him from the concert hall to Broadway and Hollywood, to radio and television, to drug addiction and the psychiatric ward of Mr Sinai hospital. Through a collection of anecdotal vignettes, Levant offers the reader a roller-coaster ride through the ups and downs of an often troubled, often brilliant artist and critic of the human condition, let loose on the uneasy ground where art and commerce overlap.