“It would have been better if you had died and Gershwin had written the elegy.”

— Oscar Levant

Critiquing a musical tribute composed shortly after Gershwin's death (July 11, 1937) by an unnamed mutual friend; as recounted by Levant in The Memoirs of an Amnesiac (1965); and quoted in "On San Diego: You Can Bet On It" https://books.google.com/books?id=DAMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=RA2-PA272&dq=%22Oscar+Levant%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwinnrf4gNnRAhVHwiYKHWsVBrI4FBDoAQg3MAg#v=onepage&q=%22Oscar%20Levant%22&f=false by Tom Blair, in San Diego Magazine (September 2007), p. 272

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Oscar Levant 42

American comedian, composer, pianist and actor 1906–1972

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