Sam Levene

Born in Ekaterinaslav, Russia, Sam Levene was a Broadway, film, radio and television actor who in a career spanning more than five decades created some of the most legendary comedic roles in American theatrical history, including Nathan Detroit, the craps-shooter extraordinaire, in the 1950 original Broadway production of Guys and Dolls; Max Kane, the hapless agent, in the original 1932 Broadway production of Dinner at Eight; Patsy, a professional if not always successful gambler, in the 1935 original and longest running Broadway production of Three Men on a Horse; Gordon Miller, the shoestring producer, in the original 1937 Broadway production of Room Service; Sidney Black, a theatrical producer, in Moss Hart's original Broadway production of Light Up the Sky; Horace Vandergelder, the crotchety merchant of Yonkers, in the 1954 premier UK production of Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker, a play that became the basis for the musical Hello Dolly and Al Lewis, the retired vaudevillian, in the original 1972 Broadway production of The Sunshine Boys, Neil Simon’s beloved salute to vaudevillians opposite Jack Albertson as Willie Clark. In 1984, Levene was posthumously inducted in the American Theatre Hall of Fame and in 1998, Sam Levene along with the original Broadway cast of the 1950 Guys and Dolls Decca cast album posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The son of a cantor, Sam Levene was stubbornly proud of his Jewish heritage and refused all requests by directors and producers who tried to persuade the actor to anglicize his last name, something that occurred frequently early in Levene's career. To join Actor's Equity in 1927, Levene was forced to change the spelling of his last name from "Levine" because another actor at the time was using the name "Sam Levine" so Sam decided to spell "Levene" phonetically. Sam Levene made his Broadway stage debut on April 20, 1927 with a five-line part as an assistant district attorney in the original Broadway melodrama, Wall Street, at the Hudson Theatre. Although Levene's first Broadway show lasted three weeks, his Broadway career ran 54 years; he appeared in 38 Broadway shows, most of them original Broadway productions. Nine years after making his Broadway debut, Levene was lured and moved to Hollywood in 1936 when he made his motion picture debut as Patsy in the 1936 Warner Bros. film Three Men on a Horse directed and produced by Mervyn LeRoy. Sam Levene was paid $1,000. a week to recreate on film his original comedic Broadway role as Patsy he had played for seventy weeks in the original Broadway production of Three Men on a Horse. Known as a dependable character actor, Levene appeared in 50 films, including 14 at MGM, over his five-decade Hollywood career. Levene established himself as one of the great film noir stalwarts with a long list of film noir credits, a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas. Levene's film noir credits includes his riveting performance as Samuels, the murdered GI, in the 1947 film, Crossfire, considered by many as one of RKO’s if not perhaps of any studio’s best film noirs. For seven decades Levene has been synonymous with the role of Nathan Detroit; Guys and Dolls book writer Abe Burrows specifically crafted the role of Nathan Detroit around and for Levene, who signed for the project long before Burrows ever wrote a single word of dialogue, a similar break Burrows said he had when he wrote Cactus Flower for Lauren Bacall. In “Honest, Abe: Is There Really No Business Like Show Business?”, Burrows recalls "I had the sound of their voices in my head. I knew the rhythm of their speech and it helped make the dialogue sharper and more real." Laurence Olivier said that Sam Levene's performance as Nathan Detroit was the greatest stage performance he'd ever seen. Not known as a singer, Levene originated the "craps-shooter extraordinaire" Nathan Detroit in the seminal American musical Guys and Dolls on the Great White Way in the original 1950 production directed by the inimitable George S. Kaufman, which ran for 1,200 performances. Thousands of productions of Guys and Dolls are mounted annually and Sam Levene's legendary comedic performance as Nathan Detroit still makes headlines, even in 2019. In 1953 Levene reprised the role of Nathan Detroit in the first UK production of Guys and Dolls at London's Coliseum, performing the legendary role for 555 performances, including a Royal Command Variety Performance for Queen Elizabeth on November 9, 1953. Sam Levene performed the role of Nathan Detroit twice daily in a reduced version of Guys and Dolls when the first Las Vegas production opened a six-month run at the Royal Nevada, September 7, 1955, the first time a Broadway musical was performed on the strip. Levene reprised his legendary role on the Decca original cast recording of the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls according to Variety magazine, original cast album sales totaled 250,000 as of 9/1/54. Guys and Dolls composer and lyricist Frank Loesser specifically wrote “Sue Me” in one octave for Levene and structured the song so he and Vivian Blaine never sang their show-stopping duet number together; the son of a cantor, Levene was fluent in Yiddish: "Alright, already, I’m just a no-goodnick; alright, already, it’s true, so nu? So sue me." Frank Loesser felt[13] "Nathan Detroit should be played as a brassy Broadway tough guy who sang with more grits than gravy." Levene sang "Sue Me" with "such a wonderful Runyonesque flavor that his singing had been easy to forgive, in fact it had been quite charming in its ineptitude." Levene lost the role of Nathan Detroit to Frank Sinatra in the film version. "You can’t have a Jew playing a Jew, it wouldn’t work on screen", producer Samuel Goldwyn argued, explaining he wanted Frank Sinatra rather than Levene — who had originated the role — to play the part of Nathan Detroit in the film version even though film director Joseph L. Mankiewicz wanted Levene, the original Broadway star. Joseph L. Mankiewicz said "if there could be one person in the world more miscast as Nathan Detroit than Frank Sinatra that would be Laurence Olivier and I am one of his greatest fans; the role had been written for Sam Levene who was divine in it". Levene will break your heart when you listen to him sing 'All right, already, I’m just a no-goodnick . . .' on the original Guys and Dolls cast recording of 'Sue Me'". Fordham Professor of Music Larry Stempel, author of Showtime: A History of the Broadway Musical Theater, said if given a choice, he would cast Levene, who created the role on Broadway, as the ideal Nathan Detroit instead of Nathan Lane, who played the part in the Broadway revival or Frank Sinatra, who played the part on film, stating "Musically, he may have been tone-deaf, but he inhabited Frank Loesser’s world as a character more than a caricature. Over five decades Al Hirschfeld, considered the greatest caricaturist of the 20th century, created nine caricatures capturing seven original Broadway performances created by Levene, the first in 1935, the last 1975. The most iconic Hirschfeld caricature of Levene captures his legendary performance as Nathan Detroit wearing his iconic pin stripe suit designed by Alvin Colt in the original 1950 Broadway production of Guys and Dolls published in The New York Times 11/19/50. In 1960, Levene was awarded the prestigious Actors Fund Medal of Honor, at the time, the second actor awarded the honor. On April 9, 1984, Levene was posthumously inducted in the American Theatre Hall of Fame; his son, Joseph K. Levene, accepted the American Theatre Hall of Fame award from Dorothy Loudon stating "if my dad were here today; he would want to know one thing: why did it take you guys such a long time to give me this award?" Levene never received a Tony Award; by the time the Tony Award's were established in 1947, Levene had already created roles in 16 original Broadway shows, including performances in the original Broadway productions of Dinner at Eight (1932), Three Men on a Horse (1935), Room Service (1937) and Margin For Error (1939). In a 1996 New York Magazine letter to the editor, Joseph K. Levene thanked film critic David Denby stating [31] “my father, the late great Sam Levene, has received many kudos illuminating his career as an actor, none recalled the passion for the theater more clearly than David Denby's comment in his review of Everyone Says I Love You: Sam Levene playing Nathan Detroit in the original Guys and Dolls couldn’t sing a note but his gruff toneless outbursts could break your heart. Levene was not cautious and that made all the difference. Joseph K. Levene said: "There were no Tony's in his career but thanks for the Denby". On December 28, 1980, Levene died of a heart attack in New York City.