The Postcard
A Living Picture Series postcard that was posted in Folkestone using a ½d. stamp on Monday the 28th. August 1905. It was sent to:
Miss Harmer,
38, Manor Road,
Folkestone,
Kent.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"9, Birling Road,
Tunbridge Wells,
Kent.
My Dear Child,
Just a line to know if you
can come early Thursday
afternoon as there are a
few friends coming in the
evening.
Will you let us know what
time you are coming if you
can.
Fondest love from
Mum and Dad."
The Sinking of the Peconic
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, on the 28th. August 1905, the sinking of the American steamship Peronic killed 20 of the crew off the coast of Florida.
The steel-hulled screw steamer sank in a gale off Fernandina on the northeast coast of Florida. Her master and 19 crewmen were killed. Two crewmen reached Amelia Island, Florida, in a lifeboat.
The vessel was bound from Philadelphia to New Orleans with a cargo of coal. The disaster was the result of a fierce gale, which raged alone the coast during the night and early morning.
A large wave struck the steamer as she was turning and caused the cargo to shift.
-- History of the Peconic
The Peconic was built by the Liverpool shipyard of Royden and Sons in October 1881. She was 277 feet in length, 34.5 feet in breadth, and displaced 1,795 gross tons. Her sister ships were named Pawnee and Piqua.
An iron-screw steamer with two decks, she was brigantine rigged and originally equipped with a 197-horsepower compound engine and one single-ended boiler; a donkey boiler was added to the vessel in 1894.
She initially sailed under the British flag for the Mediterranean and New York Steamship Company, managed by the Phelps Brothers and Company, on a route that carried her between New York and various Mediterranean ports.
Her wreck was recently identified.
Sam Levene
The day also marked the birth of Sam Levene.
Sam Levene was an American Broadway, films, radio, and television actor and director. In a career spanning over five decades, he appeared in over 50 comedy and drama theatrical stage productions. He also acted in over 50 films across the United States and abroad.
-- Sam Levene - The Early Years
Levene was born as Scholem Lewin in Belarus, the youngest of five children by a dozen years. He immigrated to the United States when he was two years old.
He grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on Avenue D and 8th. Street. In 1923, Levene dropped out of Stuyvesant High School. The illustrious dropout was given a special award, his Stuyvesant High School diploma, in a 1976 ceremony held at New York's Princeton Club.
-- Sam Levene on Broadway
Sam Levene made his Broadway stage debut on the 20th. April 1927, earning 60 dollars a week with his first Actor's Equity contract. Levene had a five-line role as District Attorney William Thompson in the original Broadway melodrama Wall Street, a play that only ran for three weeks at the Hudson Theatre.
In 1980, Levene's last and thirty-ninth Broadway credit was his starring role as Daniel Horowitz in the 1980 comedy Horowitz and Mrs. Washington. The play, which was directed by Joshua Logan, closed after a run of only 10 previews and six performances at the John Golden Theatre.
Although the Henry Denker comedy was panned, Levene's star power and comedic performance enabled a five-month tour of Horowitz and Mrs. Washington. It turned out to be Levene's final stage performance in Canada, just two weeks prior to his death.
Levene's Broadway career began with five years of steady employment in nondescript roles in ten Broadway plays, including a series of flops.
One titled Solitaire (1929), was a Broadway play about a Coney Island midget that only ran for four performances at the now demolished Waldorf Theatre, partially financed with a $500 last-minute investment from Levene's older brother Joe.
Emanuel Azenberg and Eugene Wolsk worked with Levene twice in two Broadway productions and two national tours:
-- The first time as company managers when Levene replaced Alan King in the starring role of Dr. Jack Kingsley in the original Broadway production of The Impossible Years (1966). Levene performed the role 322 times on Broadway, and later headlined and starred in the national tour.
-- Six years later, Azenberg and Wolsk were lead producers when Levene was cast as Al Lewis as Willie Clark to co-star in Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys (1972. After performing the role of Al Lewis 466 times in the original Broadway production, Levene and Albertson headlined the subsequent national tour.
In his December 1972 review of the original Broadway production of The Sunshine Boys in The New York Times, theatre critic Clive Barnes wrote:
"Jack Albertson as the heart-stricken comic
never puts a line wrong. He is always pathetic
but never enough to make you cry. Lovely.
His acerbic partner, Sam Levene, is as tough
as vintage chewing gum, and yet with a sort
of credible lovability."
-- Sam Levine's Theatrical Career
A master of farce and comedy, Levene was equally effective in drama as well. Over his 54-year Broadway career, Levene performed in 39 Broadway productions at 29 different Broadway theaters, and at some theaters, several times.
Levene performed over 1,600 times at the now demolished Playhouse Theater in four original Broadway productions, in three of which Levene had starring roles.
Levene's Broadway credits include starring roles in three Broadway revivals:
-- Sam portrayed businessmen Boss Mangan in George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House (1959).
-- He recreated his original Broadway performance as Patsy, the racetrack gambler originated three decades earlier, in the acclaimed all-star Broadway revival of the smash hit farce Three Men on a Horse (1969).
-- Sam performed the role of veteran theatre producer Oscar Wolfe in the all-star 1975-1976 Broadway revival of George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber's The Royal Family (1975) directed by Ellis Rabb The production was filmed for the series Great Performances on the 9th. November 1977.
Levene starred in two major UK productions:
-- In 1953, he recreated his original Broadway performance as Nathan Detroit in the first UK production of Guys and Dolls which opened at The Coliseum and had a run of 553 performances.
-- In 1954, Sam Levene originated the role of Horace Vandergelder in the world premiere production of Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker (1954), initially at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland.
-- Nathan Detroit
Sam Levene originated the "craps-shooter extraordinaire" Nathan Detroit in the American musical Guys and Dolls on the Great White Way in the original 1950 Broadway production directed by George S. Kaufman.
Levene has been synonymous with the role of Nathan Detroit for seven decades; Guys and Dolls book co-author Abe Burrows specifically crafted the role of Nathan Detroit for Levene who signed for the project long before Burrows ever wrote a single word of dialogue.
In Honest, Abe: Is There Really No Business Like Show Business?, Burrows recalled:
"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."
Burrows had the advantage of writing dialogue built around Sam Levene's New York Jewish cadences. The creative talent of Guys and Dolls agreed that Levene was perfect for the role of Nathan Detroit (Damon Runyon had been one of Levene's fans).
Frank Loesser agreed that it was easier adjusting the music to Levene's limitations than substituting a better singer who couldn't act. Levene is the reason the lead role of Nathan Detroit has only one major song, the duet "Sue Me".
Hundreds of productions of Guys and Dolls are staged annually, and Sam Levene's comedic performance as Nathan Detroit still makes headlines, largely because it became the gold standard classic.
Frank Rich, Chief Theatre Critic, The New York Times, like most critics, lauded the 1992 Guys and Dolls revival directed by Jerry Zaks stating:
"This is an enchanting rebirth of the
show that defines Broadway dazzle."
However, regarding Nathan Lane's performance as Nathan Detroit, Frank Rich observed:
"The supremely gifted actor Nathan
Lane does not remotely echo the
first Nathan Detroit, Sam Levene, for
whose New York Jewish cadences
the role was written.
Mr. Lane is more like a young Jackie
Gleason and usually funny in his own
right, though expressions like 'all right,
already' and 'so nu?' do not fall
trippingly from his tongue."
Los Angeles Times Critic Emeritus Sylvie Drake reviewed the 1993 Guys and Dolls touring production, also directed by Jerry Zaks. Drake had a similar observation, comparing David Garrison's portrayal of Nathan Detroit to Sam Levene's original 1950 Broadway performance, writing:
"The wiry Garrison's Detroit physically
harks back more to the 1950 original
played by Sam Levene, than to Nathan
Lane, who played the role on
Broadway last year.
But unlike Levene, Garrison doesn't
come across down, dirty or gritty.
Knowing this actor's talent, one finds
his amiable New York gangster
surprisingly bloodless and almost
genteel."
Levene performed the role of Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls over 1,600 times.
Levene reprised his performance as Nathan Detroit on Decca's original cast recording of the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls. Album sales totaled 250,000 as of the 1st. September 1954.
Guys and Dolls composer and lyricist Frank Loesser specifically wrote "Sue Me" in one octave for Levene, and structured the song so that 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 that:
"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 was easy to forgive, in fact it was quite charming in its ineptitude.
Alan Alda, son of Guys and Dolls co-star Robert Alda, recalls watching Levene perform Nathan Detroit while standing in the wings. In Never Have Your Dog Stuffed; And Other Things I’ve Learned, Alan Alda recalls:
"Watching Sam Levene was thrilling.
He could ride a moment as if a wild
animal. New meanings occurred to
him on the spot. Not only did he play
the same lines differently every night,
but the laughs rolled in from the
audience in different places.
How did he do it?
This kind of spontaneity and this utter
commitment to the moment became
what I wanted to have.
As good as my father was, what I was
seeing as they played together a few
feet away was the difference between
burlesque and theatre, between
performing and acting.
I chose acting. I wanted to be Sam."
-- Sam Levene's Other Theatre Work
For three decades Levene reprised his role as Patsy from Three Men on a Horse (1935). He did so numerous times on stage, film, TV and radio.
The first time was when he made his motion picture debut in Three Men on a Horse (1936), directed and produced by Mervyn LeRoy.
He also performed the role three times on radio, and on two USO tours, playing 200 shows to 120,000 servicemen, the first legitimate U.S. theatrical production mounted overseas.
Due to security, the USO cast was reduced from 12 to 7 without losing a minute of running dialogue. According to a 26th. May 1945 Billboard interview, Levene said:
"The G.I.s' gratefulness is absolutely
embarrassing. They express it not
only by applause but by meeting you
personally and giving you objects
which they have fought and bled for.
They lose sight of the fact that they
are the ones fighting the war."
Levene as Patsy and Shirley Booth as Mabel reprised their original Broadway roles in two ABC radio versions produced by the Theatre Guild on the Air:
-- The first adapted by playwright Arthur Miller aired 6th. January 1946
-- The second aired 1st. June 1947 with David Wayne as Erwin.
Three decades after creating the role of Patsy in the Broadway production of Three Men On A Horse, Levene reprised the role of Patsy on Broadway in Let It Ride (1961), a Broadway musical which had an abbreviated run of 69 performances at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.
Let It Ride (1961) boasted a score by the songwriting team of Jay Livingston and Ray Evans, best known for creating three Oscar-winning songs, Buttons and Bows, Mona Lisa and Que Sera, Sera and two other movie songs that were smash hits, Silver Bells and Tammy.
Levene performed the Let It Ride title song on the Let It Ride float in the 1961 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Levene performed the role of Patsy one last time in the 1969 all-star Broadway revival of Three Men On A Horse directed by George Abbott, the original Broadway director and co-author which was preceded by a national tour Levene directed, starring Levene as Patsy and Bert Parks as Erwin.
In a 1969 review of the all-star Broadway revival of Three Men on a Horse, The New York Times theatre critic Clive Barnes wrote:
"Sam Levene originated the role
of Patsy in 1935—by now it’s his.
Still looking like a man whose
eyes have been allocated the
wrong size eyelids, still mugging,
double taking, offering his
celebrated impersonation of an
actor impersonating a character,
Mr. Levene is great.
No one in the world plays Mr.
Levene as he does, And what’s
more, no one ever will".
After making his Broadway debut 43 years earlier, Levene made his Off-Broadway debut, starring in Irv Bauer's A Dream Out of Time at the Promenade Theatre, Levene's only Off-Broadway appearance.
In 1976, Levene was cast as Tubal, Shylock's business partner, in the Broadway production of The Merchant based on an adaptation of The Merchant of Venice. However Sam withdrew from the Philadelphia tryout after Zero Mostel, the play's star and Levene's lifelong dear friend, died after first collapsing in his dressing room; Levene observed:
"I was too close to Zero and a play
we both loved, to do it without him."
When John Dexter, the director, asked Levene if he would continue in the show, Levene told Dexter:
"We just had one death;
we don't need two."
Understudy Joseph Leon replaced Zero Mostel for the Broadway production of The Merchant which closed on the 19th. November 1977, after only five performances.
Levene's final Broadway credit was performing the starring role of Samuel Horowitz in the Broadway comedy Horowitz and Mrs. Washington (1980).
-- Sam Levine's Film Career
Nine years after making his Broadway debut, Levene was lured to Hollywood in 1936 when he made his motion picture debut as Patsy in the Warner Bros. film Three Men on a Horse (1936) directed and produced by Mervyn LeRoy.
Levene earned $1,000 a week to recreate on film his comedic Broadway role as Patsy.
Levene had 50 film credits. He worked with every major Hollywood studio over his five-decade Hollywood career; 14 of Levene's films were at MGM, which include two appearances as Police Lieutenant Abrams in the Thin Man series: After the Thin Man (1936) and Shadow of the Thin Man (1941).
He also appeared in Yellow Jack (1938), The Shopworn Angel (1938), Married Bachelor (1941), Sunday Punch (1942), Grand Central Murder (1942), Whistling in Brooklyn (1943), I Dood It (1943), Shoe Shine Boy (1943), The Opposite Sex (1956), Designing Woman (1957) and The Champ (1979).
Levene appeared in five RKO films: The Mad Miss Manton (1938); Sing Your Worries Away (1942); The Big Street (1942), A Likely Story (1947) and Crossfire, the first B picture to receive a best picture nomination.
Levene appeared in six Universal Pictures films: Destination Unknown (1942), Gung Ho! (1943), The Killers (1946), Brute Force (1947), Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (1957), and Kathy O' (1958).
His final film was ...And Justice for All (1979).
Levene worked with Barbara Stanwyck in two films in 1938. He co-starred as Lieutenant Brent who "steals a few scenes with his great delivery of lines" in The Mad Miss Manton (1938), a screwball comedy that starred Henry Fonda.
31-year-old Stanwyck earned $60,000 for the film; 33-year-old Fonda earned $25,000, and 35-year-old Sam Levene earned $1,500 a week.
The following year Levene appeared as Siggie in a film version of Golden Boy, replacing John Garfield who performed the role in the original Broadway production of the Clifford Odets play about the brutality of prizefighting.
Critics praised the performance of William Holden as boxer Joe Bonaparte, but it was 27-year-old Lee J. Cobb as the senior Bonaparte and Sam Levene as Holden's taxi driver brother-in-law who walked away with the picture and the reviews.
-- Sam Levine and Film Noir
Levene established himself as one of the stalwarts of film noir. He is one of several veterans of the genre who are graduates of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, including Lauren Bacall, Kirk Douglas and Edward G. Robinson.
Levene's best known film noir credits include his performance as Samuels, the murdered GI, in Crossfire (1947) and as Lieutenant Lubinsky in The Killers (1946).
The Killers features the movie debut of Burt Lancaster, who just a year prior was professionally credited as Burton Lancaster when Levene helped the former circus acrobat land a part in the original Broadway production of A Sound of Hunting starring Levene.
In The Killers, Sam Levene plays Police Lt. Sam Lubinsky, a childhood friend of the Swede, played by Lancaster. Levene's co-starring role was fortuitous as he was credited in making Lancaster feel at ease in his motion picture debut.
Actor Jeff Corey recalled:
"It was lucky Sam was on the set with
Burt Lancaster because Burt didn't feel
too comfortable in his first film.
Sam would frequently get on his ass:
'C'mon, c'mon. Do the goddamn thing.
You pick up the piece of jewelry. Can't
you do that and say the f....ing line?'
Lancaster was never offended.
He appreciated, because he loved
Sam; everyone did."
When several Hollywood studios initially wanted to sign Lancaster, Levene, who was Lancaster's co-star in the 1946 Broadway melodrama A Sound of Hunting, agreed to represent him; eventually the two actors became lifelong friends.
Together Lancaster and Levene fielded offers from David O. Selznick, 20th. Century-Fox and Hal B. Wallis, who had a deal at Paramount Pictures, ultimately introducing Lancaster to Harold Hecht, who became Lancaster's long-time agent and Hollywood film production partner.
Burt Lancaster and Sam Levene also worked together in two other film noirs, the 1947 Brute Force, directed by Jules Dassin, Lancaster's second film, and the acclaimed film noir Sweet Smell of Success.
Other Sam Levene noir credits include: Dave Woods, as a newspaper reporter, who steals the show as a dirt digging journalist who is ultimately fighting for righteousness, writing hard-hitting articles attacking the police.
Also Elia Kazan's crime film noir Boomerang, Dr. John Faron, a psychiatrist in Dial 1119, Capt. Tonetti in the 1950 Guilty Bystander and Howard Rysdale in the 1957 Slaughter on Tenth Avenue (1957).
Alan K. Rode observed:
"Slaughter on Tenth Avenue was bolstered
by a terrific ensemble cast headed by Richard
Egan, Jan Sterling, Walter Matthau, Dan Duryea
and Sam Levene, who performs yeoman work
as a realpolitik Manhattan district attorney,
forced to temper the hard-charging idealism
of assistant Egan who inevitably triumphs in
the end".
-- Sam Levine's Radio and TV Work
For most of his early film and Broadway stage career, Sam Levene straddled an active schedule with starring roles in a range of productions on all radio networks, including comedic performances and skits along with dramatic and comedy roles in abridged versions of important theatrical stage productions and adaptations on leading series.
Sam often reprised roles that he had previously played on the Broadway stage and on film.
Levene co-starred with Orson Welles in two important adaptations of stage productions for Welles' The Campbell Playhouse, first as Lefty in Burlesque on the 17th. February 1939, and five weeks later, on the 24th. March 1939, as Owen O'Malley, the John Barrymore part, in Twentieth Century.
Levene starred in nine Theatre Guild on the Air productions, including:
-- Two radio versions of Three Men on a Horse. The first adapted by Arthur Miller aired on the 6th. January 1946. The second on the 1st. June 1947 with David Wayne joining the cast as Erwin.
-- A third Three Men on a Horse production sponsored by Lady Esther for the Screen Guild Players aired on the 28th. February 1944 with Levene as Patsy and Charlie Ruggles as Erwin.
-- Other Theatre Guild on the Air radio appearances included performing the role of "Banjo" with Fred Allen as Sheridan Whiteside in George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart's The Man Who Came to Dinner.
-- Levene recreated his original Broadway performance as Sidney Black, the loud-mouth producer, in Moss Hart's Light Up the Sky opposite Joan Bennett and Thelma Ritter for the Theatre Guild on the Air, 16th. April 1951.
-- Levene reprised his film role as Dave Woods, the reporter in Elia Kazan's Boomerang for Theatre Guild on the Air.
-- He also appeared as Moody, the fight manager, in Golden Boy by Clifford Odets opposite long-time friend and co-star June Havoc.
For Suspense Radio on CBS, Levene reprised his film role as Samuels, the murdered Jewish soldier, in Crossfire, on the 10th. April 1948.
Levene and Havoc worked with each other many times in radio, film, theatre and television. In 1942, Havoc and Levene co-starred in the RKO film Sing Your Worries Away.
In 1957, Havoc and Levene guest-starred on The Mother Bit in TV's Studio One series; in 1959 Levene and Havoc were guest stars in The Larry Fay Story for Season 2 of The Untouchables.
In a dramatic role, Sam Levene was nightclub owner and mob boss Larry Fay, accused of price fixing milk and June Havoc was Sally Kansas, Fay's lover, who also appeared as a lounge singer in one of Fay's nite clubs.
Levene frequently appeared on Fred Allen's Texaco Star Theatre in a sketch comedy segment known as Allen's Alley.
Sam Levene along with 12 major Hollywood and Broadway stars created 13 episodes of Lest We Forget, a series of radio programs that directly addressed prejudice and discrimination.
Sam Levene starred as a cab driver who becomes in a hero in Hey Cabbie, an episode that unabashedly addresses anti-semitism.
Levene along with Edward G. Robinson and Frank Sinatra made a series of appearances in We Will Never Die, a memorial pageant dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust; performed around the country at major venues, including Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl.
The elaborate production, also broadcast on radio, was co-authored by Ben Hecht and Kurt Weill and directed by Moss Hart.
On a lighter note, Levene made a New Year's Eve appearance on The Big Show with his Guys and Dolls co-star Vivian Blaine on the 31st. December 1950; Levene performed a skit with Tallulah Bankhead who had declined an invitation to appear on Ken Murray's show so that she could obtain theatre tickets to Guys and Dolls.
-- Sam Levine's Jewish Heritage
Sam Levene was one of the few Jewish actors who played characters who had a Jewish name in the 1930's and 1940's; notably in After the Thin Man (1936) as Lieutenant Abrams.
In The Purple Heart (1944) Levene played the role of Lt. Wayne Greenbaum, a level-headed, brave, New York-bred Jewish lawyer who is defender and spokesman for a group of eight aviators brought to trial when they are downed in Japanese-held territory.
In The Killers (1946), he was Police Lt. Sam Lubinsky; in Crossfire (1947), Levene was cast as Samuels, a Jewish civilian who was murdered at the start of the film. In a 1947 personal appearance, Levene said:
"Crossfire is a powerful denunciation
of anti-Semitism, and naturally I played
the Jew, and naturally I was killed."
Cy Feuer, co-producer of the original Broadway production of Guys and Dolls (1950) said in a New York Times interview, referring to Nathan Detroit:
"Sam Levene was the ultimate Jew.
It was perfect casting. He created
the character by living."
Unanimous raves greeted Sam Levene for his portrayal of the skeptical but good-hearted Jewish doctor, Dr. Aldo Mayer, in the 1961 Broadway production of "The Devil's Advocate".
Levene lost the role of Nathan Detroit to Frank Sinatra in the film version. Producer Samuel Goldwyn argued:
"You can't have a Jew playing a
Jew; it wouldn't work on screen."
Film director Joseph L. Mankiewicz wanted Levene:
"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."
Fordham University Professor of Music Larry Stempel said if given a choice, he would cast Levene 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."
-- Sam Levene's Personal Life and Death
Levene married Constance Kane in 1953. The couple had one son together, Joseph K. Levene, before their divorce.
On the 28th. December 1980, Levene died at the age of 75 from an apparent heart attack in New York City. He was laid to rest in Mount Carmel Cemetery, Glendale, Queens.
On the 9th. April 1984, Levene was posthumously inducted in the American Theatre Hall of Fame; his son, Joseph K. Levene, accepted the award from Dorothy Loudon who co-starred as Mabel with Levene in the 1969 all-star revival of Three Men on a Horse.
In 1998, Sam Levene, Robert Alda, Vivian Blaine, Isabel Bigley and Pat Rooney, Sr. were posthumously inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for the 1950 Decca original cast album of Guys and Dolls.
In a 1996 New York letter to the editor, Sam Levene's son Joseph K. Levene, thanked film critic David Denby stating:
“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.'
There were no Tony's in his career
but thanks for the Denby."