All right, so this one was a bit of a stretch. A massive stretch? Maybe it's just those sensuous lips, lips that seem to come from another galaxy, and the galactic intelligence in those mysterious googly-eyes. Steve Buscemi often plays a sort of intense schlub, which in some minuscule way resembles Oscar Levant's side-kickitude (or rather, his side-kickitudinousness). Oscar never got the girl, in fact the girl usually wasn't even in the same room with him, which is what made these wonderful gifs with Nanette Fabray such a find.
Oh, maybe it's the broodiness, the not-long-for-this-world-ish-ness, or the slight glimpse of horror-movie that you see in both their faces. I refuse to post a certain famous photo of Levant, probably the last one ever taken, which I think is an abomination and the most horrible way of remembering him, in a tatty old bathrobe with a Satanic grimace that reveals a missing tooth. It was taken by Richard Avedon, who should be shot, and not with a camera. Let's be more careful of our icons, our precious talents, our galactic mysteriosos, cuzzadafact that they hardly ever come around. But when they do, they stay a long, long time.
