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Who really said it

I've been around so long, I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin

Not Groucho Marx — actually Oscar Levant Oscar Levant 1906–1972 · American pianist, composer, actor and professional wit
Disputed In copyright

The joke is Levant’s, and he told it about a film he was in. Wikiquote’s sourced Levant entry ↗ gives the sentence from The Memoirs of an Amnesiac (1965): “My last picture for Warners was Romance on the High Seas. It was Doris Day’s first picture; that was before she became a virgin.” The same entry identifies the compressed “I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin” as a later paraphrase, printed in Max Wilk’s The Wit and Wisdom of Hollywood (1972). Wikiquote’s Groucho page ↗ lists the Marx version under Misattributed and sends the reader to Levant.

Last verified 12 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“I've been around so long, I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin” Oscar Levant, not Groucho Marx. The line above is a later paraphrase, printed in Max Wilk's The Wit and Wisdom of Hollywood (1972); Levant's own sentence is in his memoir of 1965. Via quotle.info · Verbatim: “My last picture for Warners was Romance on the High Seas. It was Doris Day’s first picture; that was before she became a virgin.”

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Groucho Marx. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of Oscar Levant and G. P. Putnam’s Sons). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Oscar Levant — American pianist, composer, actor and radio wit. Theme: "I've been around so long, I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I've been around so long, I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where it actually comes from

Popular credit
Groucho Marx — listed under Misattributed on Wikiquote
Actual author
Oscar Levant (1906–1972), pianist, composer and Hollywood wit
Primary source
Oscar Levant, The Memoirs of an Amnesiac (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1965)
The short version
A later paraphrase, printed in Max Wilk, The Wit and Wisdom of Hollywood (1972) — per Wikiquote
The film in question
Romance on the High Seas (1948, Warner Bros.) — Doris Day’s screen debut; Levant played Oscar Farrar

My last picture for Warners was Romance on the High Seas. It was Doris Day’s first picture; that was before she became a virgin.

Levant’s own version is the better joke, because it is anchored. He is not making a general remark about a screen persona — he is saying he watched it being installed, from the next chair on the same set. Romance on the High Seas really was Day’s film debut and Levant really was in it, which is what gives the line its standing.

Wikiquote: Oscar Levant — the sourced entry for this line

How we verified this

  • Wikiquote’s Oscar Levant page ↗ carries the sentence in its sourced section, not among unsourced attributions, and cites The Memoirs of an Amnesiac (1965) at p. 192. Immediately beneath it the page states that “a later paraphrase of this appeared in The Wit and Wisdom of Hollywood (1972) by Max Wilk: ‘I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.’”
  • Wikiquote’s Groucho Marx page ↗ lists the Groucho form under Misattributed with the note that it was “apparently said by Oscar Levant”, citing the same Wilk anthology. Two separate Wikiquote pages, maintained for two different people, agree on where the joke belongs.
  • The bibliographic details check out against the library record: the Internet Archive’s catalogue entry for The Memoirs of an Amnesiac ↗ gives the author as Levant, Oscar, 1906–1972, published New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1965, LCCN 65010856. The book is lending-restricted, so we have confirmed the edition rather than read the page.
  • The setting is verifiable too. Wikipedia’s article on Romance on the High Seas ↗ records it as a 1948 Warner Bros. musical directed by Michael Curtiz, featuring Doris Day “in her film debut”, with Oscar Levant in the cast as Oscar Farrar — exactly the arrangement Levant’s sentence describes.
In copyright

The documented wording comes from The Memoirs of an Amnesiac, published by G. P. Putnam’s Sons in New York in 1965 — far too recent for the public domain in the United States, where protection attaches to anything first published from 1931 onward. The shorter paraphrase is later still, first recorded in a 1972 anthology, and carries no better claim to being free.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Often misattributed

One of the most-quoted Hollywood put-downs, credited to the wrong wit and quoted in words nobody wrote.

Groucho Marx Wrong person

Wikiquote ↗ files the line under Misattributed for Marx and says flatly that it was “apparently said by Oscar Levant”. No Groucho source carries it, and the joke depends on having been on the Warner Bros. lot in 1948 — which Levant was and Marx was not.

Oscar Levant The real author

Wikiquote’s sourced Levant entry ↗ quotes it from The Memoirs of an Amnesiac (1965), and the joke fits the facts: Romance on the High Seas ↗ was Doris Day’s film debut and Levant was in its cast.

The circulating one-liner Paraphrase

Levant wrote two sentences naming a film. Wikiquote records the compressed “I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin” as a later paraphrase from Max Wilk’s The Wit and Wisdom of Hollywood (1972). The opening clause people now attach to it — “I’ve been around so long” — appears in neither documented source; it was added somewhere in circulation, and we could not find where.

The line is Oscar Levant’s ↗, from his 1965 memoir, about a film he was in — and the famous short version is a 1972 anthology’s tidying-up, not his sentence.

Context

Why it mattered

The joke is a very precise piece of industry knowledge. Doris Day was not a virginal person; she was a working singer on her fourth marriage by the time the image hardened, and the studio built the wholesome persona around her over several pictures. Levant is claiming to have been present before the construction started — which, having played opposite her in her first film, he was.

That is what makes the drift to Groucho a real loss rather than a footnote. Coming from Marx it is a generic crack about a famous prude. Coming from Levant it is a colleague pointing at a manufactured image and saying he watched it get made.

Not a joke about a prude — a joke about a persona being manufactured.

Read the full story

Levant’s lines drift more than most, and the reason is structural. He was famous for saying things rather than for writing them down, so much of his best material reached the public through anthologies and other people’s memoirs — formats that compress, tidy and occasionally reassign. The three books he did write are the corrective, which is exactly why the 1965 memoir settles this one.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Truth Character

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquote: Oscar Levanten.wikiquote.org

The anchor source. Carries Levant’s own sentence in its sourced section from The Memoirs of an Amnesiac (1965) and identifies the short form as a later paraphrase from Max Wilk’s 1972 anthology.
Wikiquote: Groucho Marx (Misattributed)en.wikiquote.org

Files the Groucho version under Misattributed and states it was apparently said by Oscar Levant, citing the Wilk anthology.
Internet Archive: The Memoirs of an Amnesiac (1965)archive.org

The library catalogue record for Levant’s memoir — G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, 1965, LCCN 65010856. Lending-restricted, so it confirms the edition rather than the page.
Wikipedia: Oscar Levanten.wikipedia.org

Biography of the pianist, composer and actor (1906–1972) whose second career was being the most quotable man in a room.
Wikipedia: Romance on the High Seasen.wikipedia.org

The 1948 Warner Bros. musical the joke is about — Doris Day’s film debut, with Levant in the cast as Oscar Farrar.
Wikipedia: Doris Dayen.wikipedia.org

The singer and actress whose wholesome screen image is the target of the joke.

The author

About Oscar Levant

Oscar Levant

1906–1972 · American pianist, composer, actor and radio wit

Oscar Levant was a serious concert pianist — the foremost interpreter of his friend George Gershwin — who became far more famous for talking. On radio panel shows and in films he perfected a character built from neurosis, insomnia and unbearable candour, and then wrote three memoirs in the same voice, of which The Memoirs of an Amnesiac (1965) is the best known. His jokes were mordant enough that they have a habit of being reassigned to comedians who could not have been in the room: the Doris Day line is about a film Levant himself appeared in.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Oscar Levant, The Memoirs of an Amnesiac (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1965), 192, as quoted in Wikiquote. The compressed one-line form is a later paraphrase, recorded in Max Wilk, The Wit and Wisdom of Hollywood (1972).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I’ve been around so long, I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin’?” Last verified 12 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/ive-been-around-so-long-i-knew-doris-day-before-she-was-a/

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