By Rich Brown

rbrown@joplinglobe.com

MOUNT VERNON, Mo. — Joe Levanti was all smiles. It was time for another show at The Horseshoe Theatre, and he could hardly contain his excitement.

Scampering down the aisle as he has done two or three nights a week for the last two years, the 70-year-old retired Hollywood performer prepared to introduce another music group to his stage.

Next month will mark two years since the Ohio native opened the doors of his new venture in Mount Vernon, where he moved seven years ago after devoting much of his life and love to show business in California.

And though he is retired, the effervescent Levanti cannot bear to stray far from the stage, even if it means just running the weekly operations of a community theater.

Making a go of it

Levanti’s desire to be in front of an audience goes back to his days as a young boy in Cleveland, where he was born and raised.

“I was 5 years old and played the accordion with my dad, and when I heard the applause I was hooked on show business from then on,” said Levanti, who as a youngster not only played the accordion but also took piano and acrobatic lessons. “By the time I got to high school, I was doing ventriloquism and magic. As I grew older and was about to graduate from high school, I just knew I had to do something in show business or, at least, give it a try and if it didn’t work out that would be it.”

After taking acting lessons in his hometown, Levanti, at age 19, decided the time had come to head for Hollywood and make a go of it.

Realizing it might take longer than he wanted to break into the business, he took a job as a letter carrier.

“What was good about the post office was that I could work from 5 in the morning until 3 in the afternoon, which left the nights open to study acting,” he said. “So I would run home, take about an hour or two nap and then run up to the studio and take acting, tap dancing and acrobatic lessons.”

Determined to succeed, Levanti never flinched from his never-give-up attitude, and it wasn’t long before he got the opportunity to do shows at the Glendale (Calif.) Center Theater where he met Gordon Jump, who went on to be a television star on the weekly series “WKRP-Cincinnati.”

Jump’s face became instantly recognizable through another TV venue, the commercial in which he played the Maytag Appliance repairman.

Following the Glendale performances, Levanti estimated it was about 1969 when he heard of auditions being held at Disneyland.