Astonishing legacy of "The Hustler" - (multi-award winning 1961 pool movie)

[arnaldo]

What a reviving shot in the arm this film gave to players, room owners, and potential new-interest players.

Dyer's beautifully crafted 4-page article from Billiards Digest fully details the tidal wave of worldwide awareness and player-influx that the film's 1961 release led to.

http://billiardsdigest.com/new_current_issue/jan_12/hustler_index.php

Arnaldo ~ The superb 2012 article is new to my eyeballs (or faltering memory more likely) . . . your mileage may differ.
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[mikemosconi]

100% responsible for my lifetime participation in every aspect of billiards- playing, tables, cues, spectator . We put a table in our home a few years after the movie and I was hooked for life. Every guy, it seemed , who was 12 to 18 in 1962/3 got involved in the game. I have 2 older brothers- my fate was set! Our neighborhood had a poolroom open in ‘63. I was 10 that year and loved it from day one. The best players were known and revered throught the neighborhoods. Pool was a central theme on Wide World of Sports on Saturday afternoons about every other month - Fats, Mosconi, Crane, Lassiter, Caras, Cowboy Jimmy Moore. So glad that I experienced it all throughout the 60s !
Happen Again? for a third time counting the COM movie and resulting pool craze from 87 to around 2000? - sure- I think so- when you live long enough you see almost everything goes in cycles - but again- to happen you simply must draw in the 12-22 age group

 

[arnaldo]

100% responsible for my lifetime participation in every aspect of billiards- playing, tables, cues, spectator . We put a table in our home a few years after the movie and I was hooked for life. Every guy, it seemed , who was 12 to 18 in 1962/3 got involved in the game. I have 2 older brothers- my fate was set! Our neighborhood had a poolroom open in ‘63. I was 10 that year and loved it from day one. The best players were known and revered throught the neighborhoods. Pool was a central theme on Wide World of Sports on Saturday afternoons about every other month - Fats, Mosconi, Crane, Lassiter, Caras, Cowboy Jimmy Moore. So glad that I experienced it all throughout the 60s !
Happen Again? for a third time counting the COM movie and resulting pool craze from 87 to around 2000? - sure- I think so- when you live long enough you see almost everything goes in cycles - but again- to happen you simply must draw in the 12-22 age group

I had exactly the same backstory as yours, Mike, in my Ozone Park/ Richmond Hill neighborhood. It magically opened the door to a lifetime of multi-faceted pleasure with our mutually-beloved sport, and especially the gift that keeps on giving: 14.1. Which Mosconi once ruefully called "a man-killer" (at the competitive professional level).

Arnaldo
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