Best Celebrity pool players -- who are they?

I just got Mark Twain's autobiography for my wife. If it is true, it will be mentioned somewhere in the 700 page tome! I kind of doubt this is true, as 14.1 continuous pool didn't even show up until Jerome Keogh invented it sometime around 1910.

Edit: Twain died in 1910, so there is no way he played 14.1, and therefore no way he ever ran 100 balls in straight pool. He may have run 100 points in some other billiards games of the day (American 4-ball billiards, for example).

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com

Do you have a reference for this?
 
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he beat Rudolph Wanderone !

In 1973 , Minnesota Fats was a guest on the tonight show . He needed an opponent , and actor Jerry Orbach was available .
They were to play one exhibition game on live television .

Orbach broke and ran on Fats . :nanner:

not exactly the exhibition Fats was hoping for ! :groucho:
 
he's a celebrity - to the teens . . .

I also suspect that Drake Bell's mom might have found time to teach him how to play the game . . . . . . :thumbup:
 
I have worked as an actor in about a dozen movies. I was in the movie ALL THE PRETTY HORSES with Matt Damon and he used to play alot of pool before he got married. He hit fast eddies one night or he would be at a bar on broadway and houston street playing on the bar box. Matt Damon could have done a fantastic movie about pool if it was done like the Rounders was done about playing cards.

Paul Newman true story. He was working on a movie in Canada and after filming he would hang with the crew at bars. This was a few years after he did the movie the hustler. He said he was playing pool with the guys and a local was watching him. After about twenty minutes the local came over and said that he was the best pool player within one hundred miles and loved the movie the hustler and paul newman was a god to him. But Mr. Newman, after watching you play pool for the last twenty minutes, this has to be one of the most depressing days of my life! Gleason could play pool but Paul was no player. I think he said Mosconi did his shooting in the movie.
 
A pool player I know told me a story about a pool player who was living in the LA area and supporting his pool game by delivering pizza. He ends up getting an order for Gleason and when he gets there Gleason tells him to bring the pizza over here to the pool room. So the player notices they are playing one pocket and mentions it so Gleason asks if he can play any and they ended up playing a few sessions for some bucks and Gleason could hold his own.

If you go to wikipedia, the photo they show of the actor Gleason is his part in the movie the hustler, kewl.
 
I've heard that Jackie Gleason made his own shots in The Hustler, although I don't know that as a fact. Somewhere I got the idea that James Caan could hold his own, but who knows?

Tom Cruise? I sincerely doubt it, since he's such a failure at his chosen profession. Wouldn't surprise me to know that Paul Newman could clear a table.

As for real pool pros, only Jeanette Lee qualifies as a semi-mainstream celebrity, with Jasmin the next possibility. The men? Please. By celebrity, I mean someone who might be recognized on the street.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kToO5B9ZME&feature=related

W.C. Fields on an early barbox , might want to advance to about the 3 minute mark.


W.C. and early shark move.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-dxFh_aJuk&feature=related




At eleven, after many fights with his alcoholic father (who hit him on the head with a shovel), he ran away from home. For a while he lived in a hole in the ground, depending on stolen food and clothing. He was often beaten and spent nights in jail. His first regular job was delivering ice. By age thirteen he was a skilled pool player and juggler.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001211/bio
 
some of you might remember this guy

1969 Feb 2 Milton Berle 3 cush.jpg
 
I played 9 ball with Michael Vartan (TV Show Alias and several movies) everyday for one year back in the 90s and he played really good. His manager made him stop playing after he landed the TV show. Lou Diamond played ok (C+). Dorian Harewood plays real good.
 
Obama shoots pool- but I dont know if he qualifies as a celebrity... lol

The artist currently known as Prince shoots also...
 
jack klugman played pretty spiffy as well as jimmy caan who hung around 7/11 in the old days before he became too famous. both played for money.
 
I would guess that the currently best poolplayer among celebrities is a guy who was recently elected into congress.



He also does some boxing now and then.. - Manny Paquiao. He is a good player, a strong C to B.
 
Have heard from a few of the older snooker players that Dustin Hoffman was a very strong snooker player. From what I gather a century runner on our 6x12 tables up here in the great white north.
 
Fred Astaire and Walter Alston (old Dodger's manager) were probably the best of their generation, both with high runs over 100 balls. Peter Falk did love pool, but didn't play that speed. One you might not know about was Leo Durocher, another former baseball legend. He was such a good pool player/hustler as a young man, that he considered sticking with it rather than go into baseball full time. I think he made the right choice. Remember when he was a young man, pool was still a major sport in America, the era of Greenleaf and Hoppe.

What many also don't know is that Gleason and Fats were friends from childhood, hanging out as kids in the same poolroom. Fats was the better player then and forever. Believe it or not I've played pool with Jerry Orbach (in the mid 60's) and he was a decent enough 9-Ball player, but not what I would call good. Jimmy Caan was almost the same speed when I played him several times in the late 60's. Also played with Dorian Harewood several times, and he is in the same class of player. A decent amateur. I'd rate Orbach the best of these three. He and Jimmy both gambled with me. Jerry played me even (and lost) and I gave Jimmy the eight (he lost too).

Joe Rogan has very nice form and a good stroke, but isn't able to devote enough time to playing the game to really develop his ability. We played years ago in a local poolroom and he was a shade better than Caan or Harewood, about even with Orbach. I've watched Manny Paquiao play several times (and for big money), and he is a low level shortstop speed. I've heard that Paul Sorvino plays a decent game, but I've never seen him play, so I can't say. David Brenner is another New York native who plays pool. Mark Kendall of Great White is by far the best celeb player I know of. He can play, solid shortstop speed! If Manny, Joe and Mark ever got together for some celebrity pool, Mark would win the bacon!
 
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I would guess that the currently best poolplayer among celebrities is a guy who was recently elected into congress.



He also does some boxing now and then.. - Manny Paquiao. He is a good player, a strong C to B.

i've only seen him shoot a few shots but just from how he pulled his arm back i doubt he's a strong C player let alone a B player
 
I've heard that Jackie Gleason made his own shots in The Hustler, although I don't know that as a fact. Somewhere I got the idea that James Caan could hold his own, but who knows?

Tom Cruise? I sincerely doubt it, since he's such a failure at his chosen profession. Wouldn't surprise me to know that Paul Newman could clear a table.

As for real pool pros, only Jeanette Lee qualifies as a semi-mainstream celebrity, with Jasmin the next possibility. The men? Please. By celebrity, I mean someone who might be recognized on the street.

I watched ken shamrock run out playin 8 ball,it was a challenge for 10 k on ultimate fighter where he was a coach.maybe him and joe can have a tar match!!!
 
I've heard that Jackie Gleason made his own shots in The Hustler, although I don't know that as a fact. Somewhere I got the idea that James Caan could hold his own, but who knows?

Tom Cruise? I sincerely doubt it, since he's such a failure at his chosen profession. Wouldn't surprise me to know that Paul Newman could clear a table.

As for real pool pros, only Jeanette Lee qualifies as a semi-mainstream celebrity, with Jasmin the next possibility. The men? Please. By celebrity, I mean someone who might be recognized on the street.

You would seem to have a rather strange definition of 'a failure'.

That being said, Dorian Harewood was from Dayton, IIUC, hung out in the same room where Jay played.

Harewood was the romantic interest for Whoopi in the TV movie
"Kiss Shot". The story goes that he was the only actor who came to the
audition with a cue. Gotta love him for that move. He walked in, looked
around and asked "Where's the pool table?".

Dale
 
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