The first issues of Billiards Digest were:
Sep/Oct 1978 Jim Rempe
Nov/Dec 1978 Raymond Ceulemans
Jan/Feb 1979 Jimmy Mataya
Mar/Apr 1979
Willie Mosconi
May/Jun 1979 Pete Lhotka and Julie Bentz Fitzpatrick, collegiate champs
Jul/Aug 1979 Omar Sharif and James Coburn (Baltimore Bullet stars)
The Mosconi picture was taken during a special trip to "the elegant Palmer House Hotel". The photographer was Chuck Rogers.
That issue has an unrelated article about pool in the movies with a picture of Mosconi coaching Paul Newman. The main Mosconi article was titled "Mosconi the Magnificent" which is mostly an interview. The opening:
BD -- Rumor has it Willie Mosconi was born with a cue stick in his hands. Is that true?
WM -- (Laugh) I really didn't start playing till I was six years old. My father was a professional boxer and after he quit he opened a gymnasium with five or six pool tables in the back for the general public....
Chuck Rogers is a rather famous documentary (NASA) and commercial (Coca Cola, etc.) photographer. One of his clients was Fuqua Industries which bought Mosconi's company around 1973(?). He and Willie went to the International Sporting Goods Show in Chicago (BD's home) every February for years.
Here are Chuck and Willie:
Here is Chuck's most profitable photo (of the end of a road race) which Nike turned into a poster.
And here is a video of Chuck's life in photography, which I found fascinating. It's cued to the mention of Mosconi.