Tom Cosmo

Saturated Fats said:
From DILIBERTO: “You Bet Your Life” The Tales of a Gambler
By: Jerry Forsyth & Danny Diliberto

The Janscos arranged for Tom Cosmo to open the evening matches with his show. Cosmo was from New York and I had first seen him in the late 50’s in Miami Beach where he was a nightclub performer. He was a great dancer and he sang as well but his name would prove to be his legacy. As part of his act he would put nine balls out on the table. The way he did it, so casual and all, it looked like he was just randomly putting the balls out on the table, but actually each ball was placed in exactly the same place every night.

Then he could be singing and dancing and telling jokes and all the while he would be running this rack of Nine Ball. His clowning and singing distracted the crowds so many people didn’t realize that he was just hitting one easy stop shot after another. Your blind grandmother could have run those balls, but it looked good and became the touchstone for easy runs in Nine Ball. Today, whenever someone has a really easy table to run we say he has a Cosmo and that’s where the term originated, from Tom Cosmo in Johnston City. Cosmo actually was a pretty good Straight Pool player. He beat Jimmy Moore once that I know about. Jimmy had Cosmo down 124-17 in a race to 125 and Cosmo wound up beating him 125-124, so he could shoot the game pretty well.

Cosmo was a clever guy. Before he would start his ‘run’ he would grab a twenty from someone in the audience and put Jackson’s face under the nine ball. Then when he pocketed the nine at the end of his ‘run’ he would pick up the twenty, grin, and put it in his pocket. The chump in the audience would never ask for it back because Cosmo acted like he had ‘won’ it by running the rack.

To begin his act Cosmo would come out wearing a hat, a big fur coat, thick eyeglasses and gloves. He started with one-liners, pulling the gloves off of his hands as he spoke and the gloves just kept peeling off and piling up on the floor at his feet. The whole while those old vaudeville gloves were coming off the jokes just poured forth and he had the whole place roaring. It was a great show and the audience loved him. Cosmo was like Mel Tillis. When he talked he would stammer but he could sing like a bird.
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That's Cosmo! I caught his act a few times and he made me laugh every time. Probably the second funniest guy after Fats. Fats had no act! He just stood there and talked and mesmerized people with his stories and one liners.
 
This right here is what I enjoy about this site. Where else would I get to hear about such a character? Some of the folks spinning the stories have already passed no less. Good stuff. Thanks
 
Tom Cosmo my father's brother. Uncle Tommy would train in from NYC to New Haven, CT, on the holidays and also. when he was an MC or doing a pool exhibition at local New Haven Pool Halls. So, a couple times a year when he was an MC the performers would come to my dad's house for the after party. Opera singers, Stripers, Dancers, Comedians and one time it was Frank Sinatra Jr. This happened regularly until I was 12 (1964) years old. I was always asleep and heard about it the next morning.
He passed away at 62 years old (1980).
From 1965 and on I would train into NYC to visit him a couple times a year. He worked with a booking agent (Phil) on Broadway. I would hang out in the agent's office during the day and my Uncle Tommy would take me to Pool halls at night. I remember one Pool Hall on Broadway around 52nd St, it was in the basement. Tom Cosmo's pictures were on the wall, and he was kind of a local celebrity.

Recently I found all these Tom Cosmo threads on AZ Billard's. As a tribute I put together a video on YouTube. I had some pictures and included some of AZ Billard's thread content.
Take a look:
 
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