Walter Tevis' wife's BCA speech

Tommy-D

Tommy-D

World's best B player...
Silver Member
> Can someone please help me find a reprint of the BCA HOF speech given by Walter Tevis' wife that debunked the Minnesota Fats myth once and for all? A close friend recently got into a debate with several uninformed locals about whether Fats was the real basis for the book and whether Eddie Parker was also a focal point of both of his books. Many of us I'm sure have read the article where his wife told the entire room at the HOF banquet that the characters were totally fictional,but these characters possessed mannerisms he saw in real people,and that Rudolph Wanderone was a fraud,but where can I find the article on the net? Tommy D.
 
Tommy-D said:
> Can someone please help me find a reprint of the BCA HOF speech given by Walter Tevis' wife that debunked the Minnesota Fats myth once and for all? A close friend recently got into a debate with several uninformed locals about whether Fats was the real basis for the book and whether Eddie Parker was also a focal point of both of his books. Many of us I'm sure have read the article where his wife told the entire room at the HOF banquet that the characters were totally fictional,but these characters possessed mannerisms he saw in real people,and that Rudolph Wanderone was a fraud,but where can I find the article on the net? Tommy D.
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Now see what you've done! Searching around the web trying to answer your question I discovered that Tevis had written some other excellent books besides The Hustler and the Color of Money. Now I've 2 or 3 additional books on my reading backlog. Grrrrr!
 
I was present during the HOF induction. That's exactly what she said.....Randy Goettlicher
 
catscradle said:
Now see what you've done! Searching around the web trying to answer your question I discovered that Tevis had written some other excellent books besides The Hustler and the Color of Money. Now I've 2 or 3 additional books on my reading backlog. Grrrrr!
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In addition to the two above mentioned books, I have read two other Walter Tevis books: The Queen's Gambit and The Man Who Fell to Earth. I enjoyed both books a great deal. I particularly like his writing style. It is very clean, compact and non-flashy.

Of these two non-pool themed books, I particularly like The Queens Gambit. It is about a female Chess player.

His books are not for everybody. They are certainly not action packed, but there is typically a lot going on with the characters on many differrent levels. I find that my appreciation of his books goes up over time after they have a chance to sink in to my thick skull.

If anybody out there has not read The Hustler and Color of Money, shame on you. Both are fantastic. While the movie based on The Hustler largely sticks with the book, the movie of Color of Money is very, very different. While I liked TCOM movie, the story in the book is much more complex and interesting.
 
Tevis was lying

Tommy-D said:
> Can someone please help me find a reprint of the BCA HOF speech given by Walter Tevis' wife that debunked the Minnesota Fats myth once and for all? A close friend recently got into a debate with several uninformed locals about whether Fats was the real basis for the book and whether Eddie Parker was also a focal point of both of his books. Many of us I'm sure have read the article where his wife told the entire room at the HOF banquet that the characters were totally fictional,but these characters possessed mannerisms he saw in real people,and that Rudolph Wanderone was a fraud,but where can I find the article on the net? Tommy D.
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I talked to Tevis personally and he held to his story that all the characters were fictional. I personally didnt believe him. Firstly, forget about the Fats character, he hit another character in the book dead on the head. The guy that Eddie first plays after his thumbs heal was an old guy from a slavic country who had arrived in America and took up pool at around age fifty and became a hustler. The similarities between that guy and a real player named Tom Smith are much more clearer than the Fats coincidences. I'm not going to bother to get into all the similarities, however all who knew Tom Smith knows that that is who Tevis is portraying. There are a lot less, tall, extremely enegetic, old Croatians who become pool hustlers at age 50, then there are fat pool hustlers named Fats who have a nervous tic. I am now putting out a request for old-timers who knew Tom Smith (he made his home in Ohio). He was a real phenomenon, as he was still on the road hustling pool at age 95!

the Beard
 
Fast Eddie Felson/Parker

i am friend that tommy d is referring to. last night at the local tournament there were some guys talking about the movies "the color of money" and "the hustler" and then they said that the hustler and the book were a true story. i said that the book was fiction and they argued with me vehemently. i said that it is a common perception that the characters were real but in fact walter tevis made them both up. i told them the story of rudolph wanderone and i think a couple of people believed me or maybe they just wanted me to quit talking.

the real argument was over fast eddie. they said that fast eddie felson was a real pool player. they said that back about 10 years ago (and i remember this) he came and put on an exhibition in the pool hall. he went all around to all the small bars and pool rooms around here, west tn, bootheel of mo, western ky, and put on small trick shot shows. there were flyers all over the place claiming that he was eddie parker and he was the man eddie felson was based on and he was a consultant to the movie and he was the world's greatest hustler, etc, etc, etc.

i told them that the guy was a fraud and so was fats and tevis was pissed that they stole his characters AFTER the movie came out and made a lot of money off them. EVERYBODY told me i was wrong. i said i will bet y'all anything you want and i will bring the proof in print.

i was doing some research last night and came across this article:

http://www.onthesnap.com/players/fast_eddie.htm

isn't this guy a fake? don't tell me i made a complete ass out of myself last night.
 
vivalaraza said:
i was doing some research last night and came across this article:

http://www.onthesnap.com/players/fast_eddie.htm

isn't this guy a fake? don't tell me i made a complete ass out of myself last night.
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vivalaraza...You did not make an ass of yourself. You told the truth. I knew Eddie for over 20 yrs. Eddie Parker was a very nice man, who did fairly well traveling around the country, giving trick shot exhibitions, whenever and wherever he could scare up somebody to pay a couple hundred to him. After TCOM came out, Eddie made another trip cross country to "milk" the action. Polygraph or not (they can be beaten, which is why they are not admissible in court), Eddie Parker was just another poolplayer. There was NO Eddie Felson...it was a fictitious character made up by Tevis, in '57, not
'59. Same for Wanderone. He figured he could pull off a transformation, and started calling him Minnesota Fats, when The Hustler won the academy award for best picture in '61. Before that he called himself New York Fats. He was a marketing genious (for himself), and kept every newspaper clipping he could find about himself, in a box, in the trunk of his Caddy...and anytime anyone asked him, he pulled them all out to "justify" his status. He was full of bull, but a great character who will live in immortality in pool history. Jack White told me that Fatty was a three-time Olympic champion...at POWER-eating! LMAO

Scott Lee
www.poolknowledge.com
 
F.E. was a compilation of all sorts of individuals that Walter heard about and some he met. Including Eddie Parker/Toby Kavanaugh/Rags Fitzpatrick/and an old hustler that went by the name of "Fox". His story wasn't originally a novel it was a short story, which he was later encouraged to turn into a novel.

Tevis is something of a legend around here in Lexington, Kentucky. There are still some around here who remember when he used to run around with Toby Kavanaugh, as young men trying to hustle up some action at the old Phoenix Hotel in Lexington.

BTW - Tevis destested Ralph Wunderone as an oppurtunist and would tell this to pretty much anyone who would listen.
 
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Well ...

You guys have your story, i have mine. I grew up
in Doidge City, Ks.. and heard of Fast Eddie Felson,
that was from Junction City, Ks. since I was a kid.
The Hustler, i believe came out in 1961 (the movie),
so I was 13 at that time. My brother, 6 years older
than I am, attended college in Lawrence and Topeka
and had heard of him too. )both aren't far from Junction City.
 
mthornto said:
In addition to the two above mentioned books, I have read two other Walter Tevis books: The Queen's Gambit and The Man Who Fell to Earth. I enjoyed both books a great deal. I particularly like his writing style. It is very clean, compact and non-flashy.

Of these two non-pool themed books, I particularly like The Queens Gambit. It is about a female Chess player.

His books are not for everybody. They are certainly not action packed, but there is typically a lot going on with the characters on many differrent levels. I find that my appreciation of his books goes up over time after they have a chance to sink in to my thick skull.

If anybody out there has not read The Hustler and Color of Money, shame on you. Both are fantastic. While the movie based on The Hustler largely sticks with the book, the movie of Color of Money is very, very different. While I liked TCOM movie, the story in the book is much more complex and interesting.
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I've also read and enjoyed the Queen's Gambit. 4 Stars****:D
 
Queen's Gambit is good, although I haven't read it in years. Here is a link to some interviews with the man himself.

http://wiredforbooks.org/waltertevis/

Walter had a fairly difficult early childhood, he was a bit on what I would call the "tortured" side. It comes through in his writing quite well. When he was a child he was left in a hospital in California to recover from an illness, while the rest of his family moved to Kentucky. I think he was alone there for almost a year before joining them.
 
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The Queen's Gambit is an excellent book about a chess prodigy and the pressures associated with it. Translates to pool as well. Rudolf Wanderone was very far from the dapper champion portrayed in both the book and the movie version of The Hustler. He was an opportunist of the highest caliber and parlayed it into a lucrative career. Eddie Parker aslo used a claimed basis as part of his schtick. Both of these men were consumate entertainers and both could play at a level high enough to impress anyone other than bonafide pool champions. Although they were not truly the people that Tevis's characters were based on, they did do as much or more than he did throughout their lifetimes to promote the game and bring more people to it. I would be willing to bet that there are plenty of people who took up pool after seeing Fats or Parker, who had never even seen The Hustler.

So, in that sense, although it was probably Tevis' work that inspired Wanderone and Parker to adopt the personas they did, in the end the effect was more profound than the amount of money any of them made or lost on the association.

John
 
And furthermore, as the ex-husband to a writer, I can tell you that all good fiction is based on characters and events experienced in real life. And any good writer will tell you the same thing. Also, any good writer will disavow any real-person basis for their characters UNLESS they have some form of agreement with the real life people their characters are based on. This is quite simply to avoid any legal entanglements.

John
 
catscradle said:
Now see what you've done! Searching around the web trying to answer your question I discovered that Tevis had written some other excellent books besides The Hustler and the Color of Money. Now I've 2 or 3 additional books on my reading backlog. Grrrrr!
Click to expand...


Very few people are aware that Walter Tevis also wrote "The Man who Fell To Earth", a great book and a good movie.
Most of you should know that Tevis' Color Of Money was nothing like the Sorcese movie of the same name.
 
vivalaraza said:
i am friend that tommy d is referring to. last night at the local tournament there were some guys talking about the movies "the color of money" and "the hustler" and then they said that the hustler and the book were a true story. i said that the book was fiction and they argued with me vehemently. i said that it is a common perception that the characters were real but in fact walter tevis made them both up. i told them the story of rudolph wanderone and i think a couple of people believed me or maybe they just wanted me to quit talking.

the real argument was over fast eddie. they said that fast eddie felson was a real pool player. they said that back about 10 years ago (and i remember this) he came and put on an exhibition in the pool hall. he went all around to all the small bars and pool rooms around here, west tn, bootheel of mo, western ky, and put on small trick shot shows. there were flyers all over the place claiming that he was eddie parker and he was the man eddie felson was based on and he was a consultant to the movie and he was the world's greatest hustler, etc, etc, etc.

i told them that the guy was a fraud and so was fats and tevis was pissed that they stole his characters AFTER the movie came out and made a lot of money off them. EVERYBODY told me i was wrong. i said i will bet y'all anything you want and i will bring the proof in print.

i was doing some research last night and came across this article:

http://www.onthesnap.com/players/fast_eddie.htm

isn't this guy a fake? don't tell me i made a complete ass out of myself last night.
Click to expand...


You are not an ass. Walter Tevis was a dear friend of mine and my family. He was a gentle man with a good sense of humor. I will not go into the long version of how Fats became Fats or who Fast Eddie is. But suffice to say, the guy(s) who ran around the country claiming to Fast Eddie are not anyone Walter knew or drew from. He MADE UP this character! Walter admired Eddie Taylor and his total class at all times. He watched him play on several occasions in Louisville. Now think of his Fats character, heavy set and very classy. A lot like Taylor, more so than anyone else. Using a writers liberties he created the Fats character and perhaps spun Fast Eddies name off of Eddie T. as well.
Hey kids, he made it all up and what a great story it was.
 
onepocketchump said:
Both of these men were consumate entertainers and both could play at a level high enough to impress anyone other than bonafide pool champions. Although they were not truly the people that Tevis's characters were based on, they did do as much or more than he did throughout their lifetimes to promote the game and bring more people to it. I would be willing to bet that there are plenty of people who took up pool after seeing Fats or Parker, who had never even seen The Hustler.

So, in that sense, although it was probably Tevis' work that inspired Wanderone and Parker to adopt the personas they did, in the end the effect was more profound than the amount of money any of them made or lost on the association.

John
Click to expand...

Good point John! I agree 100%! Both Fatty & Eddie put on a good show!
Once I watched Fatty do a three hour exhibition, without shooting ONE ball!
He stood there with his cue in his hand, and had us all in stitches the entire time, with his stories and jokes!

Scott
 
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