What ev, Doc. He's fat. His name is Fats...change the state so its not blatant. He has the signature tick..now how many people on God's earth do you know with this very tick? I'd say that's enough to raise the suspicion that Tevis was inspired by Fats. Think what you want. I met Tevis and if I had asked, I'm sure he would have denied. I think it might have cost him some money if he had admitted it.
With a gun to my head I would insist that he fictionalized the real Fatty. Nobody has mentioned that he admitted (and how could he deny it?) that the poolroom in Chicago that the match took place at, Bennington's, was based on the real Bensingers -- and he did admit that he had visited it. That fact is known by a few people. What is known to very few humans (besides me), is that Tevis perfectly described a Chicago poolroom where Fast Eddie plays an old man from Europe who took up the game at age 60 and became a hustler. Eddie is playing with an open hand bridge. The old man was a perfect recreation of Tom Smith, an immigrant from Yugoslavia (I knew him well), and the poolroom was an old dump on Harrison and State St., small grill in the front, a couple of tables in the back.
The odds of the coincidence of two unique people like Tom Smith and Fatty landing in the same book, with the author declaring no previous knowledge of either, is like a moon shot off of a pogo stick.
I confronted Tevis in Dayton and naturally brought up Tom Smith. He denied any knowledge of a Tom Smith. I giggled at him.
Beard
Hell with it, here is an excerpt from my book that goes into detail:
A Chicago poolroom, “The Hustler” & Tom Smith
A seedy old poolroom at Harrison and State just south of downtown Chicago was the model of one of the poolrooms used in the book, “The Hustler.” It’s the part where Fast Eddie’s thumbs had just about healed, and he went into a joint that had a grill in the front and a small poolroom in the rear. Eddie winds up playing and beating an old man in there using an open-bridge. The scene is based on a real place and a real person.
The guy Eddie played was based on a old-time hustler named Tom Smith. That probably wasn’t his real name, but it was the only one that I ever heard anyone call him.
The actual poolroom was a dump, and you would have to be some kind of a rounder to play in that joint; even I was a little skittish about going in there. There was a big sign on the back wall that said, "No dope dealing or pimping allowed." It had a definite cross-section of humanity in there. The best players were “Jew Town Red” (a Black hustler who had once saved me from getting hurt in Olympic Billiards -- another dangerous poolroom), and “Polack Frank the Killer” (not to be confused with Polack Vince the Killer). It only had about 4 or 5 tables in the back, with a small grill up front. All of the tables were 5’x10's. The place has been closed since the ‘70s.
Tom Smith
At 100 years old, a full century, Tom Smith, of OH, was the oldest pool hustler. Tom, at 100, could still run 2 racks in Straight pool. He didn’t start playing pool until he arrived in America from Yugoslavia, when he was in his ‘60s. Walter Tevis, who wrote “The Hustler,” probably based a character in that book on old Tom. He would have been the fellow depicted as the old guy Fast Eddie played when his thumbs healed.
Tom was an impressive physical specimen; he stood ramrod straight, was strong as a bull, and always wore a suit and tie. While still in his ‘90s, he was a gigolo to 70- and 80-year old widows. At age 90, he fought off a stick-up man in Miami, FL, and refused to give up the money. Even though he did catch a gun-butt to the head, he did not release the cheese.
(People who need the real facts need to buy the Beard's book. The Doc is reading it, but apparently he hasn't gotten to the above part yet.)
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