Early Life and Career
Rudolf Walter Wanderon, Jr. was born in New York City to Rosa and Rudolf Wanderon, Swiss immigrants. He was born in 1913 but sometimes hinted he was born earlier, even as early as 1900. The surname was later changed to Wanderone.
Known as "Rudy" to friends and family, Wanderone started playing pool as a child while living in Washington Heights, Manhattan. In 1923, he traveled to Europe with his father where he received training from German balkline billiards champion Erich Hagenlocher. His first prominent match was in 1926 when he competed against former nine-ball champion "Cowboy" Weston (Wanderone won, handily). Wanderone left school in the eighth grade and became a traveling pool hustler, spending much of the 1920s playing at a pool hall called Cranfield's in New York City. It was there that Wanderone received his first nickname after beating another hustler known as "Smart Henry". The intensity of their competition led Wanderone's friend, Titanic Thompson, to dub Wanderone "Double-Smart". By the mid-1930s, during the Great Depression, Wanderone had become a manager of a pool hall, owned by a friend, in Anacostia, southeast Washington, D.C. He had acquired more notoriety and nicknames, including "Triple-Smart Fats", "New York Fats", "Broadway Fats", and "Chicago Fats", attracting action from other hustlers, including the then unknown Luther "Wimpy" Lassiter.
In 1941, Wanderone and friend Jimmy Castras arrived in southern Illinois—major hustling center on a fast track to televised tournament play—and settled in Du Quoin, Illinois, where he continued hustling. Eventually he met Evelyn Inez Graff; they married two months to the day later, on May 7, 1941. Following their marriage, the Wanderones settled in Dowell, Illinois.
In 1942, the couple moved to Norfolk, Virginia. Norfolk had become a key mustering point for US soldiers, as well as a shipbuilding center. The growing population led to an enormous interest in gambling; Wanderone, in partnership with fellow hustler Lassiter, quickly recognized the financial possibilities. Following World War II, however, the action "dried up" soon, and the Wanderones returned to Little Egypt. For a period throughout the 1950s, Wanderone entered semi-retirement, making only occasional hustling trips to New York City.
Read more about this topic: Rudolf Wanderone
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“I do not know that I meet, in any of my Walks, Objects which move both my Spleen and Laughter so effectually, as those Young Fellows ... who rise early for no other Purpose but to publish their Laziness.”
—Richard Steele (1672–1729)
“Every time an ashtray is missing from a hotel, they don’t come looking for you. But let a diamond bracelet disappear in France and they shout John Robie, the Cat. You don’t have to spend every day of your life proving your honesty, but I do.”
—John Michael Hayes (b.1919)
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)