Rudolf Wanderone - Later Life

Later Life

The Billiard Congress of America in 1984 inducted Wanderone into its Hall of Fame for "Meritorious Service" in recognition of his contributions to helping popularize the game of pool. Also in 1984, Wanderone left his wife, Evelyn; they divorced a year later.

Wanderone moved into the Hermitage Hotel in downtown Nashville, Tennessee in 1985, remaining there for the next several years. In 1992, while undergoing surgery for a knee injury, he suffered a massive heart attack, but survived. In 1993, he met and married his second wife, Theresa Ward Bell. He lived in Bell's Nashville house until his death on January 15, 1996, just four days shy of his 83rd birthday (although some sources, including the New York Times, erroneously placed his death on January 18).

Wanderone had no known children. Singer Etta James said that she believed he was her father, having been told this by her mother, as well as by others who knew her mother and whom James describes as "people who were there and should know". However, there is no published evidence of such a relationship. James and Wanderone are only known to have met once, in 1987. In her autobiography, Rage to Survive, James recounted their meeting, writing that Wanderone neither confirmed nor denied his paternity. According to James, he told her that he did not recall the details of his life at the time of her conception well enough to know whether he could have been the father.

The epitaph on his tombstone reads: "Beat every living creature on Earth. 'St. Peter, rack 'em up. – Fats'".