Best Jerry Orbach story ever (found in alt.obituaries)…
About a year ago I was watching the extras on the DVD of “The Hustler” and they were talking about Minnesota Fats. Jerry Orbach was interviewed and told a wonderful story…
While Fats was trying to promote something he appeared on one of the talk shows with Orbach. Maybe Carson, maybe Cavett… One of them. At any rate, it was being taped in NY and Jerry was appearing in a show that night.
So the show was taped in the afternoon and during the show, Fats challenged Jerry to a game of pool and not realizing that Jerry was one hell of a player, he gave him some sort of advantage figuring that he would still smoke the actor.
Fats, as I recall, never got to take a shot because Jerry ran the table.
So Jerry went on to do his show and told the stage hands about it. And one of them went to a bar after the show and with the crowd watched the talk show that was taped earlier in the day, and bet on Jerry to beat Fats with a patron who did not realize that the show was
prerecorded.