Why Tinseltown's Brightest Stars Love The Game of Poker....
TEXAS INVADES TINSEL TOWN We’ve touched on the Tinsel Town poker tribe on several occasions but it really is penetrating (yep…including Paris Hilton) every section of the celluloid community. Here’s the big-name A-list of players with real talent on the felt: Sharon Stone, Robert Downey Jnr., Alec Baldwin, Dennis Hopper, Burt Reynolds, Walter Matthau, David “Friends” Schwimmer, Matthew “Friends” Perry, Angie Dickenson, Matt Damon, Ed Norton, Chevy Chase, Ben Affleck, Mimi “ex-Mrs Tom Cruise” Rogers, Vinnie Jones, American Beauty star Mena Suvari, Jack Black, Jennifer Tilley (she’s brilliant by the way), Paris Hilton (recently lost her Bentley in a card game but is actually good enough to win it back) Leonardo DiCaprio, Toby “Spiderman” Maguire, a host of directors and producers and my absolute favourite James Woods. Okay, so they’ve all got loads of money to play with, but are any of them any good? Bet your front row Premier seats they are. Jennifer Tilley won $160,000 at the World Series Ladies Poker Championships, Spiderman himself won $95,000 at a recent No Limit Hold’em event in L.A., Affleck finished in the top 100 poker money list in 2004 with almost $600,000 in winnings and has also scooped $350,000 at the California State Championships. The really big wins of course take place behind closed doors at the extravagant private cash games in Beverly Hills. Rumours of film parts being won and lost between stars and directors often leak out to the American tabloids. But all this has a solid history to it.
HOLLYWOOD’S HISTORY WTH POKER A long, long time ago in a Galaxy far, far away called the Warner Brothers studio lot circa 1940’s and 1950’s legendary movie mogul Sam Goldwyn would often go heads up with his notorious rival Jack Warner. The two silver screen dinosaurs would butt heads in private cash games, one of which is on record as having resulted in Warner lending Goldwyn the services of movie Queen Bette Davis to MGM against a huge gambling debt. Gregory Peck, John Huston and John Wayne were all committed poker fans and Wayne actually won movie mutt icon “Lassie” from its dog-handler during an infamous midnight card game. Wayne had a soft centre beneath the gritty exterior and returned the world renowned Collie to its bereft handler the very next day. Typical of Hollywood in the 50’s. Every drama had to have happy ending. Odds are some of the cash games didn’t.
