Always enjoy the stories, Johnny. Yarbles- lol, nice avatar, but please don't call my wife again.

Good read, thanks.

RIP Etta James. You had the voice of an angel..... If that angel had the blues.

Yea, as a big fan of early chess records blues and rock and roll (Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Little Walter, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Etta etc.) I thought the movie was fairly poorly done. Beyonce was hot as Etta and did a great job singing "All I could do is cry", but the movie was filled with over acting, Adrain Brody probably was worse in this movie than he ever has been. AND THEY DIDN'T EVEN INCLUDE BO DIDLEY! So, in conclusion, the movie is based off of awesomeness but failed to deliver said awesomeness.

Wrong. Look at Rashida Jones daughter of Quincy Jones (black) and Peggy Lipton (white). She has similar coloring to Etta.

Also RIP Etta.

Rare that I post, but had to jump in here.

Love that Johnny gives us much of the back story of the world of...how shall we say it...the less than clean side of what poker and gambling were through the "early years". (And by that, I mean anything before 1970). (Johnny, don't blast me for not giving you more years!)

Looking at the pics, it is possible that Etta James was Minnesota Fats' daughter. Doesn't seem he disavowed it and doesn't seem she did. As both have now gone to the Great Beyond, is it up to us to beat them up.

Minnesota Fats was one of the great gamblers to ever exist, up there with Titanic Thompson, Benny Binion and Doyle even. Etta James was one of the great vocalists of the 20th century. Let's revel in both of their excellence in remembering them.

2002 CNN article with Etta James briefly talking about Fats' as her father:
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/...mes/index.html

I always enjoy reading Johnny's anecdotes. I know they can be...idiosyncratic, but like the great gamblers of yesteryear, it's these apparent flaws that gives them character. Keep posting Johnny!

Good find Stat and

Courtesy of CNN By Denise Quan (Daily News from Entertainment Weekly):

"Dorothy Hawkins died this past May. But she outlived the man rumored to be James' father -- the enigmatic pool shark, Minnesota Fats. James met him once, in 1987, when she tracked him to the Heritage Hotel in Nashville and rang his room.

"He says, 'I'll be in the lobby,' " she says, pronouncing lobby as 'laahhhhby.' "He talked like that. 'I'll be in the lobby with one of my dames.' He had a vibe like me. As far as me knowing that's my father? I don't know. But he seemed like he was.

"When he passed, he sent me a beautiful golden watch that hung on his clothes that had his name on it. And he sent me a letter, and told me that he wanted me to write a song about him and stuff, which I never did. But I often thought about that."

James looks down wistfully at her hands. Despite a perfect French manicure, they're large, masculine hands -- just like those of Minnesota Fats. Then her head snaps back up. "Oh! And he gave us a picture - and the picture looked just like Donto, my oldest son. It was just like Donto."

I love TwoPlusTwo and all these bright young people. Etta James had a sad life, with decades of hard drug use, and rehab. Fats seemed like a happy, funny man who loved fame just a little too much. I had read that he had his gold watch sent to Etta. I am slowly writing a book that tells poker history in the profiles of famous gamblers. These TwoPlusTwo discussions really help me and motivate me. I am also learning how gambling history evolved with the times, laws, and fashions. Titanic knew and partnered with Arnold Rothstein, Hubert Cokes, Fats, and Johnny Moss. However, Fats psyched him out with his non-stop conversation and props and Titanic admitted it. He wanted to beat Fats so badly, but he didn't ever.

At first, Titanic, Cokes, and Fats toured towns doing "the lemon proposition." Playing below their skill level, even losing on purpose until they worked up a big bet. With "the conversation", the opponents think they can beat you, but more importantly, they want to beat you so badly it impacts their good judgement. You can do that at poker also. Tell 'em, "We are about to play a pot a show horse couldn't jump over." or "You can't play a lick. I'm gonna bust you." "New to poker, huh? Being scared isn't helping you." You can get their ego involved. Bluff them out of a small pot and show everybody and laugh. Get them mad. Then when you have a hand, overbet it big.

A celebrity gambler gets a lot of gifts. Folks want to beat you and try you even though they know they have the worst of it.

Remember, TwoPLusTwoers, the greats either did not drink or did not drink as they played poker. Beating drunks is easy if you can put up with them. One of my road games is to enter the casino at 4 a.m. when the winners are gone and the drunks rule. Drunks are supposed to be rolled.

I remembe watching the Minnesota Fats/Willie Marscone match on TV. For some reason, I liked Willie better.

Heard the Minnesota Fats angle in several of the obits for Ms. James. All of them state that the story was never proven one way or the other, and that Fats himself never claimed anything beyond "not remembering". Great story, though . . .

It's obvious she is his daughter from looking at their pictures:



In addition, I am convinced that Lucy Liu



is the child of Carlos Santana



and Maya Angelou

To be honest, if Etta James' mother was a prostitute, then I doubt she has any idea who the father of her child is. She probably said Fats name, as he was a famous person she slept with, so is one of the few that she would actually know the name of. In reality, she is unlikely to have had any idea of who the father was, if she was sleeping with multiple men, as prostitutes do. I don't find their resemblance terribly close.

Time for a DNA test.

Fats didn't have much at the end. He send Etta his engraved gold watch and asked her to write a song about him. I don't know that the mother was any full-scale prostitute. Billy West was a black actor in several movies. He was a friend of Etta's mother and he ran around with Fats. He was the one that told Etta that Minnesota Fats was her father. She learned when he started to appear on TV. She didn't look so much like him I would imagine as she did when she got older. The guys here on TwoPlusTwo know more about this than the TV networks as they dismiss it as if she made a claim, he said no. It was more complicated and sending the watch was an olive branch to say he did not totally doubt her claim.

interesting story to say the least thanks johnny

I am a master at poker pool

I have been won over by these stories over time. Keep up the good work JH, hope you get your book published.

I'm not anywhere near your age, but I'm old enough to recall the ABC Wide World of Sports matches between Mosconi and Fats, and I loved Etta James, yet I had never heard that rumor. One of those, "how have I never heard of this?" moments. Good read.

so he was a paedo?

Not sure wats so juicy bout that....it was the norm.

hoping this thread doesn't become a paedo discussion.

Without uttering a single word, Jackie Gleason accomplished more in several scenes of The Hustler with just the wheels spinning behind his eyes than Brad Pitt, George Clooney or Matt Damon can accomplish with fifty pages of contemporary dialogue.

Perhaps this explains why he "couldn't remember" so good