Lou Butera (May 15, 1937 – June 25, 2015) was an American professional

pool Pool may refer to: Water pool * Swimming pool, usually an artificial structure containing a large body of water intended for swimming * Reflecting pool, a shallow pool designed to reflect a structure and its surroundings * Tide pool, a rocky pool ...

player (then retired and operated a

pool hall A billiard, pool or snooker hall (or parlour, room or club; sometimes compounded as poolhall, poolroom, etc.) is a place where people get together for playing cue sports such as pool, snooker or carom billiards. Such establishments commonly serve ...

) and an inductee into the

Billiards Congress of America The Billiard Congress of America (BCA) is the governing body for cue sports in the United States and Canada, and the regional member organization of the World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA).` Puerto Rico, though a US territory, and Mexico, though ...

Hall of Fame A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or Wiktionary:fame, fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actu ...

in 1986. His nickname, "Machine Gun Lou", derives from his stunning the crowd and fellow competitors by 150-and-out in

straight pool Straight pool, which is also called 14.1 continuous and 14.1 rack, is a cue sport in which two competing players attempt to as many billiard balls as possible without playing a . The game was the primary version of pool played in professional ...

in under 30 minutes against his opponents. He gained exposure to the masses in 1981 and 1982 when he appeared in network

trick shot A trick shot (also trickshot or trick-shot) is a shot played on a billiards table (most often a pool table, though snooker tables are also used), which seems unlikely or impossible or requires significant skill. Trick shots frequently involve ...

competitions on

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and

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

Early life

When Lou was seven years old, his mother passed away. His father, who owned a billiard room, had Lou come directly to the business after school each day. Lou would do his homework then play pool until he and his father went home. His early idol was Irving Crane, a pool player from Binghamton, NY.

Career

Lou earned his famous nickname, from setting the world record for fastest run out, in an exhibition against

Luther Lassiter Luther Clement Lassiter, Jr. (November 5, 1918 – October 25, 1988),MyFamily.com Inc. (1998-2006)U.S. Social Security Death Index Search Retrieved December 5, 2006 nicknamed Wimpy, was an American pool player from Elizabeth City, North Carolin ...

he ran 150 balls in straight pool in just 19 minutes. Throughout his career, Butera won many tournaments. He was runner-up to Irving Crane in the 1972 World Championship in Los Angeles. In 1973, he won his first World Championship. He also won the Pennsylvania State Championship twice. In 1974, Butera won the All Japan Championship Straight Pool title, and also triumphed over Richie Florence to win the Bud Lundahl's Midwest Open, a straight pool tournament he won by a score of 150-68 in the title match. In 1991, Butera served as coach of the World Billiard Federation World Team, whose members included Nick Varner, Mike Sigel and Ray Martin. In a profile that appeared in the May/June, 1995 issue o
''Snap Magazine''
he was referred to as "...the man who may be the fastest pool player the game has ever known." Lou Butera was one of the 43 invited pool players who competed in the International Pool Tour's King of the Hill Shootout in

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...

, December 2005. Digitized videos of Butera demonstrating trick shots were included with the PC pool simulator '' Virtual Pool''.

Death

He died from

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

on June 26, 2015.

Filmography

As an accomplished pool player, Butera has produced various instructional videos for students of pool about the fundamentals of the game. Lou Butera appeared in several films as an actor and technical advisor. He had a

cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly eit ...

, as himself, in the pool

hustling Hustling is the deceptive act of disguising one's skill in a sport or game with the intent of luring someone of probably lesser skill into gambling (or gambling for higher than current stakes) with the hustler, as a form of both a confidence tri ...

comedy film ''

The Baltimore Bullet ''The Baltimore Bullet'' is a 1979 American comedy film based on the adventures of two pool hustlers in the United States. It was directed by Robert Ellis Miller and starred James Coburn, Omar Sharif, Bruce Boxleitner and Ronee Blakley. The s ...

'' and as a pool player in '' Police Academy 6: City Under Siege''.Lou Butera, Actor
at the

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Butera had a

as pool player in, and was the pool technical advisor for, the 1984 film ''

Racing with the Moon ''Racing with the Moon'' is a 1984 American drama film starring Sean Penn, Elizabeth McGovern, and Nicolas Cage. It was directed by Richard Benjamin and written by Steve Kloves. The original music score was composed by Dave Grusin. The film's t ...

'', starring

Sean Penn Sean Justin Penn (born August 17, 1960) is an American actor and film director. He has won two Academy Awards, for his roles in the mystery drama ''Mystic River'' (2003) and the biopic ''Milk'' (2008). Penn began his acting career in televisi ...

. He was also featured on the 1995 Virtual Pool CD Rom video game. In 1986 he was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame.

Titles

* 1967 Midwest Open Straight Pool Tournament * 1969 Street City Open Straight Pool Tournament * 1969 Pittsburgh Straight Pool Invitational * 1972 California Straight Pool Tournament * 1973 BCA

World Straight Pool Championship The World Straight Pool Championship is a pool competition, that was held up until the game of Nine-ball became popularized in America. It was the most prestigious straight pool tournament up until the early 21st century, tournaments like the Amer ...

* 1974 U.S. Classic Pocket Billiard Championship * 1974 All Japan Championship * 1981 ESPN King of the Hill Pool Championship * 1986

Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame This is the list of people inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's hall of fame to honour outstanding people who, through their competitive skills and dedication, have enriched the sport and industry. Two categories have been established in ...

* 1992 Team America North Vs South Exhibition * 1994

Mosconi Cup The Mosconi Cup is an annual nine-ball pool tournament contested since 1994 between teams representing Europe and the United States. Named after American pool player Willie Mosconi, the event is comparable to the Ryder Cup in golf and the Weber ...

Filmography

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Butera, Lou 1937 births 2015 deaths People from Pittston, Pennsylvania American pool players Trick shot artists