{"id":355191,"date":"2025-12-18T02:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T02:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/355191\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T02:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T02:50:11","slug":"the-real-marty-supreme-once-broke-a-cigarette-with-a-ping-pong-ball-on-letterman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/355191\/","title":{"rendered":"The Real Marty Supreme Once Broke a Cigarette with a Ping-Pong Ball on \u2018Letterman\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the story goes, while Josh Safdie<\/a> was finishing Uncut Gems, his wife Sara Rossein got him a copy of Reisman\u2019s autobiography, The Money Player: The Confessions of America\u2019s Greatest Table Tennis Champion<\/a>. The book detailed Reisman\u2019s hustling existence in a post-Depression America, which took him around the world via world championship competitions, some of which he won (like the 1949 English Open) or medaled in. That hustler\u2019s ambition eventually got the best of Reisman, who tried to place a bet on a game with an undercover member of the United States Table Tennis Association. Reisman kept it pushing, though, touring the world with the Harlem Globetrotters, wowing crowds with his ping pong skills.<\/p>\n

Years later, Reisman got his second wind, and at 67, became the oldest player to win an open national tournament when he won the 1997 United States National Hardbat Championship. Reisman is a certified New York legend, a table tennis magician who young players could see play live and in living color, continuing their legacy through shared tales. That\u2019s how some got to know of Reisman, through tales Matthew Broderick shared during an April 2008 visit to The Late Show with David Letterman.<\/p>\n

During their conversation, Letterman wondered how Broderick chose to stay in shape these days. Broderick said he does \u201ca little of everything,\u201d detailing how, when the gym is slow, they will start running ping pong games. (Broderick described his skills as being at \u201cthe level of a 13-year-old girl with a table in her den.\u201d) Broderick mentioned that he used to play at Marty Reisman\u2019s on 96th and Broadway<\/a>; \u201cReisman wore this big pimpy hat, like Streets of San Francisco, and aviator glasses,\u201d Broderick remarked in a 2004 New York Magazine profile<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Broderick spoke of when Reisman would walk into the room and players would stand in awe of the veteran world champion, and brought up the trick shot where Reisman would stand a cigarette vertically and then chop it clean in half with a ping pong shot. Broderick could only share these stories, as he\u2019d never actually met Reisman. Letterman brilliantly feigned surprise (\u201cOh, really?!\u201d) before interrupting Broderick, saying \u201cWell, you know, he\u2019s here tonight.\u201d Broderick looks shocked at first, then laughs; it\u2019s hard to tell if he even believes Letterman, but sure enough, a curtain is lifted and a red-shirted Reisman (in his signature Panama hat) stood next to a ping pong table.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the story goes, while Josh Safdie was finishing Uncut Gems, his wife Sara Rossein got him a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,2331,134,344,1671,40530,427,1672],"class_list":{"0":"post-355191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-textbelowcenterfullbleed","14":"tag-timothee-chalamet","15":"tag-tv","16":"tag-web"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}