Bruce Christopher: Self-Appointed Legend

With a penchant for arm candy and self-promotion, the shooter dubbed "Superstroke" made his play for fame in the "Me Decade."

By R.A. Dyer

A canny self-promoter, Christopher always had exotic ladies and publicity shots on hand.

A few months back I wrote a column about a near fistfight between Willie Mosconi and Minnesota Fats. It went down in late 1977 at the Hilton Room in New York's Waldorf Astoria. Fats was playing an exhibition match; Willie and Howard Cosell were working as commentators; Fats made a crack about beating every living human; the very alive Willie blew his stack. I argued that the resulting shoving match now should be seen as an important footnote in the history of American pocket billiards. Vaguely absurd and definitely tacky, the quasi-fisticuffs nonetheless set the stage for several colossally successful Mosconi-Fats matches that followed.

But if that brouhaha was an important footnote, then that footnote also has a footnote - and its name is Bruce "Superstroke" Christopher. He was there that day - he was scheduled to play Fats - but the match never made it onto TV, and Christopher eventually fell into obscurity. I trip over old references to Christopher from time to time (for instance, he's mentioned in Willie Mosconi's autobiography), although it has been years since any major newspaper has written a word about him.

The challenge I presented myself was to discover what I could about Bruce Christopher, a man once dubbed by Billiards Digest as "Mr. Unusual." Where's he been? What does he do today? And is he still just as unusual as he was in his 1970s heyday?

Although most younger players have never heard of him (and some older ones may recollect him only vaguely), Superstroke at one time commanded at least moderate fame as a young Robert Redford look-alike who trafficked in trick-shot shows and who made singularly dubious claims about his ability to play pocket billiards. His own PR materials dubbed him the "world's leading pool player," and, indeed, if nothing else, Christopher was a skilled self-promoter. He hobnobbed with several major sports stars of the day, including Muhammad Ali and New York Knick Walt Frazier. He was a contestant on the venerable TV game show "To Tell the Truth." To the extent that people paid any attention to him, we can find two reasons, and both have to do with his almost maniacal penchant for self-promotion.

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Since 1978, Billiards Digest magazine has been the pool world’s best source for news, tournament coverage, player profiles, bold editorials, and advice on how to play pool. Our instructors include superstars Nick Varner and Jeanette Lee. Every issue features the pool accessories and equipment you love — pool cues, pool tables, instruction aids and more. Columnists Mike Shamos and R.A. Dyer examine legends like Willie Mosconi and Minnesota Fats, and dig deep into the histories of pool games like 8-ball, 9-ball and straight pool.

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