Touchstone Plus-Or-Minus: The Color Of Money

The formation of Touchstone Pictures opened the door for a wide range of actors and filmmakers who previously never would have even considered working for Disney. It’s impossible to imagine Paul Mazursky or the ZAZ team signing on to helm something like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. But perhaps the unlikeliest director to sign on in Touchstone’s early days was Martin Scorsese. Even stranger, Scorsese was at a point in his career where he needed Disney a lot more than they needed him.

But the story of The Color Of Money doesn’t start with Martin Scorsese. In 1959, Walter Tevis published his first novel, The Hustler. The story of a young pool hustler, “Fast Eddie” Felson, who takes on the legendary Minnesota Fats, the book was made into a movie in 1961 by director Robert Rossen. Paul Newman starred as Fast Eddie alongside Jackie Gleason as Minnesota Fats. The movie racked up a total of nine Oscar nominations (eight, if you subtract the one for supporting actor George C. Scott, who refused his) and won two.

Both the book and the film were hailed as classics and sat untouched until 1984, when Walter Tevis returned to Fast Eddie, Minnesota Fats and the world of pool hustling with the sequel The Color Of Money. It would be his last published novel before his death later that same year. Newman’s lawyer, Irving Axelrad, read a few chapters before publication and recommended his client consider reprising his role.