Poker Is Proving An Excellent Re-Launching Pad For Hollywood Types

Poker Is Proving An Excellent Re-Launching Pad For Hollywood-Types TO SAY THAT THERES NEVER BEEN a better time to be a poker player is to understate the facts with extreme vengeance. Games have popped up everywhere, loose money abounds, and the men and women who make a living at the game, a once shadowy fraternity of semi-anonymous diehards, have in many cases become full-fledged celebrities.

Mike Sexton is very nearly a household name and, of late, a best-selling author. Two Phils, Gordon and Laak, enjoy television gigs allowing them to rub elbows with Hollywood types. Howard Lederers new fantasy poker camp has captured the attention of the national media. While the established stars issue books and instructional videos like the Saudis pump oil-encouraging more players to try their hands at poker tournaments. The tournaments keep producing new stars to issue new books and instructional videos. The circle of life continues.

Yes, poker has become a celebrity producing machine, a Seussian invention stamping green stars on the bellies of its winners. Its a condition that hasnt been lost on those most familiar with process: the celebrities themselves. Poker isnt just creating new stars, but offers those who would be or once were stars the chance to redefine, rehabilitate, even resurrect their images. The notion that poker could make an effective publicity tool isnt exactly a new one. Matt Damon and Ed Norton played in the 1998 World Series, hoping to promote the release of Rounders. Both were eliminated the first day, despite respectable showings: Norton busted when he showed a set of nines Lou Diamond Phillips went from standing and delivering to sitting and bluffing, elevating his star status as a celebrity poker regular. RIGHT: Shana Hiatts acting career never quite took off, but she, along with brother-in law Vince Van Patten, has become a celebrity of sorts thanks to the World Poker Tour.

Against Surinder Sunars four tens Damon when he went all-in before th flop with pocket kings against the legendary Doyle Brunson, whose pocket aces held up. At least the movie did WE Todays celebrities, however, have d covered that poker can be a career maker. Take Vince Van Patten, known poker fans around the world as the King Of The Hollywood Home Game, his face having become synonymous with tournament poker. But his road t royalty was hardly an easy one. The actual son of the father that everyone wishes they had-everyone who grew up watching Dick Van Patten on Eight Enough, anyway-Vince began his care as a child-actor, making appearances 0 a variety of shows before landing his big break in 1976 as the star newest incarnation of one of the decades most popular television franchises.
Move over, Lee Majors-Vince Van Patten was going to be the Bionic Boy! Well, not exactly. The show never made it past the pilot stage. Undeterred, Vince turned his attention to a new stage-the pro tennis circuit. He got off to a promising start, earning honors as the ATP Rookie of the Year in 1979. But despite a few quality wins, including a couple against John McEnroe, Van Patten never managed to achieve a ranking higher than number 26 during his eight years on the tour. He returned to acting, landing recurring roles on Baywatch and The Young And The Restless, and seemed destined for the Hollywood C-list.
Enter the World Poker Tour. Along with the show, Van Patten became an overnight success. Now hes one of pokers most recognizable faces. The same can be said for his co-star and sister-in-law, Shana Hiatt, a former Hawaiian Tropics model whose acting career (to date) topped out as Flight Attendant #2 in the forgettable Rodney Dangerfield vehicle The 4th Tenor. To paraphrase Garrett Morris, poker has been very, very good to Van Patten and Hiatt. The game has also done its share to help those who have been treated less than kindly by celebritys fickle glow.
Lou Diamond Phillips, circa 1988, was a card-carrying member of the Hollywood elite. After his breakout performance as the star of La Bamba, Phillips earned a Golden Globe for his supporting role as a troubled young gangster mentored by Edward James Olmos in Stand And Deliver. He was cast alongside Kiefer Sutherland and Charlie Sheen as one of the Young Guns, and as a true hyphenate -Phillips can also write and direct seemed destined for greatness.
Six years later, he was playing Hassan the Pimp in the exploitation flick Boulevard. His feature directing debut, an erotic thriller called Dangerous Touch, was largely ignored. Despite some critical acclaim for his work on Broadway and the occasional supporting role, Phillips career appeared to have entered free-fall. As one of the more recognizable faces regularly competing in poker tournaments, however, from the games transformative powers, as it has created opportunities for working actors to test their mettle as mini moguls. Joshua Malina, known to fans of The West Wing as acerbic advisor Will Bailey, was one of the co-creators of the hit Bravo show Celebrity Poker Showdown, a concept that grew out of the famed home game hosted by Hank Azaria. Laura Prepon of That 70s Show and Maxim magazine cover-girl fame, is Phillips found himself co-opted by the World Poker Tour as it sought to gain its footing. He was asked to host the WPT Primer, an informational DVD about the show, and made frequent appearances during the tournament broadcasts. This summer, Phillips plans to return to directing, having elicited commitments from Camryn Manheim, Norm MacDonald, and Meat Loaf to star in Dead Money, a Rocky-esque script hes written about, of all things, a poker player.
Not even successful stars are immune also a rabid poker player, which is what led her to formulate the idea for Hollywood Hold Em. The show, whose atmosphere seems to encourage its participants to interact with a lot more unconcealed venom than the happy-go lucky scene-chewers on Celebrity Poker Showdown, recently enjoyed a six episode run on the E! network.
Actor James Woods has earned a couple of Academy Award nominations, Emmys, a Golden Globe, even his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Laura Prepon (pictured with Chris Masterson, Danny Masterson, and host Phil Laak), created a celeb poker show for the E! network that ran this past spring.
Hes still acting, of course, but recently turned his attention to directing, helming four television commercials designed to promote HollywoodPoker.com. A coventure hes created with Vince Van Patten, the Web site promises world-class, secure online poker entertainment with access to exclusive celebrity games. One of the funnier features on the site is a message board where poker civilians can notch their celebrity sightings at the poker table, Woods, of course, also participated in the recent 64-person National Heads-Up Poker Championship televised by NBC
Aspirants to the glitz and glamour of Hollywood were once advised to work on their table-waiting skills. But in todays world gone crazy for poker, they might be better served working on their table image. Jonathan Grotenstein is co-author of Poker: The Real Deal with Phil Gordon. His new history of the World Series of Poker, All In, will hit the bookshelves later this year.
E! HOLLYWOOD HOLD EM: A POST-MORTEM? Part of the genius of the sitcom Seinfeld was that there was never a Very Special Episode. The show never traded in false sentimentality, allowing its characters to be petty, self-obsessed, even down right unlikable, A similar case can be made for E! Hollywood Hold Em, the entertainment channels entry into the celebrity poker genre. Each of its six episodes followed Phil The Una bomber Laak as he dropped in on some Bor list stars home to deal a winner-take-all no-limit tournament.
The games werent particularly well-played the ensuing analysis wasnt always accurate. (One of the shows many popups defined stealing the blinds as when all players fold except the player with the big blind, Huh?) But there was something interesting about watching the players-a mix of celebs and what Variety likes to call nonpros -compete not for their favorite charity, but for $10,000 in strings-free cash. Its funny to see a star who makes ten dimes in per diem contest a pot with the struggling musician crashing on his couch. Or to see a camera-conscious star answer his cell phone in the middle of the tournament, pretty much just to be able to say Hey, Im in the middle of a televised poker tournament. The petty jealousy and vindictiveness that often brewed just beneath the convivial surface were occasionally allowed to erupt: One episode featured enough swearing to make a cringing Laak threaten to start dealing bad cards, announcing was raised in a church.
Alas, the show may no longer be with us. The broadcast run is over and, according to E!, there are currently no plans for a second season, But if you stumble across are-run, and youre in the mood to watch entertaining characters granted the opportunity to act petty, self-obsessed, and occasionally unlikable, you could do a lot worse.