In Marty Supreme, Timothée Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, a fictional version of Marty Raisman, the real-life table tennis star whose heyday was in the 1940s and 50s.
Marty Supreme co-writer and director Josh Safdie said Hollywood Reporter This film is more of a “tribute” to table tennis professional Raisman than a biography of him.
In the film, Chalamet's character is a shoe salesman in 1950s New York whose flashy ping-pong skills—and his sheer bravado—taken the small, tough world of table tennis by storm.
Chalamet's Marty has a nose for trouble and will do anything, legal or not, to scrape together the money he needs to travel to the Tokyo Open.
The real-life Marty Raisman, whose slender physique earned him the nickname “Needle,” was known for his swaggering style and for bringing a bit of hoopla to a sport that was often, at least at the time, overlooked.
Like the Hollywood version of him, the dapperly dressed Reisman's sole goal was to become the best table tennis player in the world, an aspiration he once described as “noble.”
Read on to learn more about Marty Raisman, the real-life inspiration for “Marty Supreme.”
Marty Raisman was a table tennis superstar.
According to his 1974 memoir, Reisman was born in February 1930 in New York City.”Money Player: Confessions of America's Greatest Table Tennis Champion and Hustler.”
“Even then I was a cheeky and outgoing child, a bit of a showman and a braggart,” he wrote in his memoirs—qualities he retained for the rest of his life.
His bold personality and undeniable athletic skills have helped him become a legend in the world of table tennis. In his biography, he talks about his love for gambling and betting—on himself.
He won his first championship in 1946, becoming the U.S. Junior National Champion, a feat he repeated the following year. He won several others, including the 1949 U.S. doubles championship and the 1958 U.S. singles championship.
In 1997, when he was 67, he became the oldest person to win a national racquet championship, he said. obituary.
He started playing this game as a child to cope with anxiety
Raisman told several interviewers that he began playing ping pong as a child to cope with debilitating anxiety.
“When I was 9 years old, I had a nervous breakdown and ended up in Bellevue Hospital. Ping-pong became my best escape. My racket became a sensory connection between the ball and my brain,” he said. Forbes for an interview published in 2005.
By age 13, Raisman had become the city's junior champion, often scamming money from other players at the Lawrence Broadway Table Tennis Club in New York, Forbes reported. When he was 16, he toured England with a three-man exhibition team, wowing audiences with his oar skills.
As revealed in Marty Supreme, Raisman briefly worked as a shoe salesman, which was his only foray into the world of 9-5. For the rest of his life, he relied on his ping-pong skills to make money, he told Forbes.
“No one has ever been less qualified for a full-time job than me,” he joked.
He became famous for performing spectacular stunts
After Raisman learned that audiences would pay to see him perform tricks while playing ping pong, he began appearing in special exhibitions.
He and U.S. teammate Doug Cartland accepted an offer to open for basketball trickster the Harlem Globetrotters for three years, delighting crowds with “Mary Had a Little Lamb” on frying pans, according to his biography.
Raisman's signature trick, which he demonstrated during a visit to “The Tonight Show with David Letterman” in 2008, he broke a cigarette in half with one blow.
“No other player wanted to try it in front of a big audience. It can be embarrassing to miss four or five times in a row. It's impossible to explain the throw. It involves communication between racket, ball and cigarette and requires great confidence,” he wrote in his memoirs.
He was obsessed with becoming the best in his sport
Raisman's goal was to become the best ping pong player in the world. He chronicled his passion for the sport in his 1974 memoir, The Money Player: Confessions of America's Greatest Table Tennis Champion and Hustler.
According to him, his earnings were enough to make him a three-time millionaire, fortunes that he lost repeatedly. New York Times.
“I fought people in a gladiatorial spirit,” he told the Times in March 2012, just months before his death.
He was as mischievous as Chalamet's character
Like Chalamet's character in Marty Supreme, Raisman was also a bad guy in his sport.
In 1949, Raisman went to the English Open, where he and fellow American Dick Miles traded in their modest London hotel for more luxurious accommodations. According to his memoirs, the couple increased the bill for room service and other luxuries, giving it all to the English Table Tennis Association.
When English officials refused to pay the bill, Raisman and Miles announced they would not play in the sold-out exhibition matches.
English officials ultimately covered the costs, but fined the men $200 and banned them from permitted participation in table tennis around the world. Raisman wrote that the sanctions were lifted in 1950.
Raisman died in 2012.
Reisman died in December 2012 from complications of heart and lung disease at age 82, according to Reisman. New York Times.
His death was announced by Table Tennis Nation, an organization founded by Raisman in 2010.
He is survived by his wife Yoshiko, daughter Debbie Reisman and several grandchildren, according to his obituary.
