Summing up the life of Titanic Thompson in one word is impossible. Colorful does not begin to cover his 80 years. He married five times, made millions of dollars gambling legally, millions more illegally, killed five men— for which he served no time— and traveled widely running proposition bets. Some were legitimate wagers while others were outright fraud. He played and defeated several of the best professional golfers of the day, taking large sums of money from them, as well as more money from onlookers. He played golf both right and left-handed. Often, he would defeat an opponent playing right-handed. He would offer to play another round, at higher odds and for larger sums, this time playing left-handed. He would invariably win that round as well.
He hustled pool, dice games, poker games, and arranged bets where he threw a walnut or some other item a seemingly impossible distance. One favorite proposition bet was based on his ability to throw a key across the room into its lock. Think of the large skeleton type keys which were common in the early 20th century. Even then, the feat seems impossible, or at least implausible, but several reports exist of his accomplishing it before stunned witnesses who were relieved of their cash.
Among the many who associated with Titanic Thompson, and usually called him Ti, were professional golfers Byron Nelson, Sam Snead, and Ben Hogan. He counted among his friends the noted writers Damon Runyon and John Lardner. He played poker with noted gangster Arnold Rothstein and was involved in arranging the poker game which led to Rothstein’s murder over unpaid debts. He made millions through hustling, yet was virtually penniless when he died, having lost millions by betting on horses, the one gamble he never learned how to beat.
The Ozark Logger
The man whose life would one day be chronicled in national magazines such as Sports Illustrated and Time was named Alvin Clarence Thomas by his parents in Monett, Missouri, in the Ozark Mountains. His father deserted the family within weeks, never to return. His mother remarried while Ti was still an infant, relocating to the tiny Ozark town of Rogers, Arkansas. Rogers boasted an apple cider vinegar distillery as its major employer, but the Thomas family subsisted by raising hogs, crops, and logging. Ti acquired four older siblings as part of the new family, with two step-brothers and two stepsisters. Ti’s early youth was spent in a rough wooden house of three rooms, on a patch of land which featured the outhouse, a woodshed, and a barn near the pigsties.
Education was of little concern to Ti’s stepfather, who like most of the Rogers community was a church-going Baptist on Sunday. He ignored Ti’s truancy, found other reasons to beat the boy, using his belt as the boy grew older. Ti chose to spend his time in the woods, where he learned to shoot his rifle, sometimes for game to eat, and sometimes just for sport. Ti also developed a fascination with playing cards, officially frowned upon by the Baptists from the pulpit, but popular in backroom games when the preachers weren’t around. Ti dealt himself thousands upon thousands of hands, learning the odds of straight deals as well as how to manipulate the deal to his advantage. He developed the sleight of hand needed to deal off the bottom, the second card from the top, and other illicit maneuvers.
He also taught himself how to mark cards, as well as how to detect the marks of other players and turn them to his own advantage. Before he was in his teens, he was well-versed in the odds of poker and skilled in how to cheat them.
In the woods, he developed skills with an axe and adze, cutting trees into logs, shaping them into railroad ties, and hauling them to Rogers. The Frisco Railroad representative there paid 25 cents for each deemed suitable, giving the boy a quarter for converting a living tree into a railroad tie and delivering it as well. Young Ti was not impressed by the fruit of his labors. It was the only paying job he ever had.
At 16, Ti stood 6’1” and was lean and muscular, thanks to his labors with the axe. He decided he had had enough of Rogers, Arkansas and its largely interrelated population. He informed his mother that he was leaving, hoping to make a living gambling. His mother extracted a promise that he would neither smoke tobacco or drink alcohol. It was a promise he kept throughout his life. He left Rogers with a few hard-earned dollars in his pocket, unsure of his destination or destiny. He also had the disadvantage of being unable to read or write. He would remain illiterate for the rest of his life, eventually learning to sign his name, but little else.
Sideshow Man
Ti hopped a train out of Rogers, and when it arrived in Monett, Missouri, he hopped off. Years later he claimed to have been interested in searching for his long-lost father. He eventually created a story in which he did find his father and beat him in games of chance before revealing himself to be the abandoned son. Several biographers and magazine pieces have reported this story, with different embellishments, but it never happened. Ti never found his father and probably did not search for him at all, instead creating the story to regale later audiences.
What Ti did find in Monett was a “Miracle Medical Show”, run by Captain Adam Bogardus, a purveyor of patent medicines. Such shows needed entertainment to attract an audience which would then be persuaded to recognize the superior quality of the nostrums being foisted on them. Ti’s shooting skills provided just such entertainment, and allowed the young man to introduce side bets as well. Ti would allegedly toss a silver dollar into the air before shooting at it with his .22 caliber rifle, always drilling a hole neatly through the spinning coin. The captain quickly attributed Ti’s keen vision and steady nerves to liberal use of his product, and the impressed locals were happy to part with their money in exchange for a bottle of the wondrous elixir.
With the Medicine Show, Ti traveled throughout Arkansas and Missouri, stopping in towns of all sizes, and demonstrating his shooting skills. He also developed several proposition bets, some of them based on his carefully crafted skills, and others simply fraud. One of his favorites in the latter category consisted of his claim to be able to throw a walnut over a multistory building. Ti would allow the first bettor to select the walnut. Then he would announce the bet to all within earshot, offering to cover all bets. While a sufficient number of gamblers gathered, Ti used sleight-of-hand to replace the walnut with another which he had previously hollowed out and then filled with lead. An accomplice hired for the purpose recovered the weighted walnut on the other side of the building, and Ti walked away with his winnings.
In hotel rooms, Ti spent long periods flipping playing cards into targets, usually a hat or an umbrella stand. He became sufficiently skilled that he could flip an entire 52 card deck into his target one-by-one. He then moved his card flipping to the lobby, where he would deliberately miss as many tosses as he made, until he had an audience sufficiently large to support the proposition. He would bet he could make a certain number in a row. Once the bets were made he returned to his well-practiced form, again pocketing the winnings.
It was through such activities that Ti learned where to find the large poker games which, while illegal, flourished in the towns of the time. Often they could be found in the backrooms of cigar stores, pool halls, and hardware stores. He quickly learned which games were rigged and by whom, and when in a game where marked cards and stacked decks were in play, he resorted to the same tactics on his own. To Ti, it wasn’t cheating if one simply outcheats a cheater.
He taught himself to throw dice, developing a locked wrist throwing motion which helped him, through the positioning of the dice in his hand, to throw whatever number he wanted. He also became adept at introducing loaded dice into a game during his throws, and removing them without being detected.
As his bankroll grew, Ti began to shed his image of being a bumpkin, discarding his worn overalls and dressing in sharp suits and hats. After about a year with the Medicine Show, he was ready to move on. He spent most of the year of 1910 traveling in trains and on riverboats, honing his skills and playing in enough poker games to support himself comfortably. It was in one such poker game where he heard of a river boat on the St Francis River called the Rambler. Its owner, Joe Green, ran a dice game aboard and claimed to be unbeatable. Ti found the boat, entered the game with Green, and when it was over Ti owned Rambler and Green was Ti’s employee running the boat.
After docking, Ti invited a young schoolgirl he had been seeing to come aboard for a ride on his boat. She did. Green brought another person aboard as well, a dockhand named Johnson. After the boat was away from the dock Johnson attacked Ti, throwing him overboard. The two men then attacked the girl, tearing her dress, while Ti climbed back aboard unseen. In the ensuing fight, Ti hit the bigger Johnson with a hammer “three or four more times” in the head before throwing him over the rail. Johnson drowned as a result. The local sheriff arrested Ti two days later, after Johnson’s body had washed ashore. Ti was charged with murder by the sheriff, convicted by the magistrate, who was also the same man, and sentenced to be hanged.
The sheriff/magistrate then offered Ti a deal, which was basically this: sign over the deed to the Rambler to me, get out of town, and stay out of town. Permanently. Ti took the deal. Ti continued to travel alone, finding games to join, and building his bankroll. It was during this period, 1911-12, that he later claimed to have found his father, and with whom he partnered for a time. The tale of their reunion changed drastically over the years, embellished and edited with each retelling. Eventually their partnership, if it ever happened, ended when the father absconded with their bankroll one night and abandoned his son for a second time.
Becoming Titanic Thompson
In early 1912, Ti was in Joplin, Missouri. He had added the game of pool to his list of gaming pursuits, as his keen eyesight gave him a significant advantage. He gained his nickname Titanic that spring, when he proposed and won a bet that he could leap over a pool table lengthwise. Witnesses to the bet said that it went down like the Titanic, which had sunk earlier that month. The nickname stuck, and Ti found he preferred being called Ti over Alvin, his previous moniker.
In Joplin, Ti was approached by a banker named Polston, who offered the gambler room and board at the luxurious Connor Hotel and to stake him in high-money games with several of the wealthier men in the area. Polston had previously played in several such games, losing considerable amounts, and wanted Ti to gain his revenge. Ti was pleased with the arrangement, his accommodations, and the banker’s 16-year-old daughter. He won several thousand dollars for himself and his partner, and the affections of the daughter. Working with Polston came to an end after the daughter and Ti were discovered in bed by the girl’s mother.
Ti then married a 17-year-old chambermaid he had met at the Connor Hotel in Joplin. He was 22. Her name was Nora Trushel, and she discovered that she didn’t care for her new husband’s life on the road style of living. His long absences bothered her, though he neither smoked nor drank and provided plenty of money. His absences also included philandering on his part, and when she learned of it, she divorced him. Their marriage was the first of five for him, four of which ended in divorce, all for the same reason. His second marriage, to Alice Kane, ended tragically when she was killed in a car accident.
Ti met Alice in Pittsburgh during his first trip to that city. They met when she attempted to pick his pocket and he caught her by the wrist. Rather than turn her in he instead took her to lunch. Recognizing her as a kindred spirit, they were married before Ti was drafted into the army.
The Confidence Man
Following a brief stint in the army during World War I, Ti entered the Roaring Twenties as a noted hustler and confidence man. He was in the army for less than one year, left it with over $50 thousand in cash, and despite being illiterate, served as a trainer. The army provided the final training of his own as a confidence man.
In 1919, he cheated in a checkers match in Kansas City for ten thousand dollars by having a companion, who happened to be the reigning United States chess champion, observe the game through a peephole Ti had drilled through the ceiling over his head. The observer communicated with Ti via a wire signal. When Ti won the match, and the money, he observed with a smile that he owed it all to the man upstairs.
It was in 1928 that Ti became nationally known. Arnold Rothstein, a gambler and gangster who had arranged the fix of the 1919 World Series, was shot and died as part of the fallout over unpaid poker debts. Ti had played in the game, and according to some sources rigged it for Rothstein to lose. The game’s organizer was George McManus, who in the custom of organized crime was responsible for seeing that game debts were collected. McManus was charged with the murder, and Ti gave evidence at the trial. The murder was the 20th Century’s first “murder of the century” and was heavily reported in newspapers and radio broadcasts. McManus was acquitted, but Ti gained something no hustler wanted. He became nationally known as a gambler, card sharp, and hustler.
The reporters and wire services were responsible for Alvin “Titanic” Thomas becoming widely known as Titanic Thompson, through misprints of his last name. Some, who knew him personally, such as Damon Runyon, continued to call him by his real name. Ti was naturally adverse to publicity, it being harmful to his profession. The name bestowed by the trial stuck and became almost a stage name. Ti meanwhile continued to refer to himself as Thomas, leading to several of later victims of his hustles to ask if he was in fact the notorious Titanic Thompson. Among the men Titanic later hustled were Al Capone in Chicago.
Ti hustled Capone out of $500 using a variation of the walnut proposition, substituting a lemon loaded with buckshot he planted in a streetside fruit stand.
Beginning in his thirties, Ti became a golfer who routinely played and beat the best players in the world. Golf was not the game then that it is today. Clubs were shafted with wood, usually hickory. The heads of irons were mostly smooth-faced, the ball was soft and easily cut, and the heads on drivers were of persimmon. A drive of 250 yards was considered exceptional. The tee, the small wooden peg that held the ball before it was driven was not yet widely used. Players used sand to slightly elevate the ball for driving.
Golf was played mostly by the well-to-do, those who could afford the investment in time and country club memberships that the game required. Country club memberships were a sign of prestige. As Ti taught himself the game and developed his skill at playing both right and left-handed, he stayed mostly on public courses, largely held in disdain by the wealthy targets he intended to fleece on the golf course. He practiced daily, playing several rounds, usually alone.
To support himself, he continued to use proposition bets, occasionally playing a round of golf with a local pro as he traveled, and tried to remain incognito, using his own name rather than his identity as the notorious Titanic Thompson. Yet he was also flashy. He dressed in the best clothes, wore expensive rings and watches, and drove expensive automobiles. Ti favored the large and flashy Pierce Arrow as his vehicle of choice, though he also drove Packards, Lincolns, Cadillacs, and other luxury brands.
In the late 1920s, he surfaced in California, hustling country club pros and their millionaire clients. He played to the level of his opponent, never winning by more than one or two strokes, and thus leaving the impression that the match, and the money which inevitably changed hands, could have gone the other way. With his winnings, he purchased a large home in Beverly Hills, as well as a new Pierce Arrow for his wife Alice. The couple ate at the best restaurants and were entertained at large parties, including the great movie stars of the day.
Ti began playing at the El Rancho Country Club in Los Angeles, taking relatively small bets while stalking another member of the club, his target, the oilman Howard Hughes. Friends of Ti’s attempted, through mutual friends, to arrange a match with Hughes. Yet it was not to be. While Ti bided his time another golfer attempted to hustle him, using several of Ti’s own strategies. It eventually turned into a match for $20 thousand, which hinged on a single putt. Ti won the bet, though it required him to come within one stroke of the course record. His score, not the money involved, convinced Hughes not to play the lanky golfer from the Ozarks.
The Killer
Titanic Thompson killed five men during his career. The first was in his early days, already described. As he traveled from town to town, wearing flashy clothes, driving expensive cars, and showing large rolls of cash, he naturally drew the attention of street criminals. He occasionally hired a bodyguard/chauffeur to travel with him. In St Louis, Missouri, Ti and one such bodyguard were accosted during a large and rigged poker game. Both Ti and his bodyguard exchanged shots with their attackers, two of whom were killed. The St Louis authorities discovered the two dead men were known criminals, wanted for kidnapping and murder of a child. Ti was thanked for ridding the streets of two criminals, given the firearms permit he had up-to-then lacked, and allowed to leave.
A similar incident occurred in St Joseph, Missouri, when two men attempted to rob a game in which Ti was playing. Ti shot one of the two men, who later died. Once again, the police identified the attackers as wanted criminals, and after confirming that Ti held a valid firearms permit, they let him go without charges being filed.
In another incident, a young man, either 16 or 17 years of age depending on the source, caddied for Ti during a high-money match, and thus witnessed Ti acquiring a large roll of cash. As Ti later left the club, the caddy held him up at gunpoint in the parking lot, approaching him from behind. Ti drew a pistol, turned, and shot the caddy. The caddy subsequently died, but not before confessing, before witnesses, that he had been trying to rob Ti. Again, the hustler was not charged with a crime.
Ti expressed little, if any, remorse over any of the killings, though later in life, he mentioned some regret over the shooting of the teenage caddy. To Titanic Thompson, he was protecting his life and his money, and those who threatened either did so at their own risk. It was no different than the decisions made by his many shills. They made a choice and paid for the consequences of that choice.
The Titanic Legend
Titanic Thompson spent most of his life consorting with known criminals and gangsters, among them Al Capone, Arnold Rothstein, and Bugsy Siegel. Yet he only spent time in jail once, in Arizona in the 1950s, for the crime of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. He had been celebrating a recent divorce with a party during which two teenage girls accused him of molesting them. Ti was then in his early sixties. He served 14 months of a two-year sentence and promptly returned to his life as an itinerant hustler.
By then, his skills had deteriorated. Rather than hustle golf himself, he staked young golfers who had caught his eye in money matches. Among the golfers he cultivated were Lee Elder, Lee Trevino, and Raymond Floyd. Though the golf tours emerged, with corporate sponsorships and large purses for participants, there was still considerable money to be made on side bets.
He did the same in pool. Beginning in the 1920s, he was a frequent partner with a pool hustler named Rudolf Walderone, who frequently used the name of New York Fats. After the 1961 film The Hustler became a major success, Walderone adopted the name of Jackie Gleason’s character in the film, Minnesota Fats, and used it thereafter. Many of the hustles used in the film were adapted from actual hustles Fats and Ti performed in the years of their partnership. Fats later called Titanic Thompson the greatest action man of all time.
Married five times and divorced four, Ti lavished his wives, all of whom were quite young, with furs, jewelry, cars, and houses before abandoning them. He typically left them large sums of cash when he departed, never to return. He also maintained girlfriends and trysts in countless towns for his on-the-road entertainment and didn’t consider it to be cheating on his wives. In his view, they could easily have been cheating as well during his long absences, and he didn’t consider that a terrible thing if they were.
In the 1970s, he attempted to sell his life story. All he asked was $1 million up front. He was approaching 80 but still hustling.
He died in a Euless, Texas nursing home following a stroke in 1974 at the age of 80. He was practically penniless despite having won or stolen, as some would say, millions of dollars throughout his career. Tales of his career have appeared in sports magazines, golf magazines, and in books and podcasts. The character of Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, originally created by Damon Runyon, was based on him. He remains a legendary figure in pool halls, at golf courses, in poker games, and wherever folks gather to participate in games of chance.
