Steve Mizerak, who sank his first pocket billiards shot at age 4, became a national champion while a full-time schoolteacher, then emerged as a pop-culture celebrity, died on Monday in Boca Raton, Florida. He was 61.
The cause was a heart ailment that followed recent gall-bladder surgery, his wife, Karen, said.
Mizerak won the US Open in pocket billiards -- the formal name for pool -- four straight times, from 1970 to 1973. He captured the Professional Pool Players Association World Open three consecutive years, from 1982 to 1984.
PHOTO: AP
In 1980, Mizerak became the youngest player inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame. Billiards Digest ranked him No. 6 among 20th-century pros. He was among the few players, including Willie Hoppe, Willie Mosconi, Ralph Greenleaf, Irving Crane, Luther Lassiter and Jimmy Caras, who were known beyond the small circle of pro billiards.
But Mizerak was perhaps best recognized as a showman, linked with other names, among them Bubba Smith, Boom Boom Geoffrion, Marvelous Marv Throneberry and Rodney Dangerfield, all appearing in long-running TV commercials for Miller Lite beer.
He parlayed his celebrity status into a Hollywood role, his character losing a tournament match to the Paul Newman character Fast Eddie Felson in the 1986 film The Color of Money.
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