It is difficult today to conceive the challenge billiards evangelist and promoter Frank Oliva, and his partner, sportscaster “Whispering” Joe Wilson, faced in launching the billiards game-show Ten-Twenty in 1959.

Billiards columnist George Fels captured the time period well: “There was no The Hustler except in fiction form, where it barely created a ripple. There was no Johnson City or its hustlers’ jamborees, therefore no “Minnesota Fats” in the national eye, nor his fabled rivalry with all-time champion Willie Mosconi. In other words, the two men had absolutely no momentum of any kind going for them to support the pitching of their idea.”[1]

Fortunately, Oliva was a hustler – not the pejorative version that has become the archetype of billiards players in movies, but the unwavering type, who would pursue a goal with bottomless passion and courageous conviction.

In describing his mentor and teacher in an AZ Billiards Forum message thread years ago, Scott Lee (of Pool Knowledge) said, “Frank [Oliva] was an innovator, a master teacher…and an all-around good guy, who loved pool…All he ever wanted was to help pool players find a way to make legitimate money at pool, without having to resort to gambling.”

Oliva recognized that for billiards to achieve public popularity, it must expand beyond the pool parlor scene to the television screen. Bowling provided a great analog and forerunner. In the late 1950s, ten-pin bowling went mainstream, entering millions of homes on Friday nights, thanks to hugely popular televised shows like Jackpot Bowling.

The key was how to translate billiards to the television medium. In 1958, Oliva created a new game, Ten-Twenty, that was a variation of classic 14-1 straight pool. Each match consisted of eight innings of play. Each player could score up to 10 points each per inning. In the eighth inning, if a player scored 10 points, he could continue shooting for an extra 20 points. A perfect match score would be 100 points. Fouls would cost 1 point each. The matches were timed and if it ended before the eighth inning, the scores would be taken from the last fully completed inning. The full rules are available here. Oliva’s brilliance was acknowledging the need for time constraints, and then introducing the concept of timed play to professional pool in a way that could substantially, yet fairly, impact the outcome.

But, creating the game was only the first of many challenges. To pitch it to a broadcasting network, Oliva had to prove there was sufficient interest and financial support. Oliva successfully wrangled 82 different billiards parlors from the Chicago area to pitch in. (Many years later, Oliva elaborated, “Brunswick was main sponsor of the show, along with several distributors, manufacturers, and billiards rooms…Some that I remember were Hanson Billiard Mfg, Sydney Laner Co, and National Billiards…we probably had more sponsors than any show since.”[2])

Finally, there was the issue of player support. Unlike future US billiards game shows (i.e. Ballbreakers), Ten-Twenty was not designed for amateurs; it was intended to attract the top players of the era. The lure of playing on television of course helped, but so did the financial rewards. The best players could win more than $1000 ($8,160 inflated in today’s real dollars), or even $5000 for a perfect game.   And, since “each week’s winner would return the following week to do battle with a new qualifying top contender, seldom did anyone hold the championship beyond two weeks.”[3]

This model would prove successful in attracting a who’s-who among billiards greats. Some of the players that appeared on the show included Joe Procita, Joe Diehl, Don Tozer, Charlie Cacciapaglia, Mike Eufemia, Cisero Murphy, Nick Oliva, “Little” Joey Canton, Jimmy Caras, Willis Covington, “Cowboy” Jimmy Moore, and Irving “The Deacon” Crane.

Armed with a masterful game design, a battalion of sponsors, and a commitment from many of the country’s leading pool-players, Oliva was able to convince WBKB, an ABC affiliate in Chicago, to air Ten-Twenty, starting in 1959. The 30-minute show ran was picked up in many cities, though it never achieved national syndication. Oliva played the role of show producer, referee and player recruiter. His partner, “Whispering” Joe Wilson, who was the Howard Cosell of sports-casting in the 1950s and 1960s, provided the sotto voce play-by-play.

Most of the Ten-Twenty episodes are no longer available (and sadly may no longer exist), but fortunately the entire match between “Cowboy” Jimmy Moore and Irving “The Deacon” Crane is available on YouTube split across five separate clips. You can watch them here.

For those not up on their billiards history, Moore and Crane were two of the world’s best. Moore, a straight-pool master, who was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America’s Hall of Fame in 1994, won the United States National Pocket Billiards Championship in 1958. (He was also a technical advisor on billiards-related scenes in television and film, including My Living Doll and The Family Jewels.) Crane, another straight-pool master, won numerous championships, including six World Crown billiards titles in his career. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1978.

This particular episode not only showcased their incredible skill (a jubilant Wilson remarks at one point, “[That was] one of the greatest shots I’ve ever seen.”), buy also showed how even the greatest can make simple mistakes (check out the rare miss by Crane in Part 4 at 2:33). It also serves as an interesting time capsule, with its public service announcement from top leading man Jeff Chandler about mental illness, which he describes as “America’s number one health problem,” as well as its advertisement for ABC’s new show about the supernatural, Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond.

Sadly, Ten-Twenty was short-lived, lasting maybe 13 weeks in total.[4] There are scant details available about why the show did not experience the same trajectory of success that occurred in bowling game shows like Jackpot Bowling and Make That Spare.  It would require two more years before billiards truly burst into the public imagination with the release of The Hustler in 1961.

Nor was our real hustler, Frank Oliva, deterred for long. His passion for billiards led him to found and organize in the Oliva Women’s Pool League, the country’s most enduring, women’s billiard league. And, his determination to get billiards its deserved national audience also led him back to television in 1967, when he partnered once again with Wilson to launch the game show Minnesota Fats Hustles the Pros.

[1]       “November: Pool, Meet TV,” George Fels, Billiards Digest, November 2011.

[2]       “Frank Oliva,” Pool & Billiards Magazine, November 1986

[3]       “A tribute to the King of televised championship billiards in America,” by Jim Parker.

[4]       There is some confusion about how long the show ran. Various sources I checked said it lasted 8 episodes, 13 weeks, or 2 years.