The True Story Behind ‘Marty Supreme’: Who Was Marty Reisman?

In “Marty Supreme,” Timothée Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, a fictionalized version of Marty Reisman, a real life table tennis star whose heyday was the 1940s and ’50s.

“Marty Supreme” co-writer and director Josh Safdie told the Hollywood Reporter the movie is an “homage” to table tennis pro Reisman rather than a biography.

In the movie, Chalamet’s character is a New York City shoe salesman in the 1950s whose flashy skills with a ping-pong paddle — and his sheer bravado — take the small and gritty table tennis world by storm.

Chalamet’s Marty has a nose for trouble and will do just about anything, legal or otherwise, to scrape up the dough needed to travel to the sport’s open in Tokyo.

The real-life Marty Reisman, whose slim physique earned him the nickname “The Needle,” was known for his swaggering style and for bringing a bit of razzle-dazzle to an often, at least at the time, overlooked sport.

Like the Hollywood version of him, the sharp-dressed Reisman’s one and only goal was to be known as the best table tennis player in the world, a pursuit he once called “noble.”

Read on to learn more about Marty Reisman, the real-life man who inspired “Marty Supreme.”

Marty Reisman Was a Superstar Table Tennis Player

Reisman was born in February 1930 in New York City, according to his 1974 memoir, “The Money Player: The Confessions of America’s Greatest Table Tennis Champion and Hustler.”

“I was a cocky gregarious kid, a bit of a showman and a showoff even then,” he wrote in his memoir — qualities he’d have the rest of his life.

His bold personality and undeniably athletic skills helped him to become a legend in the table tennis world. In his biography, he talks about his love for gambling and betting — on himself.

He won his first championship in 1946, becoming the United States Junior National Champion, a feat he repeated the next year. He went on to win multiple others, including a United States Doubles Championship in 1949 and a Singles Championship in 1958.

In 1997, when he was 67, he became the oldest person to win a national championship in a racket sport, per his obituary.

He Started Playing the Game As a Child to Deal with Anxiety

Reisman told several interviewers he began playing ping-pong as a child to deal with his debilitating anxiety.

“I had a nervous breakdown when I was 9 years old and ended up in Bellevue Hospital. Ping-Pong was the ultimate escape. My racket became a sensuous connection between the ball and my brain,” he told Forbes for an interview published in 2005.

By 13, Reisman had become a city junior champion, often hustling other players for money at Lawrence’s Broadway Table Tennis Club in New York City, reported Forbes. When he was 16, he did a tour of England with a three-man exhibition team, wowing audiences with their paddle skills.

As “Marty Supreme” depicts, Reisman worked briefly as a shoe salesman, his only foray into the 9-5 world. 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 suited for regular employment than I was,” he quipped.

He Was Famous for Performing Flashy Tricks

After Reisman learned audiences would pay to see him do tricks while playing ping-pong, he began appearing in special exhibitions.

He and U.S. teammate Doug Cartland accepted an offer to be the opening act for three years for the basketball trickster the Harlem Globetrotters, delighting audiences by playing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” using frying pans, according to his biography.

Reisman’s signature trick, which he showed off during a visit to “The Late Night Show with David Letterman” in 2008, was snapping a cigarette in half with a slam.

“No other player was willing to try it before a large audience. It can be embarrassing to miss four or five times in a row. It is impossible to explain the shot. It involves a communion between the racket, the ball, and the cigarette, and takes a great deal of confidence,” he wrote in his memoir.

He Was Obsessed with Being the Best at His Sport

Reisman’s goal was to be the best ping-pong player in the world. He talked about his passion for the sport in in his 1974 memoir “The Money Player: The Confessions of America’s Greatest Table Tennis Champion and Hustler.”

His earnings were enough to make him a three-time millionaire, fortunes he repeatedly lost, according to The New York Times.

“I took on people in the gladiatorial spirit,” he told the Times in March 2012, just months before his death.

He Was As Impish As Chalamet’s Character

Like Chalamet’s character in Marty Supreme,” Reisman was also a the bad boy of his sport.

In 1949, Reisman traveled to the English Open where he and fellow American player Dick Miles traded their modest London hotel for swankier accommodations. The pair ran up a tab on room service and other luxuries, charging it all to the English Table Tennis Association, according to his memoir.

When the English officials balked, refusing to pay the bill, Reisman and Miles said they wouldn’t participate in their sold-out exhibition matches.

The English officials ended up covering the costs but fined the men $200 and suspended them from sanctioned table tennis worldwide. Reisman wrote the sanction was lifted in 1950.

Reisman Died in 2012

Reisman died in December 2012 of complications of heart and lung ailments age 82, according to The New York Times.

His death was announced by Table Tennis Nation, an organization Reisman founded in 2010.

He was survived by his wife Yoshiko, a daughter, Debbie Reisman, and several grandchildren, per his obituary.