As the story goes, while Josh Safdie was finishing Uncut Gems, his wife Sara Rossein got him a copy of Reisman’s autobiography, The Money Player: The Confessions of America’s Greatest Table Tennis Champion. The book detailed Reisman’s hustling existence in a post-Depression America, which took him around the world via world championship competitions, some of which he won (like the 1949 English Open) or medaled in. That hustler’s ambition eventually got the best of Reisman, who tried to place a bet on a game with an undercover member of the United States Table Tennis Association. Reisman kept it pushing, though, touring the world with the Harlem Globetrotters, wowing crowds with his ping pong skills.
Years later, Reisman got his second wind, and at 67, became the oldest player to win an open national tournament when he won the 1997 United States National Hardbat Championship. Reisman is a certified New York legend, a table tennis magician who young players could see play live and in living color, continuing their legacy through shared tales. That’s how some got to know of Reisman, through tales Matthew Broderick shared during an April 2008 visit to The Late Show with David Letterman.
During their conversation, Letterman wondered how Broderick chose to stay in shape these days. Broderick said he does “a little of everything,” detailing how, when the gym is slow, they will start running ping pong games. (Broderick described his skills as being at “the level of a 13-year-old girl with a table in her den.”) Broderick mentioned that he used to play at Marty Reisman’s on 96th and Broadway; “Reisman wore this big pimpy hat, like Streets of San Francisco, and aviator glasses,” Broderick remarked in a 2004 New York Magazine profile.
Broderick spoke of when Reisman would walk into the room and players would stand in awe of the veteran world champion, and brought up the trick shot where Reisman would stand a cigarette vertically and then chop it clean in half with a ping pong shot. Broderick could only share these stories, as he’d never actually met Reisman. Letterman brilliantly feigned surprise (“Oh, really?!”) before interrupting Broderick, saying “Well, you know, he’s here tonight.” Broderick looks shocked at first, then laughs; it’s hard to tell if he even believes Letterman, but sure enough, a curtain is lifted and a red-shirted Reisman (in his signature Panama hat) stood next to a ping pong table.
