Vince
Van Patten:
Celebrity Poker Player
Celebrity Poker player Vince Van Patten was born into a family involved in entertainment
as the youngest son of the famous actor, Dick Van Patten.
At the early age of 9, Vince got his first personal
experience in the entertainments industry, a commercial
for Colgate toothpaste, that was later followed by more
than thirty other commercials at the request of his
father's manager.
Vince Van Patten, is one of Hollywood's celebrity Poker
player shining stars, he has tried his hand in some of the
largest cash poker games and tournaments all over the
world. He has been nicknamed "King of the Hollywood
Home Games".
This celebrity poker player is the current emcee and announcer
for the World Poker Tour on television, although his
work as a poker entrepreneur is just one side of his
diverse life that includes acting, producing, directing
and he is laso a world renound tennis professional.
Throughout the 1970s poker player Vince Van Patten guest-starred
in over 36 television series which include Adam 12,
Bonanza, Medical Center, High Chaparral, and The Courtship
of Eddie's Father. At age 14, he co-starred with Kurt
Russell, Cloris Leachman and Fred MacMurray in the Disney
comedy, Charlie and the Angel. At 16, he got a regular
part in Apple's Way, a series where he plays an architect's
son who give up the big city life to raise his family
in small-town...Appleton, Iowa.
Three years later this poker celebrity co-starred in The Bionic Boy, a two-hour spinoff of
the ever-popular series, starring Lee Majors, The Six
Million Dollar Man. Afterwards, came two extremely different
roles: one as a surfer bully in Gidget's Summer Reunion,
the second with his brother James, as a jailed hillbilly
brother in Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission, a television
project filmed in Yugoslavia with screen stars the likes
of Telly Savalas and Ernest Borgnine.
His real passion was tennis:
he was a natural born competitor. In 1978 his game was
so strong that he was offered the starring role in a
Paramount film called Players; he didn't get the part,
but this encouraged Vince to test his mettle at Wimbledon.
After three months of practice matches, without a single
win, Vince returned home, continued practicing , and
within a year he was listed among the Top 30 professional
players in the world.
In 1979 Vince Van Patten was awarded the Association
of Tennis Professionals' Rookie of the Year award. The
climax of his tennis career arrived in 1981 when he
beat John McEnroe, Vitas Gerulaitis, Jose Louis Clerk,
winning the $300,000 Seiko World Super Tennis tournament
in Tokyo.
Related Celebrity poker articles: Vince Van Patten
Poker on TV: Vince Van Patten - Professional Player Analysis ?
|
