Ronnie Allen

Ronnie Allen, whose full name was Ronnie Monroe Allen and who was nicknamed Fast Eddie, was an American professional pool player, born on July 12, 1938 in Danville, Illinois, who died on February 6, 2013. Raised partly in a carnival family and then in Oklahoma City, he was playing daily in a pool room by age 14 and won the first pool tournament he entered, in San Francisco in 1961. For several decades from the early 1960s to the late 1980s he was considered one of the best one pocket players in the world, and peers called him a pool super star of the golden era. He was inducted into the One Pocket Hall of Fame in 2004, and some believe author Walter Tevis based the character Fast Eddie on him.