Walter Tevis
Walter Tevis was an American author known for his influential works in both science fiction and sports fiction. Born in 1928 in San Francisco, California, Tevis later moved to Kentucky, where he pursued his education, ultimately receiving degrees from the University of Kentucky and the University of Iowa. His literary career began with a short story published in 1957, leading to the creation of his most famous novels, including "The Hustler," which explores the world of competitive pool and was adapted into a successful film in 1961 starring Paul Newman. Another notable work is "The Man Who Fell to Earth," published in 1963, which also inspired a well-received film featuring David Bowie. Tevis’s writing often reflects themes of solitude and alienation, mirroring his own life experiences, particularly during struggles with alcoholism. His later works, including "The Queen's Gambit," highlight the psychological challenges faced by individuals in competitive sports, culminating in renewed interest in his legacy following the release of a popular Netflix miniseries adaptation in 2020. Tevis passed away from lung cancer in 1984, leaving behind a rich body of work that continues to resonate with readers and viewers today.
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Walter Tevis
Writer
- Born: February 28, 1928
- Birthplace: San Francisco, California
- Died: August 9, 1984
- Place of death: New York, New York
Biography
Walter Tevis was born in San Francisco, California, in 1928, the son of Walter Stone Tevis and Elizabeth (Bacon) Tevis. His family moved to Kentucky when he was ten, but Tevis had to stay in California because of his heart problems. He attended Ashland School, Morton Junior High, and Henry Clay School in Lexington, Kentucky, and graduated from Model High School in Richmond, Kentucky. From 1945 to 1946 he served in the US Navy in the Pacific Theater as a carpenter’s mate. He received an AB in 1949 and an MA in 1954 from the University of Kentucky. In 1952 he married Jamie Griggs, a teacher, and they had two children, a son and a daughter. They divorced in 1978.
Tevis’s first published fiction was a science-fiction story, appearing in 1957 in Galaxy magazine. While at the University of Kentucky, Tevis worked in a pool hall and wrote a short story about pool for a writing class taught by novelist A. B. Guthrie; this story became the basis for Tevis’s most famous novel, The Hustler, which was turned into an even more famous movie of the same name in 1961, directed by Robert Rossen. Paul Newman’s portrayal of its driven hero, Fast Eddie Felson, helped propel him into superstar status, and caused a swarm of actual pool players to claim they were the basis for the character of Minnesota Fats, played in the movie by Jackie Gleason.
During this time, Tevis worked as a writer for the Kentucky Highway Department and taught high school; he then went back to school and received an MFA from the University of Iowa in 1960. He was professor of English at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, from 1965 to 1978. Tevis’s best-known science-fiction novel, The Man Who Fell to Earth, was published as a Fawcett paperback original in 1963; it too became the basis for a well-regarded movie, directed by Nicholas Roeg and starring David Bowie, in 1976.
Perhaps fueled by his success, Tevis began to suffer from alcoholism during this period. Only when he stopped drinking at the end of the 1970s did he began publishing again, including more science-fiction stories for Galaxy (included in the collection Far from Home) and several novels based on themes apparent in his first two novels. Mockingbird and The Steps of the Sun are science-fiction novels that again present a solitary hero against an inimical society; The Queen’s Gambit, like The Hustler, depicts the struggles of a lone competitor to obtain success in a sport—in this case, chess—that requires as much psychological courage and nerve as it does skill.
Tevis died from lung cancer in 1984 in New York City, soon after the publication of the long- awaited sequel to The Hustler, The Color of Money, portraying the rematch of Fast Eddie and Fats. Its movie version suffered from Paul Newman’s aversion to having Jackie Gleason appear in it. A fresh wave of interest in Tevis came in 2020, when a miniseries adaptation of The Queen's Gambit was released on the streaming service Netflix, starring Anya Taylor-Joy. The series earned highly positive reviews, became one of the most-watched Netflix shows, and was credited with giving chess a boost in popularity.
Tevis is remembered as a noted author of the late twentieth century, though perhaps best known for the adaptations of his works. His fiction is a skillful series of depictions (often arising from Tevis’s own experiences) of solitary, alienated protagonists, placed in a succession of environments that are themselves, whether from science fiction or sports, metaphors for twentieth century American life.