Paul Newman plays Eddie Felson in Martin Scorsese’s The Color of Money. Eddie is a former champion pool hustler who has retired from competition but returns to the billiards world after meeting Vincent Lauria, a talented young player portrayed by Tom Cruise.
The film is a sequel to Robert Rossen’s 1961 movie The Hustler, in which Newman first played Eddie Felson. In that earlier film, Eddie challenges the legendary Minnesota Fats, played by Jackie Gleason. The Color of Money instead focuses on Eddie’s attempt to mentor Vincent while also confronting his own competitive instincts and appetite for gambling.
Newman won the Academy Award for Best Actor for The Color of Money, making it his only competitive Oscar win. The movie was adapted from Walter Tevis’s 1984 novel of the same name. Although it uses the language and atmosphere of professional pool, its broader themes concern ambition, mentorship, aging, and the difficulty of turning talent into discipline.