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British poker pro Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott is going from the green felt of the poker table to the silver screen.
Poker Icons, the Swedish marketing and public relations agency that handles Ulliott, has announced that Ulliott's autobiography, written last year and titled "Devilfish: The Life and Times of a Poker Legend," is to be made into a movie.
Poker Icons made the announcement Thursday on its website, www.pokericons.com.
Ulliott, 57, is one of England's top poker players.
According to official tournament records, he has won almost $6 million in his career playing live tournament poker.
Among the highlights of his career was in 1997, when he won a championship gold bracelet at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas in a $2,000 buy-in pot-limit Texas hold 'em tournament.
There are also many lowlights, including the time he spent in prison.
That rags-to-riches life was what made the autobiography so compelling and what made the movie-making moguls of Hollywood come calling with an offer to turn the book into a film.
In the tome, published in September of 2010 by Penguin Books, Ulliott relates how, as a misguided youth, he served nine months in prison for safe-cracking and later, another 18 months for getting into a brawl outside a bar.
He also once planned to rob a bank, but changed his mind at the last minute.
He then found poker and, eventually, poker success.
The book also details Ulliott's wacky personal life, one that makes NBA players look chaste in comparison-- "Devilfish" has seven kids of various degrees of legitimacy by three different women.
No casting decisions have been made in connection with the movie, but Gambling911.com has some suggestions, in case Hollywood is listening.
If physical resemblance is wanted to give the flick maximum authenticity, actors Kevin Spacey and Steven Segal both look an awful lot like "Devilfish."
Both actors are American, however, and would have to use a phony British accent in the role, something that won't sound authentic.
However, since most of the movie-going public won't have any idea what the real "Devilfish" looks like, the appearance of the actor portraying him might not be as important as how the actor sounds.
In that case, a British actor would be best to fill the role, perhaps someone such as Hugh Grant or Sacha Baron Cohen.
Meanwhile, lots of other top poker pros have written autobiographies, but none of their books have been made into movies.
The closest any of them came to silver screen stardom was Thomas "Amarillo Slim" Preston Jr., who years ago wrote an autobiography and later inked a big bucks deal for the book to become a major Hollywood movie.
The project fell apart, however, and the movie was never made, after "Amarillo Slim" made some anti-Semetic remarks in a Texas radio interview and the movie producers afterward pulled out of the deal.
By Tom Somach
Gambling911.com Staff Writer
