CELEBRITY FANS

Most recently spotted in the Clubhouse at Dania Jai Alai -- Gene Hackman -- star of The French Connection and The BirdCage.

Boxing’s “Macho” Camacho and Riddick Bowe enjoy the games at Dania, and Dania fans often enjoy Big Screen Championship boxing at the fronton.

Tom Berringer filmed scenes on the Dania Jai-Alai playing court and in the “behind-the-scenes” cesta repair areas for his new movie “the Substitute”, to be released in 1996.

Comedians Louie Anderson and Buddy Hackett are Dania Jai-Alai aficionados.

Other Dania winners include: CNN’s Larry King, ESPN’s Hank Goldberg, Ed McMahon, “Buffalo” Bob Smith, singer/song writer Art Garfunkle, Jerry Lewis, “Get Smart’s” Don Adams, Jacelyn Suzanne, and the entire University of Arkansas football team!

Ernest Hemingway rated jai-alai as his favorite entertainment, saying that “it contained constant excitement and manly effort taken to the utmost limits, and that it was fast, attractive and joyful.”

Paul Newman is known to have played jai-alai at the Bridgeport fronton near his home in Westport.

Babe Ruth was an enthusiastic player -- while in vacation in Cuba in 1921 he regularly worked out at the Viejo Caseron. He played in a silk shirt and flannels, but wore the obligatory rope-soled sandals because, in his own words, “squid must be eaten in its own sauce”. He was a great enthusiast and prepared himself carefully for each game, but he pulled a muscle in training for a backhand and had to give up jai-alai to avoid unnecessary risks.

Presidential fans included the then Senator Harry S. Truman who was a regular rooter when he was in Florida and the late Eleanor Roosevelt who was awarded a trophy for being a staunch supporter.

During the heyday of Miami Beach it was not uncommon to see many of the performing stars out for an exciting night of jai-alai. Debbie Reynolds, Steve and Eydie, Bennie Goodman, Jerry Vale, Lawrence Welk, Ted Mack, Sophie Tucker, Shelly Berman, Martha Raye, Polly Bergen, Bert Parks, Jack Paar, Vincent Price and many others visited the fronton each season.