William Hopper, undisputed (excuse me..."Unrestricted" ) checkers champion. Born 1897 and learning the game in Greenwich Village (where checkers still rules the streets in certain neighborhoods) He had a good, if unusual mentor...famed baseball pitcher Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants Baseball team, himself a top-of the line checker player, shared his moves with William and a champ was created.. There were more sopisticated checker stylists, but Hopper practiced the GAYP technique (Go As You Please) rather than the methods which require one to play several moves ahead.
So Good was Hopper, he taught Checkers on RADIO for a brief time in the 1930s. While demonstrating his chops at the 1939 World's Fair, Hopper took on 5,000 challengers and only lost three times. Hopper also ran a booth at Coney Island, I imagine it was a "beat the champ" game he never lost.
But with the war, the game of checkers took on new meaning and Hopper jumped to new responsibilities. The Troops. He was recruited by the Salvation Army U.S.O to teach his skills to the boys. Our heroes were facing long hours in foxholes, bunkers and tents... and the game they had played at home was perfect to bring soldiers together and pass the boredom. It is said Hopper entertained over 1 million serviceman and traveled 150,000 miles. In fact, Millard was profiled in Life Magazine, November 16, 1942 teaching the game to marines bound for war. And you know what? Dear Millard kept on...the photo above has him still sharing his skills to a group of wounded vets four years AFTER the war ended. THAT is the sign of a true King. Crown him!
Millard Hopper is my great grandpa. It’s so cool to find this post about him. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteMillard Hopper was my Great Uncle, my Grampa Lou’s older brother. I have some books of his so just googled him. Very cool article. So I guess the 1st commenter would be my 2nd or 3rd cousin !
ReplyDeleteHi. We must be 2nd or 3rd cousins as Millard Hopper was my beloved Great Uncle. His younger brother was my Grandfather Louis Hopper, my Moms father.
ReplyDeleteI believe this is the same Millard Hopper who was also an illustrator and sometimes cover artist for Joey Burten and other publisher of artist and models and girlie pulp magazines in the 1920s.
ReplyDeleteA follow up! As serendipity so often allows, I chanced across mention of Hopper confirming both the fact that he is the pulp artist I've encountered in the girlie pulps and artists and models magazines that also alludes to his skill and obsession with checkers. Since family has visited this post - I thought I'd come back and share.
ReplyDeleteIn a later chapter of Quentin Reynolds' 1955 book on the first hundred years of publishing outfit Street & Smith, The Fiction Factory, there's a short discussion of the art department and some of the personnel. William "Pop" Hines was Art Director, a man so in tune with his job he was able to keep hidden the fact he was nearly blind. Reynolds writes, "He wore thick-lensed glasses, but most people thought that these were part of the equipment of a man who had to study the fine screens used in the Ben Day engraving process. One of his most valued assistants was Millard Hopper, one of the fastest lettering men in the trade. Hopper was the only man on the staff who was allowed an hour and a half for lunch. Every day at 11:45 he'd put his pens and pencils aside and hurry to the Flea Circus on West 42nd Street. He was big man on 42nd Street, for Hopper was the world's checker champion. Each day during the lunch hour he would take on as many as thirty aspiring checker players at once. It was seldom that he ever lost a game. Then he would hurry back to the office to bend over the drawing board until five o'clock."
I've most often come across his illustration in contents page or masthead drawings in the 20s mags, but here you can find a rare example of a signed cover he did for Burten's Follies in June 1926:
http://www.philsp.com/data/images/b/burtens_follies_192606.jpg