- Jeanette Lee was like nothing else billiards had ever seen - and when she took the game by storm, she became, improbably, one of the most recognizable figures in all of sports.
- She was like nothing else her sport had seen. A vision of confidence, even swagger, as she stalked the billiards table. Dressed, always, in her signature color, with a two-fingered glove on her bridge hand, and a stony, icy glaze that never seemed to change. She was the Black Widow, and at her peak, Jeanette Lee was, improbably, one of the most recognizable figures in sports. Now, JEANETTE LEE VS. recounts Lee's rise, her popularity, and her significance, and chronicles the difficult turns of her life.
The 30 for 30 film, directed by Ursula Liang, returns with Lee to her origins, Brooklyn, New York, where as the young child of Korean immigrants, she suffered from scoliosis, a painful spinal condition that required surgery. She soon rebelled as a teenager, and struggled to find direction until one night, she walked into a pool hall in Manhattan and fell in love with a game. Billiards quickly became her obsession, and within a few years, she was playing tournaments and headed towards the professional circuit. It was all well-timed; the profile of the women's pro tour was growing, and when "The Black Widow" - a nickname she'd gotten from a club owner in Queens - leapt onto the scene, she immediately became one of its biggest draws.
Soon, women's billiards was a mainstay on the fledgling ESPN2 network, and JEANETTE LEE was a television star. She didn't look or act like any of her rivals, who didn't merely dress and more conservatively, but also tended to act in concert with one another rather than self-promote. Jeanette Lee was an unapologetic contrast to that approach, and she became a regular on talk shows, bolstering her popularity - even as in retrospect, the tone of those appearances, and how (mostly male) hosts handled her appeal is so dramatically from another age.
All the while, even as she became one of the top-ranked pool players in the world, Lee struggled with pain; her back issues never entirely went away. Then last year, came something more frightening: a diagnosis of ovarian cancer. As the film illustrates through extensive access to her life today, it's a struggle she continues to fight, now as a single mom with the support of her children and extended family. It's a poignant coda to a story about a woman who's been battling her whole life, and one who remains one of the more distinctive stars to ever emerge on the sports landscape.
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