Press Your Luck debuted in 1983 and, the following year, was scammed by The Luckiest Man in America. Michael Larson, an ice cream truck driver from Ohio, appeared on Press Your Luck and walked away with more money than anyone ever had on the show. How he did it was manipulative, but also demonstrated an impressive determination to beat the system.
The movie The Luckiest Man in America, starring Paul Walter Hauser as Larson, also features Walton Goggins as the Press Your Luck host, Peter Tomarken, and David Strathairn as the show creator, Bill Carruthers. With an almost uncanny resemblance to Larson, Hauser brings the most famous Press Your Luck contestant to life in a story that seems too unbelievable to be true.
The true story of The Luckiest Man in the World is a wild ride with a healthy dose of nostalgia and intrigue.
Michael Larson Always Sought a Way to Get Rich Quick
In an interview on This American Life, Michael Larson’s brother, James, the future Press Your Luck contestant, thought he was smarter than everyone else. James also said he “didn’t understand the value of good, honest hard work, and just go, and work, and do your job, and get your pay. He thought those people were fools.”
Larson spent his younger days trying out get-rich-quick schemes and working various jobs. He was an out-of-work ice cream truck driver when he appeared on Press Your Luck, but, as he told host Peter Tomarken, “I hope to win enough money here not to do that this summer.”
Larson was also obsessed with television. He was especially drawn to late-night programming and game shows. After it debuted in 1983, Press Your Luck was part of the rotation of the shows he watched every day.
Larson Watched Multiple TVs at One Time and Cracked ‘Press Your Luck’s Patterns
Michael Larson’s common-law wife at the time, Teresa Betram, told This American Life,
“He had like 12 in the living room lined up on the walls. They were the old consoles. And he would have one sitting on top of it and the other one sitting on top. And we had an entire wall full of 19 inch, 25 inch televisions. And he would watch them all at once. It got so hot back here it peeled the paint off the wall.”
She confirmed that “He was intrigued by the game shows. And he wanted to find one that he could do.”
Larson found that with Press Your Luck. He studied the show, stopped and started it on VHS tapes, and took notes. He said in 1994, “Six weeks into it, it just came to me. I finally determined there were only six patterns of 18 numbers.” After about six months, Larson had them memorized. He then took what he knew to California and auditioned to be a contestant on the show.
Larson wasn’t someone everyone wanted to have on Press Your Luck. The contestant coordinator thought something was unnerving about him. The show’s creator, Bill Carruthers, was all for an appearance by Larson — he seemed likable and relatable, so he was Press Your Luck bound. Larson taped his episode in May 1984. The other panelists, Ed Long and Janie Letras, took turns speaking with host Peter Tomarken. When it was Larson’s turn, nothing stood out, and the game began.
His Appearance on ‘Press Your Luck’ Rewrote the Rules of the Game
Larson’s first round of play was fairly uneventful. He was actually in third place going into the second round. Darlene Leblich Tipton, watching from the booth to make sure everyone was playing fairly, didn’t see anything that seemed out of the ordinary, but that changed during the second round.
Larson went on a streak during the second round that immediately raised eyebrows. He used spin after spin, ultimately spinning more than 40 times without hitting any Whammys. The odds of hitting a Whammy were one in six, so this was essentially impossible. By the time Larson was done, he had earned $110,237 in cash and prizes. He later explained, “The mental strain was just terrible. I was mentally drained.” This is why he stopped, but he still hadn’t hit a Whammy.
Where Is Michael Larson Now?
At first, CBS refused to pay out his winnings because they thought he’d cheated. They couldn’t prove it, and Larson later got what he’d won on the show. After Larson’s appearance, Press Your Luck reconfigured its board. Instead of six patterns, they programmed more than 20 to prevent anyone from potentially memorizing them. Larson took his winnings back to Ohio, but the financial windfall didn’t last long. He squandered it on real estate and became involved in a multilevel marketing scheme investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (via Biography).
Larson left Ohio after he was investigated for fraud and went to Florida. Before he was ever taken into custody, Larson died of cancer. According to his brother, James, Michael Larson’s winnings may have been the beginning of the end because “it convinced him in his own mind that he could trick anybody, that he could do just about anything.”
Fact vs. Fiction in ‘The Luckiest Man in America’
Part of what makes The Luckiest Man in America so appealing is how close it sticks to the actual events and fallout from Larson’s win. Yet, the movie added a few embellishments for dramatic effect. While a great scene, the appearance of Larson’s estranged wife via phone during the live taping, leading to an emotional breakdown, never happened. In general, the many times that the producers tried to ‘distract’ Larson and mess up his game never actually happened. Moreover, Larson was never given the freedom to walk over to other sets and interact with them.
Moreover, there will always be relative liberties, with the cinematic tone of Press Your Luck much different from reality. Much of the production staff was based more on recreations of those involved than on accurate portrayals; Shamier Anderson’s Chuck, for example, was an amalgamation of real-life staff rather than a singular man behind the scenes. Still, The Luckiest Man in America stands firm as one of the best biographical pictures capturing a very bizarre place and time in TV history.
- Release Date
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September 5, 2024
- Runtime
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90 Minutes
- Director
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Samir Oliveros
- Writers
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Maggie Briggs, Samir Oliveros
- Producers
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Damiano Tucci, Pablo Larraín, Juan de Dios Larraín, Paul Walter Hauser, Andrew Hevia, Tiziano Tucci, Sophia Banks, Juan Pablo Solano, Arun Thapar, Amanda Freedman, Simon Beltran, Sara McFarlane
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
