AThe Tampa Tribune Tampa, Florida Tuesday, August 04, 1992 - Page 42
Reclusive Celeb Turns Emergence Into Prize Gambit
He didn't look quite the same as he did 20 years ago, but then again, with the exception of Dick Clark, who does?
But there he was, former grand chess master Bobby Fischer, a recluse who makes J.D. Saligner seem like a party animal, out in the open again.
It was as odd an announcement as most of what has passed for Bobby Fischer's public life: Two decades after the brash New Yorker had defeated Russian Boris Spassky to become the world chess champion, the two old foes would once more meet to play a $5 million rematch next month in, of all paces, war-torn Yugoslavia, or what's left of it.
Just why anyone would pick Yugoslavia right now as the site of a game requiring intense quiet and concentration is beyond me. Apparently Bobby Fischer, who makes Greta Garbo look like a politician on the stump, hasn't been reading the papers much since 1972, either. He probably thinks Tito is still in power.
Twenty years ago, the 29-year-old John Cassavettes look-alike made his way to the international chess title over the urbane Spassky in a lengthy series of matches that sparked a greater American interest in the game.
It should have been a time of celebrity, glory, and of course, cashing in on his fame for Fischer, who instead went into a deep-chill seclusion, rarely to be seen or heard from since. ([He found himself secluded behind the guarded gates of the Worldwide Church of God's college campus apartments, having his prize winnings pilfered by the cult's lawyer, Stanley Rader. Figure it out.])
Which obviously begs the question: What does Bobby Fischer do all day long?
Thanks to “Entertainment Tonight” and Barbara Walters, there are celebrities whose daily lives are as exposed as the Energizer bunny.
Even personalities who claim to crave privacy make their pleas in the pages of People magazine, complete with photograph after photograph of everything from their bedroom to the workbench in the garage.
Checkmate Redux
Not so Bobby Fischer, who just dropped out of sight, except for a brief flurry of activity in the mid-1970s when he toyed with a possible comeback that never materialized. ([Just as Viktor Yushchenko was making his “comeback” when he found himself on the receiving end of the KGB's little “gifts” that keep giving.])
What does a former world chess champion do all day long for 20 years! After all, you can only go around muttering “queen to rook four” so much.
We all have to do something from the time we get up to the time we go to bed. Don't we?
There's no indication that Fischer went out and found himself a job. Besides, it would be hard to imagine the dark, introspective Bobby Fischer hawking whole-life insurance or running a yogurt stand on Clearwater Beach.
Across the panoply of celebrity, there are a number of people who cannot be imagined as having any semblance of a “normal” life apart from whatever it is they are famous for doing.
But we do know this much. We know what Bobby Fischer will be doing for a few weeks beginning next month: playing chess with Boris Spassky for $3.5 million to the winner, $1.6 million to the loser.
Now that's not a bad day job.
Reclusive Celeb Turns Emergence Into Prize Gambit 04 Aug 1992, Tue The Tampa Tribune (Tampa, Florida) Newspapers.com
