Bobby Fischer: A Chess Champ 'Against The World'

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Bobby Fischer: A Chess Champ 'Against The World'

DAVE DAVIES, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross.

(Soundbite of television program)

Unidentified Man #1: This is NBC Nightly News, Friday, September 1st.

Unidentified Man #2: Good evening. We'll have more on the developments in the
Watergate bugging case. We'll hear George McGovern talking about tightening up
his campaign organization and we'll have a look at the new unemployment
figures. And first, Bobby Fischer. Today...

DAVIES: In 1972, nobody was bigger news than chess master Bobby Fischer. He
squared off against Russian Boris Spassky in a historic match seen as a
showdown of the Cold War.

Fischer's life as an extraordinary chess genius and troubled soul is the
subject of a new documentary directed by my guest, Liz Garbus, called "Bobby
Fischer Against the World." It premieres Monday on HBO.

The film chronicles Fischer's unusual family life, his rise to celebrity as a
chess master and his increasingly bizarre behavior after his 1972 match with
Spassky. Fischer eventually became an angry, paranoid anti-Semite who fled the
U.S. to avoid criminal prosecution.

The film includes interviews with many who knew Fischer, including chess master
and physician Anthony Saidy, who also joined our interview.

Liz Garbus has directed more than a dozen documentaries, including her Oscar-
nominated film about a Louisiana prison called "The Farm: Angola, USA." "Bobby
Fischer Against the World" features a lot of archival footage of Fischer. You
can hear his awkwardness in this interview, conducted in his late 20s when he
was in his chess-playing prime.

(Soundbite of interview)

Unidentified Man #3: Bobby, you've given virtually your entire life to the
world of chess. What about Bobby Fischer the man? What's he like?

Mr. BOBBY FISCHER (Chess Master): I don't know. It's pretty - chess and me, you
know, it's like it's hard to take them apart, you know, just like my alter-ego,
you know. I don’t need to...

Unidentified Man #3: But there are times when you get away from that chess
board. What do you do?

Mr. FISCHER: I don't do too much for the most. See, I'm really, you know, tied
up in chess. I intend to expand, but first I've got to get the title,
basically.

DAVIES: I asked Liz Garbus and Anthony Saidy about Fischer's early years,
growing in New York with his mother, Regina.

Well, Liz Garbus, Anthony Saidy, welcome to FRESH AIR. We know that Regina,
Bobby Fischer's mom, was deeply involved in left-wing activity and was
monitored by the FBI. Liz Garbus, do you know what kind of impact this had on
the kids growing up?

Ms. LIZ GARBUS (Director, "Bobby Fischer Against the World"): Yeah, I mean,
it's kind of remarkable. We got both Bobby Fischer's and Regina Fischer's FBI
file. And Bobby Fischer being someone who was actually ultimately hunted by the
U.S., a fugitive, arrested in Japan, his FBI file was, you know, about an
eighth of the size of his mother's, Regina Fischer, which just tells you a lot
about the period in which they were growing up and the suspicions the FBI had
about her communist activities.

It was a paranoid time, right, McCarthy, and this was the Cold War, and this is
the environment in which they were growing up, so that, you know, one imagines
that that paranoia would have transferred to the young Bobby.

One of our interviewees told a story about how - that Regina had instructed
Bobby, if he was ever sort of sitting on the steps outside of his house, if
anybody asked him what his name was or where he lived, he should just say: I
can neither confirm nor deny that.

(Soundbite of laughter)

So he was apparently trained at a young age how to kind of watch his back.

DAVIES: Wow. Now, of course, he's a terrific chess player, and at 13 or 14, he
starts beating people who are much, much older and making it clear what a
master he could become.

I thought we would listen to a clip from the documentary of Bobby Fischer as a
teenager. Here he is at age 15. He's appearing on the TV show "I've Got a
Secret." We're going to hear the voice of Garry Moore, who is the host, and
Dick Clark, who was a panelist. Let's listen.

(Soundbite of film, "Bobby Fischer Against the World")

(Soundbite of television program, "I've Got a Secret")

Mr. GARRY MOORE (Host): Can you tell us how old you are and where you're from?

Mr. FISCHER: I'm 15. I'm from Brooklyn.

Mr. MOORE: He's 15 years old, and he is from Brooklyn, all right?

Unidentified Person: Yay.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. MOORE: Will you show your headline from camera three to Dick Clark because
we'll make him go to work on you. It says: Teenager's Strategy Defeats All
Comers.

Mr. DICK CLARK (TV Personality): This strategy, did it involve finances?

Mr. FISCHER: No.

Mr. CLARK: Did you have any help?

Mr. FISCHER: No.

Mr. CLARK: Is it all by yourself. Did it make people happy?

Mr. FISCHER: It made me happy.

(Soundbite of laughter)

(Soundbite of buzzer)

Mr. MOORE: This young man's name is Bobby Fischer, and already, he is the
United States chess champion. He is 15 years old, and he has defeated the
masters. He is the United States champion in chess.

(Soundbite of applause)

DAVIES: And a piece of Americana there, Bobby Fischer at age 15 on the TV show
"I've Got a Secret." That's from the documentary "Bobby Fischer Against the
World," directed by our guest, Liz Garbus. Also with us, Anthony Saidy, an
international chess master who knew Bobby Fischer.

Liz Garbus, did Bobby Fischer's mother Regina want him to be a public figure?
Is that how he got on TV?

Ms. GARBUS: It seems that as they, you know, sort of Bobby's accolades grew,
and it was clear, you know, what his prowess was and his potential on the chess
board that she did support that rise, that she was deeply ambitious and
ambitious for her son.

At a certain point, I think that ambition and that drive of hers was probably
too much for Bobby, and Bobby had to separate from her and would only go to
chess tournaments with his sister, Joan. He had to pull away from perhaps her
drive and her ambitions for him.

DAVIES: And she actually moved out of the house when he was 16. Is that right?

Ms. GARBUS: Yeah, apparently at age 16, Regina moved out of the house, leaving
Bobby there to kind of raise himself. And people who went over to the house at
that time, and I imagine Dr. Saidy was one of them, talking about kind of the
total chaos and disarray that he lived in.

You know, but then he sort of, I think, quickly, you know, went on tour and was
sort - became more of a life of living in hotel rooms and playing chess
tournaments.

DAVIES: Anthony Saidy, did you know him to be, in these years when he was a
teenager and in his 20s, a difficult person to get along with?

Dr. ANTHONY SAIDY (Chess Master): He was difficult, yes, from teenage on. In
terms of just every day agreement on, you know, where do we eat? Or, what hotel
should we stay in? There was always an issue, and it had to be his way.

He didn't have empathy for other people's desires or needs at all. I guess it
was exemplified when he came to my family's home in Long Island prior to the
big match, and I said to Bobby: Incidentally, my dad is very ill. And Bobby
said: Oh, I don't mind.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. GARBUS: And Bobby, you know, Bobby was holed up there. From what I know and
from what Dr. Saidy has told us, Dr. Saidy's mother was going to great lengths
to keep Bobby Fischer happy and fed and all the great food spreads, but, you
know, meanwhile there were sort of greater needs going on in the household.

DAVIES: Now, was he making his living at chess from, you know, his teens on
through his 20s?

Ms. GARBUS: Bobby would travel around, and Larry Evans, who has now passed
away, his father would organize tours for Bobby Fischer. And Bobby would go,
and people would pay to play Bobby Fischer. So there were different ways that
Bobby made money.

There would be people in chess clubs who would just pay to play Bobby Fischer,
and he's play blitz matches against - you know, and then he would make money
this way.

The purse in chess matches at the time was quite small, and it was difficult
for a chess player to make a living playing chess, and this was one of the
major things that Bobby actually took on as his cause and really caused a
change in the purses so you could actually make a living as a chess player.

DAVIES: You said he did blitz matches. What are they?

Dr. SAIDY: Blitz is a term for a timed game in which each side has only five
minutes. It's a very action-packed form of chess.

DAVIES: And would he play more than one opponent at a time?

Ms. GARBUS: Yeah, there's footage in the film - people always remark on it
because it looks to those of us outside the chess world so remarkable, but to
people in the chess world, it was quite a normal scene, where Bobby would play
20 opponents at once, going from board to board, making a move while the other
people, you know, sometimes four times his age, would still be pondering the
move. He would be back after having played, you know, 19 other people.

DAVIES: He would rotate around a circle where there are boards of other people,
and he would look at the board for two seconds, make a move and just keep
moving.

Ms. GARBUS: Right, so ostensibly keeping all of those patterns in his head, you
know, of each board and sort of the state of play.

DAVIES: We're speaking with documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus and chess master
Anthony Saidy. We'll talk more after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

DAVIES: If you're just joining us, we're speaking with documentary filmmaker
Liz Garbus. She's the director of "Bobby Fischer Against the World," the
documentary about chess master Bobby Fischer, which will be premiering on HBO.

Also with us, Anthony Saidy, a chess master who knew Bobby Fischer. So let's
talk about the historic match between Bobby Fischer and the Russian Boris
Spassky. Liz Garbus, why were so much attention paid to this confrontation?

Ms. GARBUS: It's hard to imagine that in 1972, all eyes were on a chess match,
but it in fact seem to be the case. Bobby Fischer was this, you know, self-
taught Brooklyn boy who kind of took the New York chess scene and then the
national chess scene by storm.

And the Russians had been dominating the sport for decades. The Soviet Union
had made chess its national sport. It was a way of demonstrating intellectual
superiority over the rest of the world, including certainly the U.S. and the
West. And so for an American, Bobby Fischer, to have a real chance at beating
that machine, this was big stuff.

I mean, it was as if, you know, there was going to be a chess match between or
a boxing match between a representative of the U.S. government and al-Qaida. I
mean, it was the organizing principle of the time, and here they were going to
have, you know, have war over the board. So the symbolism of the match was
enormous.

DAVIES: A real Cold War confrontation, national prestige on the line.

Anthony Saidy, you were in touch with Bobby at the time. It was not easy
getting him here. He was living in Los Angeles, right? And what was his...

Dr. SAIDY: In Pasadena, near Los Angeles.

DAVIES: Yeah, what was his state of mind as this approached?

Dr. SAIDY: Ambivalence. He wanted to go and win the world championship, but he
had many provisos that had to be met, and it was always touch and go whether he
would go through with the match.

I thought it was an event of great historical importance, and I wanted to see
it take place. So I bent every effort to go on the positive side and get him at
least from California to New York, where he could be dealt with by many
negotiators.

DAVIES: Right. Now, the event itself was going to be in Reykjavik, Iceland. And
you said he had a lot of provisos. What were some of his demands to get the
match going?

Dr. SAIDY: Money was a chief arguing point at the beginning, and in fact, I
don't think he would have gone and played if the British financier James Slater
had not doubled the purse overnight and issued a challenge to Fischer: Come out
and play if you're not a chicken.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. GARBUS: And we should add that there had been opportunities for Bobby to
make it this far before. Bobby had backed out of matches before. So there
certainly was no guarantee that these were just antics or provocations.

You know, he really had lived up to his threats before of, you know, if you
don't satisfy my conditions, I'm not coming. Bobby was already 29. You know, he
probably could've won the championship earlier, but he had really - when people
hadn't met his conditions before, he had dropped out.

So there was extraordinary pressure on it this time to really get him to go.
People knew how serious he was.

DAVIES: Is it true that Henry Kissinger called?

Dr. SAIDY: I can personally confirm one call of Kissinger placed to our family
home when Fischer was there. That's beyond dispute.

Ms. GARBUS: We spoke to Dr. Kissinger for the documentary, and he said, you
know, it was important for an American to win this match. So he wanted to call
Fischer and tell him to go.

He very simply said: You know, this is a matter of national importance. And
Bobby Fischer, get out of Dr. Saidy's house and get on a plane and go to
Reykjavik.

Now, this coincided with the purse being doubled by a financier, and so it was
kind of the perfect storm. Finally, Bobby would go.

DAVIES: Now, it's interesting, you know, Anthony Saidy, you said that Bobby was
living in Pasadena, California, and you sort of coaxed him to New York. You
said: I need to go back. My father's ill. Let's go to New York. And you were
really simply trying to get him a step closer to Iceland, right?

Dr. SAIDY: Correct.

DAVIES: Right. Now, what happened the first time he went to JFK Airport to go
to Reykjavik? Were you there?

Dr. SAIDY: He seemed headed for Iceland, and our troubles were over, we
thought. But as we were headed toward the check-in desk, a New York Daily News
photographer had spied Bobby and started chasing us with about 50 pounds of
photographic equipment on his back.

And Bobby saw the guy and started running. I turned around and blocked the
photographer, and the photographer said: What are you going to do, stop me? I
said: Oh, no, no. In any event, that spooked Bobby.

He had this phobia of the press for a long time, and instead of checking in for
the flight, he just left the airport.

DAVIES: All right. So eventually, he does get to Reykjavik, and there is the
appointed day at which Boris Spassky is there. This is going to be televised.
The whole world is watching. And I thought we'd listen to a moment from the
documentary and get a flavor of this, and this is a bit of a montage from Liz
Garbus' documentary.

We're going to hear some - mixed in some of the broadcasters who are
telecasting it.

(Soundbite of film, "Bobby Fischer Against the World")

Unidentified Man #4: The clock has now been started. It was officially 5
o'clock in Reykjavik. Spassky is obviously anxious about the whereabouts of Mr.
Fischer.

(Soundbite of music)

Mr. SAIDY: Bobby was nowhere to be seen, and all of us despaired.

Unidentified Man #5: If Fischer doesn't show up by the time one hour has
elapsed, he forfeits the game automatically.

Unidentified Man #6: Oh, there he goes now. He's just played one pawn to queen
four.

Unidentified Man #7: You saw Spassky make his move. Then he touched his clock,
which turns his clock off but turns his opponent's clock on. So Fischer's time
is now ticking.

DAVIES: And that's from the documentary "Bobby Fischer Against the World,"
directed by our guest Liz Garbus. Also with us, Anthony Saidy, whose voice is
in that clip. He is an international chess master who knew Bobby Fischer.

So when this confrontation happens. Bobby Fischer doesn't show up on time for
the first round. Anthony Saidy, what was going on?

Dr. SAIDY: That was a minor blip because he was just late to start the first
game. The major blip came for this in the second game, when Bobby didn't show
up at all in a big dispute over cameras and noises and conditions in the
playing room. That's when despair mounted and we feared that the match would
just end.

The Soviets told Boris Spassky: You have been disrespected. The Soviet Union
has been disrespected. You have every right to go home now and keep your world
championship title because this American upstart is too rude.

And Boris said: No, I want to play chess. He was a great sportsman.

DAVIES: Now Fischer, and I have to say this is depicted really well in the
documentary because there is this surviving television footage of this. He said
he could hear the TV cameras. Anthony Saidy, do you believe him?

Dr. SAIDY: I think he had a heightened sense of hearing. Yes, I do believe
that. I also believe that his ego was involved, and he insisted on making
everyone kowtow to his demands.

DAVIES: So the match gets moved into a quiet room in the back, and even though
there's a huge purse here that I assume depends upon, you know, internationally
televised transmission of this, the public really has to follow this through a
chess board. It was that right, Liz Garbus, where the moves are relayed to
crowds, and then the television doesn't actually see the players?

Ms. GARBUS: Yeah, it's really remarkable. I mean, it was the most anticipated
match and had been anticipated for months and months, and everybody had
followed the shenanigans of, you know, would Bobby even show up.

So Bobby shows up. You know, as you played in the clip, he's late for the first
game. Spassky, the world champion, got to - in game one, he plays white, so he
played first. So he got to open, and, you know, nobody was there. And then
Bobby Fischer emerges, you know, comes into the room saying he was caught in
traffic.

And of course it was just a blip, but at the same time, it, you know, wasn't
the way these things were usually played.

For game two, the Icelanders had refused to remove the cameras from the hall
originally, which Bobby wanted because Bobby didn't like the noise, and he
didn't like the cameraman, Chester Fox, who had been given the contract to
record the match and distribute it all over the world.

So for game three, for the match to continue, the Russian team would have to
agree that the match be moved into a different room. And so they end up -
Spassky agrees, as Dr. Saidy pointed out. He did not need to agree. He could've
just insisted that the match be played as per the plan. But he wanted to play
Bobby Fischer.

He wanted the match to continue. So he agreed to move this monumentally
important chess match into the back, into a little ping-pong room with, you
know, just Bobby, Boris, the official and a couple other guys.

So all the people who had been anxiously awaiting this match were forced into
this room, and they had to watch it through closed-circuit television and
boards reporting the moves, calling out the moves. And so the whole thing - the
whole arrangement kind of went south.

DAVIES: And Boris Spassky takes a two-nothing lead, which Anthony Saidy, seemed
like an insurmountable deficit to a lot of people at the time, right?

Dr. SAIDY: It's a huge lead in a match where the challenger actually has to win
one more game than the champion in order to take the title. And this forfeiture
of the second game, of course, was under protest. And I can't really fathom how
many critical moments had to go the right way in order for this match to reach
a conclusion.

DAVIES: Anthony Said, a chess master who knew Bobby Fischer, and documentary
Liz Garbus, whose film "Bobby Fischer Against the World" premieres Monday on
HBO. We'll be back in the second half of the show. I'm Dave Davies, and this is
FRESH AIR.

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross.

We're talking about the troubled life of the late chess master Bobby Fischer
with Liz Garbus, whose documentary "Bobby Fischer Against the World" premieres
Monday on HBO, and with Anthony Saidy, a chess master who knew Bobby Fischer
and appears in the film.

The pinnacle of Fischer's career and the centerpiece of the documentary is the
historic 1972 world championship match between Fischer and Soviet master Boris
Spassky.

Bobby Fischer committed a foolish blunder to lose one of the early games and
then he had this unorthodox strategy which allowed him to win game three, get
back into it. People still talk about game six. Anthony Saidy, we don't
understand chess like you do. What made game six special?

Mr. SAIDY: Let's compare chess to music, and of course there are many varieties
of music. Game six in a musical sense would be Mozartian. It was a placid
symphony of squeezing Boris Spassky's pieces to the point that they had hardly
any moves left. And then the coup de grace at the end, sacrificing, you know,
rook for a knight. Everyone in the world thought that this was a magnificent
game. And also it started with a move that Bobby had never hardly ever played
before, which was a surprise weapon. He kept springing these surprises on the
Soviet side again and again and them off-balance.

DAVIES: And how did Boris Spassky react to this game six?

Mr. SAIDY: Great sportsman that he was, he joined in the crowd's applause for
the game. He stood up and applauded his opponent. And Fischer, the humanity of
that even got to Fischer.

Ms. GARBUS: The stories were that after Boris had, you know, stood up and
applauded for Bobby at game six, Bobby said, you know, did you see that? Did
you see that? You know, did you see what he did? He was moved. Bobby, who
didn't really pay attention to other people's emotional displays, was really
quite moved and satisfied at the end of game six.

DAVIES: Anthony Saidy, how did it end? How did the match end?

Mr. SAIDY: That was the turning point. Bobby seized the lead in game six and he
won going away. He lost only one more game out of the 21-game match. Totally
dominated Boris Spassky. The chess world was surprised, very surprised at the
one-sided nature of the match. And it's clear to me that Boris was not himself,
at all these disturbances and shenanigans at the beginning of the match had
upset him.

I don't think Fischer intended to upset him, he was just being himself. But we
weren't going to protest the outcome. We were just thrilled that a lone
American who had virtually no help had managed to defeat the world champion
from the Soviet Union, who had all kinds of help that we never dreamt of in New
York.

DAVIES: At age 29, Bobby Fischer achieved this historic victory. What kind of
celebrity did this confer on him?

Ms. GARBUS: People said when he returned home to the United States there was a
sense that nobody was bigger, nobody was more important than Bobby Fischer
right then. And when he got home he got all sorts of offers to endorse
products. But Bobby responded in his usual Bobby-ish way. For instance,
Steinway piano wanted to pay him several million dollars to pose for ads with
their piano, and Bobby said but that would be dishonest because that would give
the impression that I play piano and I don't. So Bobby was, you know, a bit of
a naive in this world and certainly did not embrace it.

Though when he did come back, he did appear on many talk shows - Bob Hope,
Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett. And I think actually the most revealing moment in
those months after the match was on the Johnny Carson show, when Carson asked
Bobby, you know, Bobby, how did you feel what it was all over? You know, it
must've been kind of a letdown, you know, after the match was all over. And
Bobby said, yeah, you know, I kind of feel like something has been taken from
me. And that really was a harbinger of what was to come later in Bobby
Fischer's life. The great triumph was actually a loss of something for Bobby
Fischer.

DAVIES: And he gradually sort of retreated into isolation. Anthony Saidy, were
you in touch with him during this period? Do you know what was going on in his
head?

Mr. SAIDY: Yes. He became very close to the Worldwide Church of God,
headquartered in Pasadena. And I never saw him unless he was transported by one
of his church fellows or I picked him up myself. He was in retreat. He turned
down so many good offers. I personally was involved in one offer of half a
million dollars to make a record on how to play chess. And his reason for
turning it down, I don't think any American in history has given a reason like
this. He said, I could make a mistake and 10 years from now the Russians could
find the mistake and bad mouth me.

Well, it was a half-million bucks. You know, we don't make decisions like that
– most of us.

DAVIES: Did you have concerns for his mental health then?

Mr. SAIDY: I had concerns – moderate concerns. I thought he was certainly
capable of taking care of himself at all times. But he started to develop such
deep resentments of classes of people. I can understand his resenting the
Soviet Union, which had cheated and had perhaps delayed his ascendancy to the
title. I could understand some of the things. But he became truly paranoid.

DAVIES: And you mentioned this church. Was it the United Church of God?

Mr. SAIDY: Worldwide Church of God.

DAVIES: Yeah. What were they about? Ms. Garbus, did you look into them?

Ms. GARBUS: The Worldwide Church of God was a church where Bobby found sort of
a home and a community, especially after '72, when he actually started living
in an apartment that the church are rented for him. Yeah, they were a church
with a very charismatic leader, Armstrong, and an apocalyptic vision. And when
that particular apocalypse did not come to pass, Bobby Fischer became
disenchanted with the church and rejected them.

DAVIES: And, of course, he got interested in anti-Semitic ideologies. He read
the Elders of Zion. Anthony Saidy, did he recognize that he himself was
ethnically Jewish? Did he...

Mr. SAIDY: He certainly considered himself Jewish when he was a kid. In fact,
he told me one time, he said those Irish kids, they don't like us Jewish kids
at all. So there was no doubt he felt that he was Jewish.

DAVIES: So what do you make of his embracing anti-Semitism?

Ms. GARBUS: I think at a certain point Bobby just rejected everything that he
was, everything that he had come from. You know, in addition to feeling angry
at the Soviets for having cheated, and what Dr. Saidy was referring to there
was that it was established that the Soviets would prearrange draws so that
their better players could rise up in the ranks of tournaments without being
exhausted by tough matches.

And this was something that Bobby had complained about a lot. People called him
paranoid about that at the time. But it turned out it was true. So Bobby was
angry at the Soviets for this. But also, Bobby also became very disenchanted
with the U.S. You know, as Harry Benson, one of the photographers who was with
Bobby all throughout Reykjavik in 1972, said, you know, there was never a fruit
basket. You know, Kissinger called him to tell him to go. But you know, there
wasn't support for Bobby once he got there, he was really on his own. And then,
of course, later the United States really pursued Bobby. So Bobby rejected
Jews. He became an anti-Semite. And he also rejected America, applauding the
events of 9/11 in one of his sort of most infamous speeches. So Bobby rejected
everything that he had come from and he even, you know, stopped playing
professional chess.

DAVIES: You know, Anthony Saidy, what about the idea that when you look at what
chess is, it's this infinite possibility of moves and a game in which you are
thinking 20 moves down the road about how your opponent might get you. That's
almost the definition of paranoia, isn't it?

Mr. SAIDY: You've got it. Somebody is scheming against you every minute. But
most people are able to see reality and keep friendly relations with their
opponents.

Ms. GARBUS: One of the other greatest chess players who ever lived is Garry
Kasparov, who we interviewed for the film, and he is, you know, remarkably
sane, charming and socially well-developed, so it's certainly not a rule. But
yet chess is a game which involves, you know, constantly feeling like you are
under attack, and indeed you are under attack from many places anticipated and
not anticipated. So it's a game certainly that heightens one's sense of
paranoia.

DAVIES: Documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus and chess master Anthony Saidy. The
film "Bobby Fischer Against the World" premieres Monday on HBO.

More after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

DAVIES: We're speaking with chess master Anthony Saidy and filmmaker Liz
Garbus, whose documentary "Bobby Fischer Against the World" premieres Monday on
HBO.

Bobby Fischer was a recluse, it seems, or at least not often seen for 20 years.
Then he reemerges in 1992 and does this spectacular rematch with Boris Spassky
in war-torn Yugoslavia, violating a UN boycott, which gets him indicted in the
United States, and kind of emerges as this angry crank.

And I thought we'd listen to a piece of tape, and this is, I think, a call in
to a radio show after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, where he – well, maybe, Liz
Garbus, is this where he's calling a radio show in the Philippines? Is that
where this is from?

Ms. GARBUS: That's right. Bobby through the '90s would call in mostly in the
Philippines to radio shows there and air his views, largely anti-Semitic and
anti-American.

DAVIES: So let's listen. This is him calling in to a radio show after the
September 11th attacks.

(Soundbite of radio show)

Mr. BOBBY FISCHER (Chess Master): This is all wonderful news. It's time for the
(bleep) U.S. to get their heads kicked in. It's time to finish off the U.S.
once and for all. This just shows you that what goes around comes around, even
for the United States.

(Soundbite of laughter)

DAVIES: And that's Bobby Fischer in 2001, reacting with glee to the September
11th attacks. That's from the documentary "Bobby Fischer Against the World,"
directed by our guest, Liz Garbus. Also with us, Anthony Saidy, an
international chess master who knew Bobby Fischer.

Liz Garbus, how do you describe his mental state in these last years?

Ms. GARBUS: I mean it's a very, very sad story. I mean we got into our
possession tens of hours of Bobby's ranting on these radio show. And it was
really the rantings of a man who was not at all well and whom nobody was kind
of steering back in the right direction, without any kind of protective factors
or supports. You know, the 9/11 comments are what they are, they're hateful,
and we listened to many other hours of Bobby ranting this way. I listened for
any clues. I kept on trying to sort of wade through them, find some truth, some
introspection, and it really wasn't there. By the late '90s it was really just,
just that, just a lot of ranting paranoid idea.

DAVIES: Yeah, he ends up being unable to return to the United States because he
is under indictments, spends time in Japan. Finally Iceland offers him
citizenship and he finishes his life there before he dies in 2008. And you
know, Liz Garbus, this interested me as someone who - you study people and
images, and when I looked at a lot of the film of Bobby Fischer when he was
young and in his prime and playing chess competitively, when he was interviewed
he often seemed awkward. He looked away frequently, almost twitched at times,
just did not seem comfortable. And those troubling scenes at the end where he's
giving these angry rants, he seems at ease. He seems completely comfortable in
his skin. Did that occur to you?

Ms. GARBUS: It absolutely did. I think it's a great observation. There was a
part of him that was never - that was always sort of fighting with himself to
kind of, you know, be present in the media in all of those appearances. And
then I guess the sort of floodgates were opened and everything just kind of
poured out, there was no censor. He was unhinged at that time.

DAVIES: He had romantic partners. I mean there was a woman in Japan who I
believe an Icelandic court concluded was his wife and was entitled to his
estate. There was also a romantic partner in the Philippines, right? I assume
you tried to reach these folks?

Ms. GARBUS: We did. We interviewed - there was a dispute after Bobby Fischer
passed away. There was a dispute over his estate. A woman with whom he'd been
involved in the Philippines claimed to be the mother of his child. Her name was
Marilyn Young and the child is Jinky. It's clear that she did have a
relationship with Bobby and that Bobby was fond of this little girl. The little
growth would come visit him in Iceland. They would walk around the streets.
People saw them together. There were letters they had written back and forth.

Ultimately, a DNA test proved that she was not Bobby's daughter. And Miyoko
Watai, who is involved in the Japanese Chess Federation and also a friend of
Bobby's, was found to be Bobby's legal wife. There continues to be a dispute
over the estate. Bobby had two nephews. His sister Joan had two sons who claim
they are the rightful heirs to the estate.

DAVIES: Liz Garbus, did you ever learn anything about his romantic
relationships, how he related to women?

Ms. GARBUS: Yeah. We did learn about his romantic relationships. It seems that
Bobby was not interested in women for conversation, in women as peers.
Romantically his relationships seem to be somewhat stunted. From the Filipino
woman, Marilyn Young who we interviewed, she, you know, they had a
relationship. Bobby, they didn't really, she didn't understand anything about
chess. In fact, she barely spoke English and so their relationship was not
intellectually probably or emotionally or, you know, stimulating for Bobby.
There were other women Bobby was involved with. A Hungarian woman named Zita
Rajcsanyi, who also we spoke to over the phone and, you know, her relationship
with Bobby was very difficult and he was not easy with women.

Dr. SAIDY: I think Zita made a cute remark when asked why she was friendly with
Bobby. She said she had worked in a mental hospital and she had an
understanding of this kind of person.

DAVIES: Hmm. Now Anthony Saidy, this was somebody that you knew well when he
was young and brilliant. And then you watched him from a distance as he
deteriorated. Did you think of him much in those years when you weren't in
touch?

Dr. SAIDY: I certainly did. And I intervened once in public and asked the world
to leave him alone out of, quote, “solicitude for the mentally ill.” And
somehow he found out about that and he resented that quite a bit.

DAVIES: When people see the documentary they’ll see the images that go along
with the voices that we've heard. But it's so striking when you see this kid, a
15-year-old kid on television and how awkward and vulnerable he is. And then
see Bobby Fischer in his old age as this contemptible anti-Semitic crank. I
don't know, how do you regard him Liz Garbus? Do you like the guy?

Ms. GARBUS: I have a lot of empathy for Bobby Fischer. One of the most
surprising things for me in making the film was looking at all the footage of
him, 71, 72, and he was, yes, he was awkward and nervous but he had moments of
real charisma and kind of inhabiting that rock star role he was being given at
the time. He could laugh at himself when an interviewer made him comfortable,
like Dick Cavett made Bobby very comfortable. You know, he had a sense of humor
and could laugh and be very, very charming.

So, you know, yes, I like that man. And then later, you know, over the course
of the years and you listen to Bobby, I listened to all these hours of Bobby
calling into radio shows, you can't help but feel empathy. I mean these ideas
are not well organized ideologies to commit violence against anybody. They're
really just the ravings of somebody who has become unhinged and for whom there
is really nobody sort of pulling him down and helping him. So yes, I felt very
empathetic to Bobby Fischer.

DAVIES: Well, Liz Garbus, thanks so much for speaking with us.

Ms. GARBUS: Thank you for having me.

DAVIES: Anthony Saidy, thank you as well.

Dr. SAIDY: My pleasure.

DAVIES: Filmmaker Liz Garbus and chess master Anthony Saidy. Garbus directed
the documentary “Bobby Fischer Against the World.” Here's a scene near the end
of the film when Fischer was living in Iceland reflecting here on his life and
talent.

(Soundbite of film, “Bobby Fischer Against the World”)

Mr. FISCHER: I don't consider myself to be a genius at chess. I consider myself
more to be a genius who just happens to play chess. In a sense, so I could be
doing any, I could have done and I can do any number of other things, you know?
You know, I always wanted to write some songs. I was telling Evans, Larry
Evans, this is back in the 60s, I remember saying, you know, I listen to all
these songs and I wish I could write them. I try to write some, I try to think
of something and I just nothing comes out. And he says yeah, because you
haven't lived.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. FISCHER: I started thinking about it. He's right.

(Soundbite of laughter)

DAVIES: Bobby Fischer died in 2008. The documentary “Bobby Fischer Against the
World” premieres Monday on HBO.

Coming up, rock critic Ken Tucker on The New Yorker’s first pop music critic
Ellen Willis. A new collection of her work has just been published.

This is FRESH AIR.
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From The 'Vinyl Deeps,' Ellen Willis Wrote About Rock

DAVE DAVIES, host:

Ellen Willis, who died in 2006, was part of the first generation of critics to
take rock and pop music seriously and write about it with both erudition and
passion. A feminist with a populist streak, Willis has often all but been
forgotten in discussions of rock criticism until now. “Out of the Vinyl Deeps:
Ellen Willis on Rock Music,” an anthology of her groundbreaking work has just
been published by the University of Minnesota Press.

Rock critic Ken Tucker has a review.

(Soundbite of song, “Beginning to see the Light”)

VELVET UNDERGROUND (Rock band): (Singing) Well I’m beginning to see the light.
Well I’m beginning to see the light. Some people work very hard but still they
never get it right. Well I’m beginning to see the light. Want to tell you now,
now, now baby...

KEN TUCKER: Ellen Willis was one of the first rock critics - at a time starting
in the late ‘60s - when serious writing about rock, pop and R&B was rare. She
was the first pop-music critic for The New Yorker, starting in 1968. She
combined a love of pop culture and an active engagement with feminist theory to
create a unique body of writing, which finally gets a proper showcase in “Out
of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music,” edited by her daughter, Nona
Willis Aronowitz.

(Soundbite of song, “Desolation Row”)

Mr. BOB DYLAN (Singer-songwriter): (Singing) They're selling postcards of the
hanging. They're painting the passports brown. The beauty parlor is filled with
sailors. The circus is in town. Here comes the blind commissioner. They've got
him in a trance. One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker, the other is in his
pants. And the riot squad they're restless, they need somewhere to go, as Lady
and I look out tonight from Desolation Row.

The anthology leads off with a remarkable dissection of Bob Dylan circa 1967.
Typical of this long piece, which appeared in a short-lived pop magazine called
“Cheetah,” were assertions about her subject that no one had ventured before,
yet which afterward became common wisdom. Quote, “His masks hidden by other
masks, Dylan is the celebrity stalker's ultimate antagonist.” To have seen this
in Dylan in 1967, at a time when he was very much a public pop star, is typical
of Willis’ close listening to songs, adding everything she knew about the
subject's public image and private life, to arrive at a critical position.

Willis loved counterculture stars from Dylan to Janis Joplin, but she also
championed cult bands such as Joy of Cooking and the New York Dolls. Her
judgments were never predictable. She argued that The Rolling Stones' diatribe
"Under My Thumb" was less sexist than Cat Stevens' condescending "Wild World,"
because, quote, "Mick Jagger's fantasy of sweet revenge could easily be female
as well as male.”

(Soundbite of song, “Under My Thumb”)

THE ROLLING STONES (Rock band): (Singing) Under my thumb, the girl who once had
me down. Under my thumb, the girl who once pushed me around.

It's down to me, the difference in the clothes she wears. Down to me, the
change has come, she's under my thumb.

TUCKER: Writing with a directness and utter lack of fan gush, many of Willis'
observations sound as fresh, as appropriate to the present music scene as they
did decades ago. Her 1971 criticism of pop music's tendency, both among the
audience and the critic, toward, quote, "a tedious worship of technical
proficiency" would be as appropriate now regarding TV shows such as “American
Idol” and “The Voice” as it was in addressing music on vinyl back then.

(Soundbite of song, “Personality Crisis”)

THE NEW YORK DOLLS (Punk band): (Singing) Well we can't take it this week, and
her friends don't want another speech, hoping for a better day to hear what
she's got to say.

All about that personality crisis you got it while it was hot. But now
frustration and heartache is what you got. That's why they talk about
personality.

TUCKER: At a certain point in post-punk, around the time hip-hop became the
dominant sound of popular music, Willis lost interest in rock criticism and
pursued other interests: feminist theory and activism, politics and the
philosophy of Wilhelm Reich, among many other topics. She'd become impatient
with pop in part for its failure as an agent of social and political change,
writing, quote, “There can't be a revolutionary culture until there’s a
revolution.”

She was the founder of New York University's Cultural Reporting and Criticism
program and, by many accounts, an inspirational teacher. Willis died in 2006 at
age 64. “Out of the Vinyl Deeps” - whether she's writing about Elvis Presley or
Moby Grape - resurrects a nearly lost, vital, invaluable voice.

(Soundbite of music)

DAVIES: Ken Tucker is editor-at-large for Entertainment Weekly. He reviewed
“Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music.”

(Soundbite of music)

DAVIES: You can join us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at nprfreshair.
And you can download podcasts of our show at freshair.npr.org.

For Terry Gross, I'm Dave Davies.
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