orig. Robert James Fischer
born March 9, 1943, Chicago, Ill., U.S.
U.S. chess master.
He became a grandmaster at age 15, then a record. In 1972 Fischer defeated Boris Spassky to become the only American to win the world chess championship. An intense and eccentric personality, he was a devout Christian fundamentalist who frequently condemned the Soviet Union for godlessness; he was deprived of his title in 1975 after refusing to meet his Soviet challenger, Anatoly Karpov . He remained out of the game thereafter except for a victorious private rematch with Spassky in Yugoslavia in 1992; the game violated U.S. sanctions against Yugoslavia, and Fischer has remained abroad ever since.
Bobby Fischer, 1971.
AP/Wide World Photos