REYKJAVIK (AFP) — Chess legend Bobby Fischer's life in Iceland was marked by both paranoid behaviour and quiet solitude, spending his days reading, fishing and devising new variations on the game he mastered, friends said.
The troubled American high school dropout, whose fabled 1972 victory over Soviet world champion Boris Spassky made him a Cold War hero, died Thursday at the age of 64 at his home in Iceland.
Fischer led a seemingly peaceful life there surrounded by a handful of friends. He had taken Icelandic citizenship in 2005 to avoid being deported to the United States.
He was wanted for breaking international sanctions by playing a chess match in Yugoslavia in 1992.
"He really enjoyed living in Iceland," said Saemundur Palsson, Fischer's friend and bodyguard for the historic match with Spassky in Reykjavik.
"He was so often in bookstores, he was buying all kinds of books, about everything. He wasn't only a genius in chess, he was following all what was going on ... He was listening to an awful lot of radio."
According to Einar Einarsson, chairman of a support group which had lobbied for Fischer to be granted Icelandic citizenship, the chess player mainly read international political works.
"He also read about the First and Second World Wars. He was becoming a historian from my point of view," said Einarsson.
He lived in an apartment in the center of Reykjavik, the small capital that greatly contrasts with New York, where Fischer grew up.
"He was travelling to the countryside, went salmon fishing with his friends, stayed in country cottages whenever he could," said Einarsson.
Fischer loved walking and going to the swimming pool. He always ate at restaurants and did not try to draw attention to himself.
"He didn't give interviews or seek attention of any kind," said Ingo Sigfusson, journalist with national Icelandic television.
"He dressed down, almost always wearing a cap, jeans, and he had this beard. He looked a bit worn and torn."
Fischer was said to have an IQ higher than Albert Einstein's, and would make extravagant demands over matches in a way more commonly seen in boxing.
But while the theatrics made him a celebrity -- and are credited with helping him unnerve his opponents -- he also succeeded in alienating himself from all but a small band of friends and chess enthusiasts.
Despite having a Jewish mother, Fischer was an outspoken anti-Semite, using broadcasts at far-flung radio stations to accuse Jews of everything from his legal woes to an alleged conspiracy to kill off elephants.
His anti-US rhetoric became equally inflammatory over the years.
Those close to him remember the contrasting facets of his personality.
"He was a very difficult man with a huge ego, quite paranoid," said Sigfusson.
"He was haunted by 'enemies' ... he had very strong opinions. He was not quite well mentally," said Einarsson, who added that while Fischer could be "very mild", he seemed to have "two personalities".
"He was also a very kind person, not many people know about that," said Palsson. "I was lucky to be his friend and bodyguard."
As for the game itself, Fischer was no longer interested in "classical" chess, which he deemed to be "too computerised", according to Einarsson.
"But he had his own variation of chess that he called Fischer Random. He was interested to play with Kasparov and Anand, but it never happened," he said, referring to Garry Kasparov and Viswanathan Anand.
According to Palsson, Fischer tried to develop and improve his own version of chess.
The chess legend, who did not like doctors and generally refused to be treated, had suffered health problems for the past year.
He was brought to the hospital emergency "too late" in October, said Einarsson. Fischer died of kidney failure.
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