Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Heath Ledger, A Chess Player

It was pretty shocking news to me this morning. At about 11AM, my email inbox beeped with the latest message and the subject line read something like "Heath Ledger, Dead at 28". Quickly I went to a news site and sure enough, there it was. Just awful.

Tonight, late TV news is reporting that Mr Ledger was also an avid chess player. Australia's Channel Nine News claims that he had once finished third in the Western Australian State Chess Championships. I've yet to confirmed that but a quick search on Google reveals other citations of Heath and chess. Here's one on MTV:

MTV: I hear you play a lot of chess in Washington Square Park.

Heath Ledger: Yeah. I've played since I was a kid. I play at least one game a day.

MTV: That's dedication.

Ledger: Yeah, or obsession.

MTV: Smoking and chess?

Ledger: Yeah, they go hand in hand.

And another one in the UK's Telegraph paper: "At the same time he showed promise in other areas, as a junior go-kart racing champion and, aged only 10, as Western Australia’s junior chess champion; he also represented Western Australia at hockey."

2 comments:

Diana said...

I read that too. Do you think that it's possible the death of Bobby Fischer might have influenced him to do something rash?

Anonymous said...

Do you know what Bobby Fischer got for his birthday? Heath Ledger.