Actresses and Chess

by Bill Wall

We know many actors (Claude Akins, Humphrey Bogart, Charles Boyer, Marlon
Brando, John Wayne, etc) play chess, but what about actresses? Here is a list of
actresses who play chess.

June Allyson (1917-2006) played chess. A photo shows her playing chess with Van
Johnson in 1948. It was taken in June’s trailer between takes of The Bride Goes
Wild.

Ann-Margret Olsson (1941- ) plays chess in real life. In the 1993 movie, Grumpy
Old Men, Ariel Truax (Ann-Margret) plays chess with John Gustafson (Jack
Lemmon). In the 1995 movie, Grumpier Old Men, husband and wife Ariel and John
(Ann-Margret and Jack Lemmon) play chess. There is a photo of Bobby Fischer
and Ann-Margret taken backstage in one of her performances.

Lauren Bacall (1924-2014), who was born Betty Joan Perske, was an amateur
chess player. She was married to Humphrey Bogart from 1945 to 1957 (his
death). They often played chess together. In 1945, she appeared on the cover of
the June-July issue of Chess Review with her husband, Humphrey Bogart. Bogart
was playing a game with Charles Boyer as Lauren Bacall looked on. See photos.

Carroll Baker (1931- ) played chess. There is a photo of her playing a

relative. Another photo of her playing chess appeared in Life magazine.

Joan Bennett (1910-1990) played chess. A photo shows her playing chess with
Humphrey Bogart in 1955. It was taken during filming of We’re No Angels.

Nancy Berg (1931- ) played chess. She used to play chess with Phil Silvers and her
husband, actor Geoffrey Horne. (source: The Winona Daily News, May 24, 1955)

Candice Bergen (1946- ) may have played chess in real life. She played chess as
Mrs. Edith Pedecarls in the movie The Wind and the Lion, filmed in 1955. She
mentions in hear autobiography, A Fine Romance (2015), that her kids played
chess.
Polly Bergen (1930-2014) played chess. A photo shows her playing Gregory Peck
on a small magnetic chess set in 1962. It was taken on the set of Cape Fear. She
said that Gregory Peck taught her chess between scenes when they both starred
in Cape Fear.

Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982) played chess. She starred with Humphrey Bogart in
Casablanca in 1942.

The French actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) played chess. When asked how
she spent her time on long sea-voyages, she said she played chess. (source: Sarah
Bernhardt by Jules Huret) On four separate occasions, she played chess against
the automaton called Ajeeb between 1886 and 1900.

Shirley Booth (1898-1992) played chess. There is a photo of her playing chess
with Anthony Quinn. (source: Shirley Booth: A Biography and Career Record, by
David Tucker, p. 94)

Corinne Calvet (1925-2001) played chess. (source: Ottawa Citizen, Nov 18,
1961). There is a photo1 and photo2 of her playing chess at the Cocoanut Grove
in Los Angeles.

Actress and singer June Carroll (1917-2004) played chess. She said that she
played chess as a diversion from tuning up her vocal chords. (source: Ogden
Standard-Examiner, July 28, 1928)

Cher (1946- ), born Cherilyn Sarkisan, plays chess.

Actress Mae Clarke (1910-1992) played chess. A photo shows her playing chess
against Jose Capablanca in April, 1933 on the MGM set during the making of Turn
Back the Clock. In 1931, she played the role of Henry Frankenstein’s fiancée
Elizabeth in Frankenstein. Also in 1931, she starred in The Public Enemy. Her
most famous scene was when James Cagney pushed a half grapefruit into her
face.

Actress and singer Rosemary Clooney (1928-2002) played chess. She, and he
husband, Jose Ferrer, took chess lessons from Herman Steiner (1905-1955) in the
1950s.
Linda Darnell (1921-1965) played chess. She appeared in the October 1945 issue
of Chess Review in connection with the August, 1945 Pan-American Chess
Congress, held in Hollywood. She was crowned Queen of Ceremonies at the Pan-
Am tournament. She played several off-hand games, including one with actress
Roseanne Murray.

Bette Davis (1908-1989) played chess. In 1932, she married musician Harmon
Oscar Nelson, who was also a chess addict. Bette Davis, determined not to be a
chess widow, learned the game during the filming of Kid Galahad in 1937. She
played chess in two of her films, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939),
and The Scapegoat (1959) (source: Harrisburg (PA) Telegraph, April 2, 1937)

Actress Viola Davis (1965- ) plays chess. In 2014, she donated $30,000 to the
chess club at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island. Davis’ sister is teacher at
that school and Viola attend that school in the 1980s.

Olivia de Havilland (1916-2009) played chess. A photo shows her playing chess
with Errol Flynn in 1941. It was taken on the set of They Died with Their Boots
On. She played chess against Bette Davis in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and
Essex.

The French-American actress Julie Delphy (1969- ) plays chess. She listed one of
her hobbies was chess.

Catherine Deneuve (1943- ) plays chess. A photo shows her playing a game of
chess against David Bowie (1947-2016) in 1982. It was taken while they were
filming The Hunger. She played chess in the movie La Partie d’echecs (the Chess
Game),filmed in 1994.

Sandra Dee (1942-2005) played chess. There is a photo of Sandra Dee playing
chess with Rock Hudson in Rome in 1960 on the set of Come September. She was
married to Bobby Darin from 1960 to 1967. Darin was a chess fanatic and the two
played chess together.

Marlene Dietrich (1904-1992) played chess. A photo shows her playing on a peg
chess set with John Wayne in 1942. It was taken on set of the
movie Pittsburgh. In 1945, she was a spectator at the Pan-American Chess
Congress. She always carried a tine chess set and played chess during plane
flights. (source: The Franklin News-Herald, April 16, 1965)

American actress Eliza Dushku (1980- ), who starred in Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
plays chess. She said she picked up the hobby while in Los Angeles shooting the
TV show Dollhouse in 2009. She was on the Howard Stern show in February,
2009. Howard asked Eliza if chess played chess. She said that she does. She
wrote in Twitter in June, 2009, “Yes, I’m a chess nerd too.”

Moran Fairchild (1950- ) plays chess. She hosted a charity chess event in Mexico
in 1988 and was a spectator at the 1988 World Action Chess Championship in
Mazatlan, Mexico.

Mia Farrow (1945- ) plays chess and took chess lessons in 1981. Woody Allen and
Mia Farrow have played chess together.

Actress Betty Field (1913-1973) was a chess player. In 1948, she was listed as the
10th best chess player in Hollywood. (source: The Milwaukee Journal, Jul 3, 1948)

Jane Fonda (1937- ) plays chess. When she was 21, Jane Fonda (1937- ) played
chess with Susan Strasberg on the beach in Malibu. It was during these chess
games that Jane was encouraged to take acting lessons and become an actress.
Jane Fonda encourages chess playing among children and teenagers at risk. She
has been involved with chess programs for inner-city youth. Jane played chess
with her ex-husband, Roger Vadim (1928-2000) in the 1960s.

Zsa Zsa Gabor (1917- ) played chess. An early photo shows her playing
chess. She said she played chess on her honeymoon with George Sanders in
1949. George wrote in his autobiography that the two played chess nearly every
night on their honeymoon.

Ava Gardner (1922-1990) played chess. Here is a nice photo of her playing chess
in 1947. It was on the set of Singapore. She married Artie Shaw in 1945 and they
played chess together. Later, Shaw hired a Russian chess master to tutor her in
chess. After a few months of lessons, she started beating him at chess. He never
asked her to play chess again. (source: Ava Gardner. “Love is Nothing” by Lee
Server, 2007, p. 160)

Judy Garland (1922-1969) played chess. There is a photo of her playing chess in
1938. It was taken behind the scenes of the film Listen, Darling.

Barbara Hale (1922- ) played chess. She took lessons from Heman Steiner in the
1950s and was a member of the Herman Steiner Chess Club in Hollywood.

Dee Hartford (1928- ) played chess. Here is a photo of her playing chess with Fritz
Feld on the set of Lost in Space, which aired from 1965 to 1968.

Rita Hayworth (1918-1987) played chess. She played chess with Tyrone Power in
the movie Blood and Sand, filmed in 1941. (source: The Evening Independent,
May 19, 1941)

World-renowned Norwegian figure skater and actress Sonja Henie (1912-1969)

was perhaps the strongest female chess player in Hollywood.

Katharine Hepburn (1909-2003) played chess. A photo shows her playing chess
with Humphrey Bogart. She and her brother, tom, played chess growing up. She
took chess lessons from Herman Steiner in the 1940s.

Kate Jackson (1949- ), part of Charlie’s Angels, plays chess. In 1982, on

the Tonight Show, she mentioned that she played chess with a chess
computer. She said she would rather play with her Sargon chess computer than
watch TV.

Kim Kardashian (1980- ) may play chess or wants to learn. In 2013, she tweeted “I
want to learn how to play chess. Wondering if Levon Aronian can teach me!”

Grace Kelly (1929-1982) played chess. She played chess with Alfred
Hitchcock. A photo shows her taking interest in a chess game between Jimmy
Stewart and Wendel Corey in 1954. It was taken on the set of Rear Window.

Deborah Kerr (1921-2007) played chess. She played chess with Clark Gable during
the filming of The Hucksters in 1947.
Elsa Lancaster (1902-1986) was one of the strongest women chess players in
Hollywood. (source: The Milwaukee Journal, Jul 3, 1948)

Belinda Lee (1935-1961) played chess. Here is a nice photo of her at a

chessboard.

Vivien Leigh (1913-1967) played chess. A photo shows her playing chess with
Lawrence Olivier in 1941. It was taken during the filming of Forty Ninth
Parallel. She listed chess as one of her favorite games.

Hedy Lamarr (1914-2000) played chess. She played ches with her dramatic coach,
Phyllis Loughton. (source: The Pittsburgh Press, July 7, 1939)

Gertrude Lawrence (1898-1952) played chess. Life magazine has a photo of her
playing chess.

Sophia Loren (1934- ) plays chess. Here is a photo of her playing chess. She used
intermissions, while shooting films, to play a game of chess. In 1966, she played
chess with Marlon Brando. Sophia Loren appeared with Marlon Brando sitting
behind a chess board, observed by Charlie Chaplin, in a Life magazine
article. Another photo has Charlie Chaplin looking over the game between
Brando and Loren.

Myrna Loy (1905-1993) played chess. She said that she became interested in
chess after watching Reginald Owen and Frank Morgan (Wizard of Oz) play chess.
She was a member of Herman Steiner's chess club. (source: Chess Review,
October 1937, p. 223 and Chess Life, November 1992, p. 23)

Madonna (1958- ), born Madonna Louise Ciccone, plays chess. She plays chess
in a couple of her musical videos. She plays chess on the Internet Chess Club. In
2001, Alan Norris, former Scottish chess champion, tutored Madonna in chess.

Mitzi Mayfair (1915-1976) played chess. A photo of her playing chess at the Pan-
American Chess Congress in 1945 appeared in the October issue of Chess
Review. In August, 1945, she played in the Ladies’ tournament under her married
name, Mrs. Charles Henderson, or Lyn Henderson. She had been playing chess for
a little over a year. She won one game and lost 7 games. She later took up postal
chess.

Actress Sylvia Miles (1932- ) was once a competitive chess player. She played in
New York chess tournaments in the early 1960s. She was a member of the
Manhattan Chess Club in the 1960s. She said she took up backgammon to
distract herself from chess. She said she had become too much of a chess
bum. She claims she played chess with Bobby Fischer. She was an Academy-
award Best Supporting actress nominee for Midnight Cowboy in 1969.
(source: York, PA Daily Record, Oct 2, 1972)

Ann Miller (1923-2004) may have played chess. There is a 1940 photo of her
posing on a large chess board with large chess pieces.

Actress Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) played chess. In Marilyn Monroe: The Final
Years, by Keith Badman, there is a section on some of her spending habits. She
had purchased an expensive rosewood silver and gold chess set. She also received
a carved ivory chess set as a gift from a friend. Ralph Greenson, Marilyn Monroe’s
psychiatrist, wrote that Marilyn Monroe was too dependent on people taking care
of her until she discovered chess two months before her death. (source: Marilyn
Monroe: A Case for Murder, by Jay Margolis, p.113) In the 1950s, she studied for
six months at the Actors Studio and learned to play chess about the time she
married Arthur Miller in 1956 (source: newspaper column by Erskine
Johnson, Redlands Daily Facts, Feb 26, 1960)

Roseanne Murray ( 1920-2015) was a chess player. She took chess lessons from
Herman Steiner. She appeared in the October 1945 issue of Chess Review. There
is a photo of her playing chess with actress Linda Darnell.

Jane Nigh (1925-1993) played chess. There is a photo1 and a photo2 of her
playing on a small peg set with Reuben Fine at the beach.

Jennifer O’Neill (1948- ) played chess with James Mason in a scene in The Devil
and the Schoolteacher, filmed in Rome in 1975. (source: Progress Bulletin,
Pomona, CA, July 31, 1975)
Leslie Parrish (1935) plays chess. In 1962, in breaks between scenes in the
film Three on a Match (For Love or Money), she set a chess board and pieces and
challenged other actors. Parrish said she became a chess player to escape
boredom during an illness. Rather than read her temperature chart all day, she
studied a book on chess. (source: I Need a Man’s Pants to Wash by Lorie Eskert,
2002, p. 51 and Star News, Sep 12, 1962)

Mala Powers (1931-2007) played chess. During the Korean War, she played
correspondence chess with hospitalized military veterans she met while on tour in
Tokyo and South Korea. (source: Massillon Evening Independent, Aug 7, 1952)

Paula Raymond (1924-2003) played chess. In an interview, she said she played
chess with actor George Sanders while they were dating. (source: Movies Were
Always Magical, by Leo Verswijver, 2003, p. 152)

Florence Rice (1911-1974) played chess. She was an enthusiastic

amateur. (source: Chess Review, December 1937, p. 291) In 1934, she had a
chess scene with Neil Hamilton in Fugitive Lady.

Julia Roberts (1967- ) plays chess. She always asks for a chess set in her trailer
during the making of her movies. She played chess in Pretty Woman.

Jill St. John (1940 - ) plays chess. She has played chess with Henry Kissinger.

Brooke Shields (1965- ) plays chess. She was a member of the 1990 World chess
Championship organizing committee that was held in New York.

Simone Signoret (1921-1985) played chess. There is a photo of her playing chess
with Yves Montand in 1954.

Simone Simon (1910-2005) played chess. When she travelled, especially on ships,
she played chess. (source: Syracuse Post-Standard, May 21, 1949)

Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990) played chess. There is a photo of her playing

chess with director Frank Capra as Gary Cooper watches in 1941. It was on the
set of Meet John Doe. Another photo shows here getting ready to play chess with
Lee Majors.
Margaret Sullivan (1909-1960) played chess. She took some chess lessons from
Herman Steiner in the 1940s.

Shirley Temple (Black) (1928-2014) may have played chess. There is a photo of
here playing Gary Cooper. Chess Life included Shirley Temple as a file star that
played chess (source: Chess Life, Vol 52, 1997, p. 163). In The Little Colonel,
filmed in 1935, she throws a chess set on the floor.

Lana Turner (1920-1995) played chess. There is a photo of her playing chess with
Spencer Tracy in Cass Tamberlane in 1947. There were several chess scenes in
the movie.. Herman Steiner was the chess advisor for the movie. He told Lana
Turner, “Don't play chess. Sitting at a chess board for hours might make you fat
and spoil your perfect figure."

Raquel Welch (1940- ) plays chess. There is a photo of her playing chess with Tom
Jones in 1970. It was taken during filming of a TV special.

Shelley Winters (1920-2006) played chess. She played chess against James Mason
in Lolita.

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