I just finished reading Frank Brady's biography about Robert James Fischer called "Profile of a Prodigy" In the book, the author writes that Fischer dropped out of high school to play chess professionally.
Nowadays I guess making a living playing chess is not so much a struggle because of the Internet and numerous tournaments paying huge prizes and appearance fees. Your average American GM like is probably earning high income. But I was wondering back in the 60s and 70s if making a chess living was hard. In the book, Fischer played in a couple tournaments each year and he was living in NYC. New York City has some of the of the largest rents. For example, you can pay sometimes over $3000/month just for a 1 bedroom apartment. Did he do any jobs to make ends meet? It was probably difficult finding a job without a college degree. I read once that Samuel Reshevsky worked as an accountant and William Addison worked as a doctor when they were not being chess professionals. What did Fischer do? Did he work as a bartender, or at a McDonald's, or as a courier, or maybe even a lounge pianist to make ends meet? Lots of Hollywood celebrities work odd jobs to make a living before they get discovered and make a good living. Just wondering what Fischer did before he made it big.