On August 25, 2026, Dolly Parton and Tim Curry died. Tributes to them filled social media and news sources. Each will be remembered, as their songs, films, and written works remain popular. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has donated over 300,000,000 books to children, a charitable effort which continues even after her passing.
Some deceased titled players, such as world champions, were chess celebrities and their games are still replayed today. Other titled players’ games may be overlooked, even if they were famous during their lifetimes. One example of a player who is less well-known today is WIM Lisa Lane, even though she was the first chess player on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
ChessEver Memorial
On August 26, GM Vasif Durarbayli posted on X about what happens when FIDE-rated players die.
After FIDE deletes deceased players’ profiles, it becomes harder for chess fans to learn about them. The ChessEver Memorial addresses that concern. It lists names, FIDE titles, birth years, death years, and is in order of peak ratings. Clicking on a player’s name gives a brief biography, games, and links to sources.
Apparently, FIDE listened to Durarbayli’s concern.
https://x.com/durarbayli/status/2093462114446762347
Chess Personalia: A Biobibliography
Like Durarbayli’s ChessEver Memorial, Chess Personalia: A Biobibliography (1987; reprinted 2005) by Jeremy Gaige has entries with players’ names, FIDE titles, birth years, and death years. Additionally, its Amazon page states, each entry gives “country of citizenship and citations to mentions in the world’s media.”
Durarbayli’s page is new and, as of August 28, 2026, had fewer than 700 entries. Gaige’s book has 14,000 entries. It was part of his lifetime of work as a chess historian and archivist. He died in 2011.
In 1994, Gaige privately published an update to his 1987 Chess Personalia: A Biobibliography. The Chess Journalists of America (CJA) website gives images of the 1994 update’s pages.
WIM Lisa Lane
On CJA’s site, I clicked on “Chess Personalia A–Z (1994)” then on “Personalia-L.” Within the L-file were 43 images, titled only as img001, img002, etc. The fifth one I clicked open had the information about Lisa Lane that I wanted.
I downloaded the image, but my computer didn’t have a program to open the downloaded file. Thus, the screenshot above is in my records, as I keep files on each U.S. Women’s Champion for my book United States Women’s Chess Champions, 1937-2020. Lane was the U.S. Women’s Champion in 1959 and co-champion in 1966. Like Gaige’s book, my book reports her birthdate as April 25, 1938.
As of August 28, 2026, Lane was missing from Durarbayli’s memorial site, though she died on February 28, 2024. The New York Times obituary by Dylan Loeb McClain stated, “Marianne Elizabeth Lane was born on April 25, 1933, in Philadelphia. She was called Lisa because it was short for Elizabeth.” I emailed McClain about the five-year discrepancy in birthdates. He replied that government records showed the 1933 date. It seems that Lane hid her birthdate, a common practice to appear younger.
Old versions of Lane’s Wikipedia page, such as this one from November 8, 2022, gave her birthdate as April 25, 1938 (following Gaige). But the current Wikipedia page, and the one Durarbayli will likely link to when he adds Lane’s bio to his site, lists her birthdate as April 25, 1933. If I write a second edition of United States Women’s Chess Champions, 1937-2020, I will change her birthdate to 1933 in my chapter about her.
Netflix-famous
Lane’s opponent in the following game later became a grandmaster, the first woman to be awarded that title. Gaprindashvili was also a Women’s World Champion. And she is not just famous in chess circles but also “Netflix-famous,” having settled with Netflix regarding an incorrect statement about her in the series The Queen’s Gambit.
