Andrew Paulson

Media mogul, international chess patron, photographer, writer

Andrew Paulson, an expatriate American serial entrepreneur who became a media mogul in Moscow and envisioned transforming world chess into a sports extravaganza, died on 18 July in London. He was 58. The cause was complications of lung cancer.

Besides his transformative but short-lived role as an international chess patron, Paulson’s career included stints as a fashion photographer in France and a magazine and website publisher in Russia.

Before he was 30, he was the model for the buffoonish protagonist in his friend David Hirson’s play La Bête a comedy inspired by Molière, that opened on Broadway in 1991.

Paulson seemed so much larger than life that whether his autobiography was the unvarnished truth almost seemed beyond the point. “He is emblematic of the American character,” said Julia Idlis, a Russian writer who wrote a play about Paulson.

Invited to Russia for a photo shoot in 1993, Paulson remained for 15 years. He enlisted local partners in publishing several periodicals.

Paulson scored his biggest coup in 2011 when the World Chess Federation, the global governing body of professional chess players awarded his company a no-bid contract for the media and marketing rights to the world championship tournaments.

“I have always been a consumer of chess as an idea and an entertainment,” Paulson said. He insisted that chess had the potential to become wildly popular. Its first major event, the 2013 London Candidates’ Tournament, was widely considered a success. After that tournament, though, Paulson, reportedly already ailing, was unable to generate the sort of buzz that might have transformed the game into a profitable venture.

Andrew Meredith Paulson was born on 13 November, 1958, in Champaign, Illinois, to Ronald Paulson, a distinguished English professor and art historian, and the former Barbara Appleton, a librarian.

He received a bachelor’s degree in French literature and literary criticism from Yale in 1981. He moved to Europe in 1982 and was a novelist before becoming a photographer.

In addition to his husband, he is survived by his parents and a sister. © New York Times 2017. Distributed by NYT Syndication Service