Eugene Fodor, 1950–2011

Eugene Fodor was never just a violinist. After sharing the top prize in the 1974 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Fodor became a television talk-show fixture celebrated as much for his rugged good looks and cowboy boots as for his extraordinary instrumental prowess. And following his 1989 arrest on breaking and entering and drug-possession charges, he became notorious as the genius whose substance abuse short-circuited his career.

Born into a musical family in Morrison, Colo.—his father was an amateur violinist, and an ancestor had founded a conservatory in Hungary—Fodor “became interested in the violin at age 5, after his brother began lessons,” said The Denver Post. He made his debut with the Denver Symphony at age 10 and began touring at age 12. He also briefly attended New York City’s prestigious Juilliard School. He later studied with famed violinist Jascha Heifetz, until Heifetz kicked him out for refusing to cut his hair.

Fodor’s playing mingled enormous technical skill with dazzling showmanship, said The Washington Post. He liked to play demanding pieces by Niccolò Paganini and Fritz Kreisler, often finishing phrases, as one reviewer put it, “with a sweep of the bow that outdoes most of Fodor’s forerunners.” But critics complained that “his repertoire relied too much on flashy pieces that lacked depth,” and they mocked his penchant for posing shirtless, on horseback, for publicity photographs. His “swashbuckling ways” made promoters wary of him, and his career was already in decline when he was arrested.

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Sentenced to rehab following a plea bargain, Fodor overcame his addictions, at least temporarily, said The New York Times. “He would be clean for years and then start using again,” said Susan Davis, who married him in 1978, divorced him in 1986, and married him again last November. He died in his sleep last week, of liver disease. His Guarneri violin, made in 1736, is up for sale in Europe.